With Bart Pollux and @anikokorosi.bsky.social , I will chair the Focus session “Socially Transferred Materials" at NWO Life (28-29 May 2026) 🐜🐸🐌🐄🥚
Invites speakers are @sanjahakala.bsky.social , @pranasag.bsky.social, Peter Kwant and @melissahrowe.bsky.social
@socialtransfernet.bsky.social
The metabolic modeling part of this manuscript is just the beginning of what we set up back in my previous life, last fall in Amsterdam. It was great to host Ian Oiler in the low lands back then, and happy to have laid my finger on this whole endeavor. Stay tuned for more ants AND microbes!
Where one finds food, lactobacilli follow - sweet sweet ant honey is not an exception at all. Quoting Oded Rechavi, the father of The Woodstock of Biology, what's the physiological relevance? Here comes the first set of genome- and proteome analysis-driven ideas on what these replete microbes do.
Why to choose between ants and microbes when you can have both? @khadlily.bsky.social, @adriatica.bsky.social and co. have been diving into what's happening in the honeypot ant repletes for years, and the first papers are coming out 🎉 (photo copyright: Smithsonian Institution-NMNH-Insect Zoo)
I will probably be hiring either a PhD or a Postdoc in the near future. If you are interested in deep biochemical history or molecular mechanisms of evolution please get in touch.
Spring is here and Piglette is getting ready to swim in Liebig's barrel while reading about it in the brand new chapter on Microeconomics of cell metabolism by Jumpei Yamagishi and Tetsuhiro Hatakeyama. Find it here in the new edition of our textbook principlescellphysiology.org/book-economi...
Late spring 🌼 is an excellent time to be back in the Lowlands, especially as a part of a great line-up at the STM focus session!
Thanks @joriskoene.bsky.social @anikokorosi.bsky.social and Bart for the invitation - looking forward
Das Präsidium des KIT feiert den Erfolg in der Exzellenzstrategie.
KIT Successfully Defends Its Title as University of Excellence! “We are overjoyed,” says Professor Jan S. Hesthaven, President of KIT.
www.kit.edu/kit/english/...
#KITKarlsruhe #UniversityOfExcellence #ScienceForImpact #ExcellenceStrategy
🚀 VAAM Annual Conference 2026, Berlin, 23–25 March
Don’t miss out — register now & meet the microbiology community for talks, poster sessions, Research and PhD Awards, and special events for Young Scientists.
Connect, learn, and exchange ideas!
👉 Join us & register here: t1p.de/b2vf8
#VAAM2026
PhD position: AI-driven bioprocess modelling for circular bioproduction
@univie.ac.at | Cluster of Excellence: Circular Bioengineering
Focus: Simulation. Optimization. Data-driven biotech
Apply here
careers.univie.ac.at/en/praedoc/s...
Renske Gilissen is gespecialiseerd in #suïcidepreventie Met haar onderzoek en onderwijs richt zij zich op preventiemaatregelen.
I might be biased about whether they are *the* best, but they are truly amazing.
We demand answers.
- on behalf of my pet ants
The book chapter (1st as the last author 😎) is finally "officially" out: doi.org/10.1007/978-...
Thanks to the team! (DM for the pdf if you need one)
Mitochondrial ribosome content as a proxy for respiration www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01...
... and helped us to reason the metabolic phenotypes and behaviors the NCY P. kluyveri employs. I will make a point for the potential role of reconstructing GEMs in large-scale studies searching for “new biochemistry” in NCYs and beyond.
As a case study, we will consider the recently published GEM for an industrially-relevant NCY Pichia kluyveri, used for the production of alcohol-free beverages, such as alcohol-free beer. I will show how P. kluyveri GEM enabled a comprehensive analysis of physiological and -omics data...
In my talk, I will briefly reflect on the evolution of yeast
metabolic modeling in the last 20 years from the first GEM of Saccharomyces cerevisiae published in 2003. I will discuss how the vast amount of knowledge, encoded in the GEM of S. cerevisiae, can be transferred to other yeasts.
Upon their kind invitation from my lovely colleagues from Uni Verona, I am delighted to join the speakers' list of the online symposium:
📌 Mining Non-Conventional Yeasts (NCY) Biodiversity
📅 February 17, 2026
Details and registration: www.dbt.univr.it?ent=seminari...
This is such hard news to process. Such an amazing scientist and inspiration for so many of us.
www.embl.org/news/embl-an...
Congrats! Please pass by Karlsruhe for a coffee at some point when the hurdles of moving are well behind you ;)
Logo and QR of the Bring Your Own Fluid seminar series, presented by the Social Transfer Network
🧃☕️ BYOF Seminar | Fri Oct 24 @ 10 am EDT🥛🍹
Bring-Your-Own-Fluid + enjoy 7 min talks about social fluids:
🦈 Viviparity & matrotrophy • Daniel Hughes
🐦 Crop milk • Victoria Farrar
🦂 Sexual stings • Yuqi Reitsema-Wang
Email hello@socialtransfer.net for the Zoom link! 🔗
@socialtransfernet.bsky.social
Another round of selfish self-promotion: please join us for the best bridging event to your Halloween party if you are nearby Amsterdam on that day (mandatory music reference: youtu.be/vFwYJYl5GUQ?...)
Metabolic interplay drives population cycles in a cross-feeding microbial community
@natcomms.nature.com from @oventurelli2.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I'm going to be advertising for a few positions in my group in the next couple of months for a big project on synthetic microbial communities.
I would love to hear from you if you are interested and I'd also appreciate if everyone could share this far and wide!
What, where, when?
📅 October 31st, 2025 | 12:00 – 18:00
📍 Auditorium, O2 building, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
🎟️ Free, register here (before 1st Oct with a talk title; 15th Oct regular): forms.office.com/e/qCrRcXhsyA
We’ll explore these questions (and more!) together at the AIMMS Symposium “Modeling metabolism: successes, challenges, and prospects”
With talks by:
✨ Djordje Bajić (TUD)
✨ Meike Wortel (UvA)
✨ Ursula Kummer (Uni Heidelberg)
✨ María Suárez Diez (WUR)
🔷 selected early-career researcher talks.
Metabolic modeling has advanced over decades, built on the dedication and behind-the-scenes work of countless researchers. But some big questions remain:
💡 What are the biggest challenges ahead?
🚀 What is the next frontier in modeling metabolism?
🔬 Recent breakthroughs in understanding metabolism, and applying this knowledge, have only been possible thanks to the creative blending of multiple disciplines. Among them, mathematical modeling has become a cornerstone for many successful interdisciplinary studies in the life sciences.