Bacteriophages are in a constant arms race with bacteria 🦠 The Phage ORFeome pooled library from the Aaron Whiteley lab contains phage proteins that activate antiphage defense systems — a tool to dissect the mechanisms of bacterial immunity. Aaron Whiteley
My lab at Pitt is looking for a Research Scientist to help us make phage therapy for patients with antibiotic-resistant infections. Please share and apply! cfopitt.taleo.net/careersectio...
Phage receptor prediction from genome sequencing alone. Bacterial receptor (blue) interacting with phage proteins (purple) is shown here
📣Huge preprint 🔔
Today we share something our group has been working toward for a long time, led by @lucasmoriniere.bsky.social We asked can we predict which receptor a phage targets from its genome sequence alone? For most phages, we couldn’t. So Lucas set out to do something I had only dreamed of.
A true labor of love for @calebmallery.bsky.social is out now in PLOS Pathogens: a review article where we highlight current and emerging examples of key protein-protein interactions with LuxR-type receptors that control community behaviors and pathogenesis.
journals.plos.org/plospathogen...
Excited to share the first preprint from the lab! We show that ApeA defends against RNA phage infection by cleaving the phage genome:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We found a viral Trojan Horse: a virus can hide inside another virus.This one surprised us: deltaviruses don’t just borrow a helper virus. They can travel inside it.
A literal Trojan Horse “virus-in-a-virus” route into cells. 🤯 Kudos to 1st author @viroscope.bsky.social and co-authors !
With Eugene Koonin, we propose a concept of “the selfish ribosome”, under which evolution of life is viewed as a ribosomal takeover, where the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensures the propagation of the ribosome. arxiv.org/abs/2602.23268
Published version of our work on diversity-generating retroelements!
We reconstituted a phage DGR in E. coli and deployed high-throughput methods to identify factors influencing the activity of this system. #microsky
journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...
We’re hiring a Microscopy Core Director at the Wadsworth Center!
It's a state position (job stability & PENSION!) in a uniquely academic, research-driven environment 😎
Please share 🙏
statejobs.ny.gov/public/vacan...
We’re hiring a Microscopy Core Director at the Wadsworth Center!
It's a state position (job stability & PENSION!) in a uniquely academic, research-driven environment 😎
Please share 🙏
statejobs.ny.gov/public/vacan...
Excited to share a preprint of work from my postdoc with @paulturnerlab.bsky.social exploring how prophages can impact host thermal ecology and evolution. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Most microbes don't live in shaking flasks; spatial structure shapes how microbes interact and evolve at every scale, as we discuss in our recent review @jeroenmeijer.bsky.social @simonvanvliet.bsky.social @bedutilh.bsky.social @bramvandijk.bsky.social and others
academic.oup.com/femsre/artic... 🧵👇
Happy 125th birthday to the Wadsworth Center, and New York State Department of Health! Established on this day in 1901, just 17 years after the publication of Koch's postulates
T4P vs T4SS pili has to be one of the best (worst?) examples of confusing nomenclature in science! I have had to awkwardly correct even very established microbiologists.
I hugely enjoyed this T4P thread 🤩
Fluorescence micrograph. Emma Miller and Alex Merz, unpublished.
🧵 After years out of the field, I and my lab are again working on bacterial type IV pili. We have just posted our first preprints, and I'm excited to share what we have discovered.
This shows Neisseria gonorrheae bacteria infecting a human epithelical cell. Here, you can see the pili in red.
1/
An illustration of the Lone Star tick, Amblyomma americanum
The best immunologists on Earth don't have PhDs. They're parasites.
Today's spotlight 🧵(and big inspo for @ dittobio): ticks!
And if you like this, stay tuned because we will be sharing cool parasite facts each week #TickTalk
The moment you’ve all been waiting for…
🦠 SAVE THE DATE! 🦠
BBM2026 will be held from June 22nd - 23rd at Boston University’s George Sherman Union. Our featured speaker this year is Dr. Eric Skaar from Vanderbilt University!
Registration opens soon!
More info at: bostonbacterial.org
#BBM2026
🚨 Hiring Alert! 🚨My lab at Institut Pasteur is recruiting several Postdocs! We have exciting open projects in: 🦠 Synthetic Biology and🛡️ Bacterial Immunity. Come do great science with us in the middle of Paris! 🇫🇷🥐 research.pasteur.fr/en/job/postd...
New paper out in PNAS!!! 🎉
Do more plasmid copies mean faster evolution?
🧵 Dive into the story
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Please help spread the word about this tremendous undergraduate research opportunity taking place in Albany this summer!
www.albany.edu/rna/reu-in-rna
What's larger, a protein or its templating mRNA ?
> The mRNA is much larger.
⬛ 𝐀 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞 -- 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 & 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 -- 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡.
The figure shows myoglobin protein drawn to scale next to its mRNA template. The coding sequence of an mRNA ...
Super cool Manuel!!
Bacteria chromosomes contain Genomic Islands that provide virulence, antibiotic resistance, MGE-defence,... They transfer between cells, but the mechanism of most remains elusive.
Here we explore the conjugative capacity of these mysterious Genomic Islands.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Happy new year! The second big project of my PhD in Rachel Whitaker's lab is now up! 🎉 We look at how provirus infection affects the evolution of the bacterial chromosome with different types of viral induction – with CRISPRs or antibiotics. Take a peek 🦠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🎉 New year, NEW PREPRINT!
Bacteria exhibit astonishing genetic diversity, but where do new genes come from?
My best friend Arya Kaul (/labmate in the @baym lab) investigates how advantageous deletions can spawn new genes - "deletion-born fusions." 🧵:
Really cool work!!
📣New preprint with @rberntsson.bsky.social👇We overturn the long-standing view that Gram-positive bacteria lack conjugative pili! We identify pili-forming proteins in a wide range of bacteria and show they're essential for the spread of #antibioticresistance #AMR 🧵1/6
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
1/ Our new preprint is out on biorxiv on how antibiotics bind to bacterial 30S subunits, please repost. #ribosome #antibiotics #microsky #rnasky doi.org/10.64898/202...
