The risks of antimicrobial resistance have been increasing, while harmful biocides have continued to be used where they are not needed.
The government must act now to reduce these risks and safeguard our future.
#AMR #MicroBio26
Last week's seminar featured excellent talks from @fionapoulter.bsky.social on understanding the evolution of epidemic Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Holly Richardson on why heterogeneity matters: predicting antibiotic resistance in cystic fibrosis.
Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for the nice snacks!
1) Being apolitical is a myth. (Hyde seems to agree.) We all approach the world with our beliefs & biases. Pretending scientists are superhuman is silly & even dangerous. Thankfully, the scientific process is set up to mitigate such biases through transparency & open debate.
📢 Excited to be offering a Plant Health vacation studentship this summer on plant disease biocontrol and predatory bacteria! Supervised by me at Manchester Uni! @manchester.ac.uk
If interested—or know someone who might be—please share and apply! my.rsb.org.uk/services.php... 28th April deadline 🌿🍅🦠
“Australians can now live & work freely in the EU for 4 years and vice versa
That means they now have 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 EU rights than British people. Free movement offered millions of us fantastic opportunities but Brexiteers slammed that door shut, most shamefully on their own children”
Coconuts
Here is it! Super new science from us on horizontal gene transfer & bact defense systems! Liyana OW YONG discovered the first-of-its-kind defense factor AbjA that triggers 'abortive conjugation' as a defense mechanism, by targeting the T4SS! How neat?! #MicroSky 1/7
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Here’s the latest preprint from my work on evolved resistance to Type VI Secretion system (T6SS) weaponry, funded by a @wellcometrust.bsky.social Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship. So happy to see this out!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Really excited that this paper has come out in @lancetmicrobe.bsky.social, collaboration led by @alanmcn1.bsky.social and Nina van Sorge (@amsterdamumc.bsky.social)
Lineage dynamics of invasive Escherichia coli isolates in the Netherlands from 1975 to 2021
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Madness. A bacterium with a 10kb genome, lost replication initiation, translation.., relies on symbiotic host.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Very much looking forward to visiting and meeting those working @mpiib-berlin.mpg.de next week, and the chance to speak about my postdoc work on within-patient AMR evolution, thanks to @keyfm.bsky.social and @mfenk.bsky.social for the kind invitation.
Trump does not think strategically, historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. Allied leaders know that if they help him in the Gulf, he won't be grateful, or even remember
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Horizontal gene transfer is often depicted as a process distributing pre-existing functions to novel genetic backgrounds. Yet HGT can also increase the rate of functional innovation after transfer. Here's a brief review on the topic: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... #evosky #microsky
Just published! at @narjournal.bsky.social . A new example of how gene order in bacterial genomes impacts cell physiology. Inthis episode we messed up with RNA polymerase genes! academic.oup.com/nar/article/...
📣 The Whelan lab is hiring a bioinformatics postdoc 📣
Together with @fabricejpierre.bsky.social, we are offering a 1-year bioinformatic PDRA position in comparative genomics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. To find out more please visit whelanlab.co.uk/contact/. Applications close 3 April 2026!
Study 2: Culture-enriched metagenomic sequencing reveals within-patient diversity and transmission of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
Study #1: Within-patient evolution of Pseudomonas aeruginosa populations during antimicrobial treatment
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
Excited to say that I'll be visiting @matthewjshepherd.bsky.social at Wiko Berlin from the 8th-22nd of April, so if anyone is in or around the Berlin area around then and want to chat—let me know! 🦠
Excited to share our latest work! 📝
We measured the fitness effect of 136 AMR genes and found that many are neutral or even beneficial without selection. 🤯🧬
Oxygen availability can flip their fitness and our stochastic model indicates that oxygen fluctuations help maintain them.
Learn more 👇🏼
Today is the start of the 5th Analysing Microbial Genomic Data course at @unibirmingham.bsky.social #AMGDMar26 - in the last three years we’ve trained nearly 80 attendees from six countries and multiple UK universities
FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?
Predicting protein-protein interactions (PPIs) at proteome scale can take months with co-folding models due to the massive all-vs-all comparisons required.
We are excited to announce FlashPPI, a contrastive learning framework that predicts proteome wide physical interfaces in minutes. 1/🧵
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two years thinking about genome evolution and how recent research revealing complex gene-gene interactions has complicated traditional ‘gene-centric’ genomic approaches to evolution. So here is a review that consolidates these thoughts!
rdcu.be/e6pHY
Make no mistake this is a concerted and organised attempt to completely undermine science and expert opinion. This is Covid denialism on steroids and it’s on all of academia to see this for what it is and push back as strongly as possible
New paper out! Here's a puzzle: phototrophy, the ability to use light for energy, is one of life's great innovations. It evolved early and transformed the biosphere. But it evolved 2x. Why not just once, why not more? Our work suggests the answer is priority effects.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
This trip through Aotearoa New Zealand has provided one illustration after another about the value of heroic conservation efforts.
MENI is back! Join us in Dublin this August 2026 for our 3rd Meeting for Microbial Evolution in Ireland. We are delighted to have @rachelmwheatley.bsky.social @drrebeccajhall.bsky.social @jpjhall.bsky.social and @tweethinking.bsky.social join us as keynote speakers this year. miniurl.com/MENI
Cancer therapies exploit DNA repair defects to kill tumours. We asked whether the same logic could constrain antibiotic resistance evolution...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Thank you!!!
It has been a pleasure to work on this huge study with @brockhurstlab.bsky.social, Niamh Harrington, @taoranfu.bsky.social, @jofoth.bsky.social, @scottishwormboy.bsky.social, Claudia Igler, Dylan Childs, Kenny Cagney, Anastasia Kotarra and Beth Grimsey (21/21)
