The Moon as seen by Artems II on 4 April 2026. Mare Orientale is seen side on as the feature narrow feature on the right limb of the Moon, just past the darker blob of crater Grimaldi.

OK this is cool. The first time humans have seen the whole Mare Orientale on the far side of the Moon with their own eyes. See flic.kr/p/2s5HA2X 🧪🔭

Phages communicate across species to shape microbial ecosystems Gallego-del-Sol et al. show that arbitrium-coding phages can sense non-cognate peptide signals from other phages to regulate lysis-lysogeny decisions. This crosstalk affects lysis-lysogeny outcomes of...

This paper started as an idea @albertomarina.bsky.social had many years ago… which of course means he was right all along 😄. Some of us just needed a few years (and a lot of experiments) to catch up.
Grateful (and slightly humbled) to be part of this. Thanks Alberto!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Gut microbiota within-host evolution enforces colonization resistance against enteric infection www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

KING

Phage therapy in oncology: opportunities for cancer prevention and treatment Bacteriophages (phages) are emerging as programmable biological therapeutics in oncology, extending beyond their traditional antimicrobial applications. This review proposes a phage–microbiome–immune–...

Excited to share this review🔔, we spent sometime thinking about
phage–microbiome–immune–oncology axis for phage therapy in cancer!
#phage #phagesky
Phage therapy in oncology: opportunities for cancer prevention and treatment: Trends in Molecular Medicine www.cell.com/trends/molec...

Plasmids promote antimicrobial resistance through insertion sequence-mediated gene inactivation - Nature Microbiology Inactivation of chromosomal genes through plasmid-encoded IS elements is an extended mechanism of antimicrobial resistance evolution in bacteria.

Final version of our last paper is out!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Illuminating the newly produced viruses within the virosphere with BONCAT and single virus genomic sequencing technologies academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a... #jcampubs

Unraveling posttranscriptional regulatory networks in phage infection Phages employ sophisticated transcriptional regulatory networks to optimize replication. Recently, Silverman et al. used RIL-seq (RNA interaction by l…

Like bacteria, phages use sRNAs to regulate gene expression! Out today in @cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social, @mvelascogomariz.bsky.social and I highlight a recent RIL-seq study from the @saharmelamed.bsky.social lab that looked into posttranscriptional regulation of lambda!

tinyurl.com/lambda-RIL-seq

Phage–host interactions are a key driver of microbial ecology, but observing them in nature is hard!
With metaHi-C, we detect freshwater phage–host pairs and link their infection dynamics to evolution.

Together with @nadal-molero.bsky.social & Ana Martin-Cuadrado

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

Eco-evolutionary dynamics of active virus-host interactions in a freshwater lake: revealed through metaHi-C www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

Boosting origin of life theory, RNA comes close to copying itself Some RNA molecules can create their own mirror images, suggesting similar molecules could have sparked life

Researchers report creating RNAs that can generate a sort of mirror image of themselves and use that template to generate the original.

Learn more: https://scim.ag/46F2BHN

Muchas gracias Miguel! Un abrazo 🤗❤️

Thanks for the support, Mart. Never give up!!😊

Gracias Esteban! Un abrazo fuerte ❤️

Double Marie Curie win! My lab and life partner, @alopezm.bsky.social, and I have both been awarded MSCA Fellowships with @baerboletta.bsky.social. Exciting times ahead! 🚀

A figure from the paper that provides an overview of available culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches for characterizing the human gut virome. Both culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches should be used to study the gut virome. At the bench, many protocols have been adapted to enrich viruses in a sample and isolate them using a sensitive host. Once a virus is isolated, various assays can be used to characterize how the virus interacts with its bacterial host. On the command line, viral genomes can be predicted and viral taxonomy can be identified within a sample. Once procured, multiple tools can be used to annotate viral genomes for predicted gene content and viral lifestyle and predict bacterial host taxonomy.

It's increasingly clear that commensal viruses play important roles in human health, but how do you study them?

Our review "Tools and approaches to study the human gut virome: from the bench to bioinformatics" is out today in mSystems! journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

@haleybiont.bsky.social

mvif 46 program

It's Friday!
...and a new #MVIF program is out! 🤩

Free registration: cassyni.com/s/mvif-46

Highlights:
🇺🇸 Rebecca L. Knoll
🇯🇵 Akito Sakanaka

Keynote:
🇺🇸 @simrouxvirus.bsky.social

⭐️ Talks:
🇦🇺 @jeremyjbarr.bsky.social
🇨🇦 @erikbakkeren.bsky.social
🇨🇳 Guanxiang Liang

A phage protein screen identifies triggers of the bacterial innate immune system - Nature Microbiology A library of 400 phage protein-coding genes is used to find a trove of antiphage systems, revealing systems that target tail fibre and major capsid proteins.

I’m thrilled to share our work on phage triggers of the bacterial immune system in its final form @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ecological ubiquity and phylogeny drive nestedness in phages–bacteria networks and shape the bacterial defensome Author summary Viruses that infect bacteria, known as phages, are part of microbial communities and influence the abundance, diversity, and traits of their hosts. In an agriculture-related context, th...

#microsky #phagesky #phage
At last! Great to see this one out: journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Here, we discovered a nested phage-bacteria network despite their high genetic and ecological diversity. Kudos to everyone involved, especially @chloe-feltin.bsky.social !
@phimresearch.bsky.social

Happy to share our recent preprint:
"DNA-intercalating antiphage molecules trigger abortive infection through mutual destruction and synergize with bacterial immunity"

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

@spp2330.bsky.social, @mibinet.bsky.social, @dfg.de @hhu.de @fzj.bsky.social

Two fantastic papers published back-to-back in @natmicrobiol.nature.com show that strictly lytic phages can persist intracellularly for long periods of time. Very much in line with ideas we had suggested in a recent study. Highly recommended reads 👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Check the consensus level of different techniques used to unveil the viral diversity from nature in our latest paper

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Uneven sequencing (coverage) depth can bias microbial intraspecies diversity estimates and how to account for it Abstract. An unbiased and accurate estimation of intraspecies diversity, i.e., the extent of genetic diversity within species (or microdiversity), is cruci

Happy to share our latest paper focused on the effect of uneven sequencing depth in intraspecies diversity estimates (nucleotide diversity and ANIr) using environmental and synthetic metagenomes

academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...

Context-Dependent Metabolic Adaptation in Microbial Communities: From Monocultures to Complex Ecological Interactions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10....

Happy World Phage Week to All Who Celebrate Microbes get sick too - infected by bacteriophage or simply ‘phage’. A first post in a series on the hidden world of phage & how they transform human and environmental health.

In a break from recent themes & in honor of World Phage Week (Oct 22-28), some reflections on the world of bacteria and phage, part of a short series explaining the rationale for why we have invested so much time in exploring when microbes get sick too.

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/happy-worl...

Amazing work Yifan, congrats!! 👏🏼

Viruses and virus satellites of haloarchaea and their nanosized DPANN symbionts reveal intricate nested interactions - Nature Microbiology An exploration of the viromes of haloarchaea and their ultra-small DPANN symbionts reveals plasmid-derived satellites of viruses from both archaeal groups, highlighting the complexity of nested symbio...

Our work on viruses and virus satellites of haloarchaea and their DPANN symbionts is out today in Nature Microbiology!
@mkrupovic.bsky.social @deemteam.bsky.social @anagtz.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Isolation, engineering and ecology of temperate phages from the human gut - Nature Human host-associated cellular products may act as induction agents for bacteriophages.

Very excited to share the latest work from our lab, which was published today in Nature!
nature.com/articles/s41...

PhD graduate and now post-doc Sofia Dahlman, along with co-senior author Sam Forster from The Hudson and other researchers from our lab and others.

How exercise promotes the immune system vs cancer, working through a gut bacteria metabolite
www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

“Treatment with bacteriophages can combat antibiotic-resistant infections, but Swiss patients lack access” It is not only antibiotics but also certain viruses – known as bacteriophages – that can kill off pathogenic bacteria. However, Switzerland lacks the legal framework for the use of these viruses in th...

It is not only antibiotics but also certain viruses – known as bacteriophages – that can kill off pathogenic bacteria. However, Switzerland lacks the legal framework for the use of these viruses in therapy. What would need to change? Researcher Alexander Harms explains.

ethz.ch/en/news-and-...