The gentle reminder I needed to continue to show up authentically in science! Grateful and overjoyed.

I’m so honored to be included in this Hypothesis Fund cohort and grateful for this investment in our research! 🥲

5/ Awardee @heatherfeaga.bsky.social is investigating how bacteria decide when to go dormant💤 (ie, form spores). Her project could lead to important new advancements in the management of spore-forming bacteria in the environment, hospitals, & food supply.
🎉 Congrats Dr. Feaga!
🙏 #HFScout Dipti Nayak

4/ Meet Hydra: a tiny organism w/ extraordinary regeneration powers. Awardee @julianolab.bsky.social will study how they rebuild their nervous system after injury - what she uncovers could change what's possible for neural🧠 repair.
🍾 Congrats Dr. Juliano! @ucdavis.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout Ellen Yeh

3/ #DYK bacteria can produce toxins that target & kill🚫 very specific competitors? Awardee Talia Karasov aims to decode 'tailocin' susceptibility, which may open the door to a new class of precision antimicrobials.
🎉 Congrats Dr. Karasov! @uofubiology.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout @harmitmalik.bsky.social

2/ Awardee @drohsopretty.bsky.social hypothesizes that aging is caused by a breakdown in metabolic communication 💬 between cells. Her work introduces a new conceptual layer to aging biology, and may be key to restoring metabolic aging.
🥳 Congrats Dr. McReynolds!
🙏 #HFScout @harmitmalik.bsky.social

📣 Bold science alert! We're thrilled to announce our latest awardees who are pushing the boundaries of research in aging, regeneration, and bacterial resilience. bit.ly/HFAwardees
Hear from the #HFScouts who championed these talented scientists👇 in our 🧵: 1/

New publication out @natcomms.nature.com! We identify novel viruses that actively infect highly productive chemoautotrophs, and reveal key trophic interactions and virus-host dynamics that impact microbial carbon cycling in aphotic environments.

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

I also had the great pleasure of meeting the visionary leader behind @hypothesisfund.bsky.social, who joined my research talk and had great advice afterwards on people to connect to who get excited about similar scientific questions!

How do words arise from human neurons?🧠💬 In his #NAS163 research briefing, Edward F. Chang (UCSF) will reveal how thousands of neurons encode speech at cellular resolution, linking brain activity to phonetics, word structure & language itself. Register: nasonline.swoogo.com/NAS163_resea...

Happy #InternationalWomensDay to the brilliant women in our Hypothesis Fund community who are taking the intellectual risks to pursue bold ideas, supporting one another, and transforming science together. You inspire us every day. 💫 #IWD2026

STARS in our pockets! Check out our shiniest research to date!

Evolution navigated billions of challenges to get to us to where we are today. Directed evolution compresses this to a 1D axis.

Imagine if you could sample 200 dimensions at once, with data to boot 📈

First @chorylab.bsky.social PACE preprint on our new system to tackle this: bit.ly/turboprance

Diversity and ecological roles of hidden viral players in groundwater microbiomes - Nature Communications Groundwater viruses are less well studied. Here, using large-scale sequencing, the authors uncover extensive, largely uncharacterized viral diversity in groundwater, showing that viruses infect domina...

New paper from @adjiep.bsky.social on viral impacts in groundwater at Nature Comms. Congratulations Adjie and team!

Read: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#viruses #viromics #groundwater

Big congrats to HF Awardees @stevenbanik.bsky.social and @herdelineardona.bsky.social for being awarded Sloan Research Fellowships! 🤩

Congratulations new Sloan Fellow @stevenbanik.bsky.social @stanford-chemh.bsky.social 👏

Kuang To Investigate How Microbes May Rewrite Genetic Messages Carnegie Mellon University’s Zheng Kuang is exploring whether bacteria in the gut microbiota help decide which versions of a gene get activated.

Zheng Kuang is uncovering how gut microbes may influence which gene isoforms our cells use. Supported by a new grant from @hypothesisfund.bsky.social, his work could reveal new links between diet, the microbiome and disease, opening doors to novel RNA‑based therapies. 🧪 #Biology #MolecularBiology

4/ Awardee Sukrit Silas is setting out to solve the longstanding challenge of predicting phage-bacteria compatibility🦠. His project could transform how phages are harnessed to fight against antibiotic resistance.
🍾 Congrats Dr. Silas! @gladstoneinst.bsky.social
#HFScout Devaki Bhaya

3/ Can the microbes in our gut change how our genes🧬 are read & used? Awardee Zheng Kuang's bold research question may lead to the discovery of novel host–microbe interactions critical for health & disease.
🎉 Congrats Dr. Kuang! @cmu.edu
🙏 #HFScout Rob Knight

2/ Awardee @archaeon-alex.bsky.social, in collab w/ Co-Is Amy Schmid & Bonnie Baxter,
is taking the lab🔬 to the field -- to uncover how microbes adapt to extreme environmental changes found in the Great Salt Lake!
🥳 Congrats Dr. Bisson! @iubiology.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout @planaria1.bsky.social

📣Announcing our first awardees of 2026🌠, who are setting out to uncover new knowledge about microbes in extreme environments, host-microbiome interactions, & bacterial defenses. bit.ly/HFAwardees
Hear why our #HFScouts recommended these talented scientists👇 in our 🧵:

Hear about Devaki Bhaya's work on cyanobacteria in last week's @scifri.bsky.social episode!
www.sciencefriday.com/segments/lig...

Novel killer yeasts and toxins from the gardens of fungus-growing ants | Applied and Environmental Microbiology Attine ants perform essential ecosystem services through the harvesting of substrates for fungiculture. The cultured fungi are a food source for attine ants. Characterizing antifungal toxin-producing ...

Our lastest publication on a new killer toxin produced by a yeast isolated from a fungus-growing ant garden! journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

I'm immensely grateful for Hypothesis Fund support!

For years, we've speculated about "rules" for mixotroph metabolic flexibility. This funding will allow us to integrate new mol & cell bio tools with our modeling optimization approaches.

Thank you 🙏 to scout Ginger Armbrust for finding us!

This is a huge honor and we’re so excited to get started on this new direction for our group stemming from the work of William McLaughlin, a Ph.D. Candidate in our lab!

Major thanks to our scout, Paul Turner and Hypothesis Fund for seeing the potential in this project! Time to get to work! 🧬🧫🧪

4/ #DYK during pregnancy🤰, cells are exchanged between mothers + offspring, & even twins? Awardee @elizostrow.bsky.social will study how microchimerism mediates genetic conflict and drive resource competition.
🍾 Congrats Dr. Ostrowski! @uwbothell.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout @paulturnerlab.bsky.social

3/ Awardee @mixotrophe.bsky.social aims to uncover how mixotrophs (marine microbes that harness energy from the 🌞 & organic matter) strategize their metabolisms. Her project may be key to understanding our changing ocean.
🎉 Congrats Dr. Moeller! @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout Ginger Armbrust

2/ Awardee @megbehri.bsky.social will study how chaotic dynamics arise in microbial🦠 populations. Her research could transform how we predict microbiome dysbiosis across human health and beyond.
🥳 Congrats Dr. Behringer! @vuartsci.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout @paulturnerlab.bsky.social

✨Announcing our newest awardees, who are taking scientific leaps to uncover new knowledge across microbial ecology, marine microbiology, and mammalian genetics. Learn about their projects: bit.ly/HFAwardees

Meet our awardees and hear from their #HFScouts in our 🧵/1

Our next extraordinary biologist is Manu Prakash, plenary speaker at the Biologists @ 100 conference, who was recently interviewed for @jcellsci.bsky.social. #100biologists @prakashlab.bsky.social