If you know a graduating undergraduate looking for the chance to spend 1-2 years in a lab before graduate school, we're hiring! Our lab explores morphogenesis, defining how the cell adhesion & cytoskeletal machinery work together to allow cells to change shape & move tarheels.live/peiferlab/ 1/n RT
Celebrating our lab manager Aida Flor de la Cruz, on her 30th anniversary of working at @fredhutch.org @basicsci.fredhutch.org
Aida is absolutely amazing at everything she does, from art, pottery, baking to microscopy, therapy, & drosophila genetics. We’re very lucky to have her.
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.
Congrats, Vivek& Lucas. Such a beautiful story!!!🎉
🤯
Magnesium depletion by Candida albicans unleashes two unusual modes of colistin resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa with different fitness costs.
@hsiehyp.bsky.social, Robert Ernst lab, @ajaidandekar.bsky.social, my lab.
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
ipmb.sinica.edu.tw/en/activitie...
@hsiehyp.bsky.social and Ian O’Keefe’s recent paper presented as a “Research highlight” in Nature Reviews Microbiology
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
haha, miss you both a lot!
Hiring Alert: My lab(www.labofpie.org) is looking for BS/MS-level research assistants to study fungal-bacterial competition. Come join us if you are interested! ipmb.sinica.edu.tw/en/recruitme...
Bacteriophage data on capsular Klebsiella bacteria barcoded library
New paper 🔔
Collaboration
@sullivan-lab.bsky.social
Marissa Gittrich led the work
Klebsiella phage biology has focused almost entirely on capsulated strains, but capsule loss is the #1 resistance mechanism under phage predation. We used a naturally acapsular host to reveal the receptor landscape
Rebecca is starting her lab as a UCSF Sandler fellow in August 2026; folks at #Dros26 interested in host-parasitoid interactions should try to catch her at the meeting to find out about available positions: www.tarnopollab.org/people
Thank you, Vivek.
Curious about why polymicrobial interaction matters? Check out more future work from my lab (www.labofpie.org)
This work can't be done without all the support from @harmitmalik.bsky.social and @ajaidandekar.bsky.social
Using experimental evolution, mutation reconstruction, and fast lipid analysis (FLAT), we show that P. aeruginosa evolves resistance through two distinct membrane remodeling strategies. Identifying these resistance mutations deepens our understanding of how resistance emerges in clinical settings.
Building on our prior discovery of Mg²⁺ competition, this work determines the mechanisms by which polymicrobial interactions drive extreme drug resistance — reshaping adaptive landscapes through trade-offs and epistasis.
Our story on the evolution of colistin resistance is just out on @plosbiology.org (journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... Evolution doesn’t happen in isolation. We show that competing fungi can rewire the evolutionary trajectory of colistin resistance in P. aeruginosa. Great teamwork with the Ernst lab
Some of us know how sweet procrastination can be! If you feel the same, good news:
The abstract deadline for the EMBO Workshop has been extended to March 19!
Don’t miss the opportunity to present your work June 2–5 2026 in Oeiras, Portugal!
In new research, Yu-Ying Phoebe Hsieh, Ian O’Keefe, Ajai Dandekar, Harmit Malik &co reveal how magnesium sequestration by C. albicans enables P. aeruginosa to evolve much higher levels of resistance to colistin (a last-resort #antibiotic).
🧪#MicroSky
Institut Pasteur (@pasteur.fr) is recruiting new young PIs to open new groups in the Institute. Deadline is February 9th! Don't miss the opportunity!
New lab preprint! Andrew Frando, Bobby Parsek, and Graham Roberts describe how components of the quinolone quorum sensing circuit of P. aeruginosa interact in competition with another Gram-negative bacterium, S. maltophilia -- it's a three-component AND logic gate.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Every American needs to see this. Each of the people murdered by ICE had a place in their community, and those kidnapped and imprisoned also were people with lives that touched many others
This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.
This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
Very clever
CDFD is elated to announce a Distinguished Lecture by Dr.
@harmitmalik.bsky.social , a noted Evolutionary Biologist, who has been selected as the INSA Overseas Chair 2025 for Molecular and Cellular Biology.
Do join us!
Looking for a paid summer research experience? Apply to MSU’s Extreme Biofilms REU and work on cutting-edge biofilm science in extreme environments. No prior research experience needed.
#MicroSky
#PhageSky
Screenshot from GRC portal confirming microbial population biology meeting June 27, 2027 in Andover, New Hampshire.
It’s officially happening folks! The Microbial Population Biology Gordon Research Conference is back in Andover, New Hampshire starting June 27th of 2027!
See you there!!
@wcratcliff.bsky.social @ksbakes.bsky.social @surtlab.bsky.social
#microsky #mevosky
