Haha thanks a lot, Sven!

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.

Want to annotate a bacterial genome with structures?

@oschwengers.bsky.social bakta and @gbouras13.bsky.social phold got together, and the result is Baktfold: protein annotation across the microbial tree of life using structures

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

#phagesky #microsky #microbiomesky

PhD Position in Computational Modelling of Fungal Evolution How do giant mobile elements called ‘Starships’ reshape fungal plant pathogens? Help us computationally model their spread and impact in nature and agriculture!

Phd Position alert 🚨

Join our project ASTRAfun (Adaptation and Starship Traffic in Root-Associated fungi), in which we will use computational models to unveil the hidden dynamics of fungal evolution.

It’s not going to be just regular fun. It’s going to ASTRAfun. 🤓

www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

Come work with us in Vienna and along European coasts! We look for a creative Postdoc (4year contract) in Evolutionary Genomics to cooperate with physiologists, ecologists, see: jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Postdoc-... Please share! @univie.ac.at

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

So you are using IQ-TREE to estimate a tree for "deep time" phylogenetics using amino acid alignments. There is a lot of confusion about how to test model fit. Here are some suggestions.

Pls re-post: My department @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social are recruiting for several new faculty positions (links below). Broad search in molecular biology/biochemistry, across prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Interested in understanding life at the molecular level, this job might be for you!
1/n

Diversity, ecology, cell biology and evolution of the Asgard archaea - Nature Reviews Microbiology The Asgard archaea have become a cornerstone of archaeal research, particularly for studies aiming to unravel the origin and early evolution of eukaryotes. This Review outlines the current state of th...

Just over ten years after the discovery of the first Asgard archaeal genomes, we revisit the rapid expansion of this remarkable archaeal lineage. From diverse genomes and metabolisms to eukaryotic signature proteins and the first cultured representatives.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to collaborate with @hassansalem.bsky.social and @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social on this new Postdoc opportunity!

If you're interested in the developmental biology of symbiosis, apply and join us @johninnescentre.bsky.social and @thesainsburylab.bsky.social 🪲🦠🔬

Prediction of eukaryotic cellular complexity in Asgard archaea using structural modelling - Nature Microbiology A structural catalogue of the Asgard archaeal pangenome reveals hundreds of eukaryotic-like proteins that suggest a higher degree of cellular complexity in the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes.

🧵 1/10 New paper out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com from my postdoc at @mib-wur.bsky.social! 🎉

How eukaryote-like was the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes? Sequence searches alone can't tell us — so we used protein structure prediction to look deeper. 🧬
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Finally out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com: Prediction of eukaryotic cellular complexity in Asgard archaea using structural modelling. Great work by @stephkoe.bsky.social @kassipan.bsky.social @jvhooff.bsky.social

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

Join @berasymbionts.bsky.social , @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social and us for a postdoc on the remarkable developmental biology of symbiosis!

Applications are due March 25th 🪲🦠

@johninnescentre.bsky.social @thesainsburylab.bsky.social

In case you missed it: our review titled "Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities" is out! 🚨

Let me hit you with some highlights on why spatial structure matters. (and why you should care!)

Sharing is appreciated 🙏 🧵👇

doi.org/10.1093/fems...

PhD candidate in Equine Intestinal Microbiome and Resistome Join this PhD project to study how the equine gut microbiome and resistome can improve gastrointestinal health and combat antimicrobial resistance.

Our faculty has a particularly interesting PhD position open on antimicrobial resistance, effects of antibiotics treatment on the microbiome and resistome, restoration of the equine microbiome using FMT.

www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

Please contact Mathijs Theelen, email address in the link below.

Thank you @carlzimmer.com for sharing the excitement for our favorite organisms and introducing them to the broader audience!

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/s...

Finally out in @nature.com: a new piece of the puzzle of how complex life evolved. Lead by @archaeal.bsky.social & @katyappler.bsky.social. Great collab with @greening.bsky.social and @kassipan.bsky.social. More pieces to follow soon! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Beyond thrilled to share that our study has been published!
This project encompasses years of work, including my thesis research on Asgard archaea in the @archaeal.bsky.social lab at @utmsi.bsky.social and
@texasscience.bsky.social!!!
#MicroSky #ArchaeaSky 1/12

New paper from my team detailing a greatly expanded genomic database of Asgard archaea revealing of high energy metabolism those related to eukaryotes! Led by @katyappler.bsky.social lots of help from @jameslingford.bsky.social @valdeanda.bsky.social @kassipan.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Please check out our review on the impact of spatial structure in microbial ecosystems! In it, we discuss how spatial patterns impact microbial ecology and evolution, eventually impacting everything we see around us!

See @marcelbaecker.bsky.social's amazing summary below :)

🦠 𝚂𝙿𝙰𝙲𝙴 𝙼𝙰𝚃𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚂 ! 🦠

The LECA had a conventional kinetochore and the kinetoplastid kinetochore is a derived feature – a critical evaluation of Akiyoshi, 2025 Summary:Akiyoshi, 2025 presented a hypothesis with implications for the early evolution of eukaryotes and eukaryotic cell division machinery. In this Correspondence, the authors conclude that this hyp...

Recently, a Hypothesis was posed in @jcellsci.bsky.social in which the root of eukaryotes was placed between kinetoplastids and all other eukaryotes. From this, it was implied that LECA did not have a kinetochore. We argue this is highly unlikely. A 🧵(1/12)

Read our reply here: tinyurl.com/n87myhpr

Our latest preprint: Together with the team of Jan Löwe, @danieltamarit.bsky.social and many others we discovered and characterized several Asgard tubulin genes and propose that microtubule architecture and dynamics evolved in Asgard archaea prior to eukaryogenesis
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Today we published a Correction on our 2023 @nature.com paper reporting the heimdallarchaeial ancestry of eukaryotes: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Corrected paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Importantly, the re-analyses of the corrected dataset are consistent with the original findings.

The visualization of two bacterial genomes, of 50 and 52kb, representing independent instances of extreme genomic reduction in ancient heritable endosymbionts of planthoppers.

Our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com is now online-early!

We describe independent evolution of bacterial genomes of only ~50–52 kb — the smallest known outside cellular organelles — revealing striking convergence toward minimal gene sets.

🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Two more weeks to apply - come join us () in The Netherlands as a postdoctoral researcher on large-scale metagenomic exploration of new lineages!

Moltes gràcies, Juli, per les paraules i la inspiració!

“A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress - though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known"
- Bertrand Russell, 1976.

Time-lapse video of Vampyrella lateritia eating Spirogyra algae from Science Source/Oliver Skibbe. 🦠

My lab is hiring a postdoc (ERC funded)! If you're interested, get in touch!

Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH.
And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you.
A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n

Are you a long-time fan of Archaea, an extremophile-phile, or are you simply curious?

Either way, we have good news.
We’re delighted to announce the 2026 EMBO Workshop on Archaea, 6–10 July.

Sign up: meetings.embo.org/event/26-arc...

We look forward to seeing you in Cambridge, UK.

Please repost!