#microbiome #phages | Peter Fineran Been a real please to host Kerwyn Huang from Stanford University as a Fulbright Association scholar in Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Otago University of Otago. It has been a great few month...

www.linkedin.com/posts/peter-...

Very proud of this work and all the efforts from my team and collaborators on this! You can now use DGRs for in vivo targeted hypermutagenesis in E. coli. We also included some early proof of concept in Yeast thanks to @seth-shipman.bsky.social !

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.

#cdu2026 #crispr | Peter Fineran This week I had the privilege of being a keynote speaker at CRISPRDownunder #CDU2026 alongside Ekaterina Semenova in Melbourne. So much inspiring work happening in both the fundamental and applied are...

www.linkedin.com/posts/peter-...

Last day to apply

A great day on Monday visiting Monash University Biomedicine Dicovery Institute to give a seminar and talk with the fantastic researchers there. Francesca Short, Trevor Lithgow, Gavin Knott, Jeremy… |... A great day on Monday visiting Monash University Biomedicine Dicovery Institute to give a seminar and talk with the fantastic researchers there. Francesca Short, Trevor Lithgow, Gavin Knott, Jeremy Ba...

www.linkedin.com/posts/peter-...

Out now–our work on bacterial cGAS-like enzymes making 2′,3′-cGAMP! Read Uday's thread for updates since the preprint including determining our lab's first protein structure and developing a new system to study bacterial STING homologs in phage defense👇

How do you kill a MRSA superbug armed with 15 different anti-phage defense systems? You make a smarter phage. Check out our latest preprint on overcoming bacterial immunity using defense-guided engineering to build durable therapeutic phage cocktails! Led by Sarah Voss. doi.org/10.64898/202...

Only 9 days left to apply for this post doctoral position. Please share and forward to your colleagues.

Great fun presenting some of our research @otagomicroimmuno.bsky.social @universityofotago.bsky.social
Including transposon mutagenesis of phages.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Join us for the first Rangahau Rising of 2026 with Dr Nils Birkholz (University of Otago). Nils will talk about his research on the plant pathogen Pectobacterium, highlighting new solutions for targeting problematic bacterial pathogens.

📍 Online, Register via Zoom: zurl.co/FLQvS

New post-doctoral research position in my phage-host interactions (Phi) laboratory in @otagomicroimmuno.bsky.social at @universityofotago.bsky.social New Zealand. The project is focused on defences against jumbo phages. Please share and if interested apply using the link in the comments.

Thanks @frunzkelab.bsky.social

Supported by @marsdenfund.bsky.social @royalsocietynz.bsky.social

Appl here : apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

New post-doctoral research position in my phage-host interactions (Phi) laboratory in @otagomicroimmuno.bsky.social at @universityofotago.bsky.social New Zealand. The project is focused on defences against jumbo phages. Please share and if interested apply using the link in the comments.

Congratulations to Sonomi Yamaguchi for her paper at @nature.com. Sonomi discovered Clover defense and explained how nucleotide signals control each step of viral sensing, immune regulation, and viral restriction – named for her beautiful "four-leaf" structures 🍀

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It’s been a fun first few week of my sabbatical. Many exciting meetings w/ @peterfineran.bsky.social lab, learning new stuff and brainstorming ideas. And my own lab has been off to a crazy great start to the year. The early/late zoom meetings have me burning the candle at both ends…

🔬 iVoM 2026 Online Conference Series – Session 1: Viral Biotechnologies

🗓 28 Jan 2026
⏰ 17:00 CET | 11:00 EST | 08:00 PST

• Intro by a senior researcher
• 3 ECR talks
• Live Q&A

👉 Register for links & updates:
🔗 docs.google.com/forms/d/1hAB...

#iVoM #VoM2026 #Virology #ECRs #OnlineEvent

Excited to be hosting @jcornlab.bsky.social on his sabbatical @universityofotago.bsky.social @otagomicroimmuno.bsky.social

@peterfineran.bsky.social and colleagues develop Tn-seq for phages by leveraging anti-CRISPR (Acr) as a positive
selectable marker in the presence of CRISPR-Cas counter-selection, and identify essential genes in phage from non model orgs
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

✨New preprint!

🧵1/4 Excited to share our work on AI-guided design of minimal RNA-guided nucleases. Amazing work by @petrskopintsev.bsky.social @isabelesain.bsky.social @evandeturk.bsky.social et al!
Multi-lab collaboration @banfieldlab.bsky.social @jhdcate.bsky.social @jacobsenucla.bsky.social🧬

🔗👇

🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages.

Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms.

A thread 1/8

📣 Fully funded PhD opportunity - CryoEM, Phage Biology & Structural Mechanisms
University of Sheffield, UK | Start Oct 2026

We’re looking for a motivated student to uncover how bacteriophage proteins shut down drug-resistant Enterococcus bacteria.

Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...

Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Bacteria can sense when a virus starts shredding their genome — by detecting methylated mononucleotides.
Here’s the story of how we discovered the Metis defense system 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Really excited to be hosting @jcornlab.bsky.social here at @universityofotago.bsky.social next year. Looking forward to lots of fun science ahead.

Use antisense oligomers to silence phage genes and discover new biology.
@jorg-vogel-lab.bsky.social @helmholtz-hiri.bsky.social @helmholtzhzi.bsky.social @uni-wuerzburg.de
print: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
highlight: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
briefing: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Wilkinson Lab We discover and study reverse transcriptases

The Wilkinson Lab is open for science! @mskcancercenter.bsky.social

🧬We'll be finding funky new RNA biology, mainly by looking at reverse transcriptases (i.e. the Best Enzymes In The World)🧬

annnd: I'm hiring - come join! Especially postdocs and PhD students - please get in touch (NYC is great)

Please RT:
We have an opening for a junior group leader position in „Phage Biology & Biotechnology“.
www.fz-juelich.de/de/karriere/...

Interested candidates are encouraged to contact me via email for further details.

@spp2330.bsky.social; @mibinet.bsky.social