ADA Forsyth faculty are joining the 2026 Rocky Mountain Dental Convention speaker lineup! Our researchers will share new insights on periodontal regeneration, oral–systemic health, developmental defects, and the oral microbiome.

Very interesting work from Ibarlosa and colleagues regarding functional amyloid forming proteins in prokaryotic immunity. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Check out our News & Views summary of the work as well! rdcu.be/eBHxh

Amyloids in bacterial antiphage defence

Nature Microbiology - Bacterial prions form amyloids in response to phage infection and induce cell death to prevent viral replication, similar to the processes in fungi and across the tree of life.

rdcu.be

Cell Geometry Limits Bacterial Metabolic Efficiency www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #jcampubs

For the first time, scientists have performed targeted mutations on an episymbiosis-determining pathway. In a new study on Saccharibacteria, AFI researchers used advanced techniques to observe pili that drive motility and host attachment. @batbilegbor.bsky.social forsyth.org/saccharibact...

Excited to be presenting at the 3rd Annual Scientific Conference of the Society of Mongolian Researchers in the USA! 🇲🇳🧬 It’s a great space to connect and support Mongolian researchers. 10/11-10/12 in DC. #MongolianScience #ResearchCommunity www.mongolianresearchers.org/2025-annual-...

New paper out! We searched for cargo across thousands of Type 11 Secretion Systems (T11SS) in Proteobacteria and uncovered 2,500+ predicted secreted proteins, including 6 novel cargo types, with experimental verification of a new surface lipoprotein, Pls. doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.001406

📣 We are proud of the publication of the second paper of @bbaker24.bsky.social PhD thesis. In collaboration with friends in Halifax we have studied the difficult question of the phylogeny of the DPANN archaea, composed of several phyla of highly reduced, fast-evolving epiparasites 🧵 rdcu.be/erkkU

Phylogenomic analyses indicate the archaeal superphylum DPANN originated from free-living euryarchaeal-like ancestors

Nature Microbiology - Phylogenetic reconstructions with conserved protein markers from the 11 known DPANN phyla reveal their monophyletic placement within the Euryarchaeota.

rdcu.be

ASM staff is on site and hard at work with final preparations for #ASMicrobe! We can’t wait to see you there—and we're happy announce that the curfew has been lifted!

Exciting progress! In our new preprint, we show that episymbiont Saccharibacteria can directly modulate epithelial immunity—a big step in understanding how these elusive microbes interact with the human host. Kudos to Deepak Chouhan and our amazing collaborators! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hi everyone, I tried assembling a Microbiome & friends starter pack. 🦠🧫🔬 Still learning to use bluesky and might have missed you, let me know if you would like to be included. go.bsky.app/Fq36egy

A new preprint from the lab in collaboration with Feng Jiang. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... This is a thread for you if you're interested in secretion systems, phages, and evolution. The extracellular contractile injection system (eCIS) is a mysterious microbial toxin delivery system.

New publication! Our findings reveal that the specificity of several FISH probes is compromised, with cross-species hybridization being more common than previously assumed as more genomic data becomes available. #microbiology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Shining Light on Oral Biofilm Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH): Probing the Accuracy of In Situ Biogeography Studies

The oral biofilm has been instrumental in advancing microbial research and enhancing our understanding of oral health and disease. Recent developments in next-generation sequencing have provided deta...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

"That telomere phages are so prevalent means that they are a selective force, one that we know little about. We now want to understand how the telomere-toxin is secreted and also understand how this ‘telocin’ wheedles its way into unsuspecting bacterial neighbors” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Telomere bacteriophages are widespread and equip their bacterial hosts with potent interbacterial weapons

Klebsiella host strains infected with telomere phages can grow to be the dominant lineage in mixed populations.

science.org

Out in Nature today: A new immune signaling molecule, His-ADPR, is produced by defensive TIR domain proteins in bacteria to protect from phage Joint work with the Tamulaitienė and Kranzusch labs www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congrats Carmel Avraham, Dziugas Sabonis, Renee Chang and co-authors!

For the last few years I've been working on an educational game all about microbiology. Customize your own cell, release it into the world and see how well it survives! The Steam page will be up soon, follow me for updates!🦠 #madewithunity #indiedev #microbiology

Many recent viral outbreaks, including SARS-CoV-2 and mpox, feature oral symptoms. A Review in Nature Reviews Immunology discusses antiviral immunity in the oral cavity and presents current mouse models for the study of oral viral infections. �� https://go.nature.com/49xJlwg

Hi BlueSky friends! Postdoc(s) available in my lab! Multiple projects on how bacterial genomic and functional diversity impacts microbial interactions & disease. 🦠🧫 See www.thelewinlab.com/join-us/post... for more information. Please RT & share. #Postdoc #Microbiology #OralMicro #VaginalMicro

Meteor Shower and Orion in Mongolia 🇲🇳 📸 yin hao

Excited to share our new preprint on the detailed investigation of Type 4 pili in epibiont oral Saccharibacteria! Led by Alex Grossman from our lab, and with Jun Liu (Yale), Jeff McLean (UW) and Xuesong He. Check it out: biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A TM7 strain protects its host from phage infection: Episymbiotic Saccharibacteria TM7x modulates the susceptibility of its host bacteria to phage infection and promotes their coexistence doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Saccharibacteria deploy two distinct Type IV pili, driving episymbiosis, host competition, and twitching motility https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.25.624915v1

Saccharibacteria deploy two distinct Type IV pili, driving episymbiosis, host competition, and twitching motility https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.25.624915v1

All cultivated Patescibacteria, or CPR, exist as obligate episymbionts on other microbes. Despite be

biorxiv.org