The textbooks say #archaea are non-pathogenic. True. But maybe we’re not as irrelevant as you thought.

Orientierung für Fachärzt:innen, praxisnah durch Fallberichte & Austausch mit Christine Moissl-Eichinger @chmoei.bsky.social, CoE Key Researchers Gregor Gorkiewicz @gregorkiewicz.bsky.social und Alexander Moschen u.a.

Come join us! Soon I will be advertising a postdoc vacancy in my group as part of my @erc.europa.eu AdG project 'DARK ROOTS'. Focus of the project will be on phylo- and metagenomic mining of novel prokaryotic lineages. I will soon post a link here - stay tuned, and please repost! #asgardarchaea

a man walking in a field with an umbrella

ALT: a man walking in a field with an umbrella

media.tenor.com

Proud PI: Austrian microbiome research award for my PhD student Charlotte Neumann! Thanks @microbesplanet.bsky.social

Out in Science Advances: Our #cryoEM structure of HFTV1, a virus infecting the halophile #archaea. *First full atomic structure (containing all structural proteins) of any tailed virus!* Congrats and thanks to all co-authors and our fantastic collaborators! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Cryo-EM resolves the structure of the archaeal dsDNA virus HFTV1 from head to tail

This structure of an archaeal tailed virus (arTV) provides detailed insights into arTV assembly and infection mechanisms.

science.org

Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social

Structure of a functional archaellum in Bacteria of the Chloroflexota phylum - Nature Microbiology

Bona fide gene clusters for archaella are widespread across a bacterial phylum and encode functional motility machinery.

nature.com

Sonja-Verena Albers@archaellum.bsky.social · 2y ago

Would you expect that Bacteria use an archaellum for swimming? We didn't, but we found that some Chloroflexota do! Find the story here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A little thread below 1/n

🚨 New preprint! We built the largest respiratory pan-microbiome atlas yet >4,000 metagenomes from nose to lung. 👉 In health: a connected microbial continuum 👉 In disease: this structure collapses #microbiome #microsky Read: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Pan-microbiome analysis along the human respiratory axis reveals an ecological continuum in health and collapse in disease

The human respiratory tract (RT) harbors complex microbial communities whose functions are critical to health and disease. Yet, current insights remain fragmented across anatomical sites, populations,...

biorxiv.org

🚨 Imagine a bacterium that refuses to follow the textbook: It grows as tangled filaments, divides unevenly, reshapes its own membranes… and even builds grappling hooks. Meet Litorilinea aerophila — and here’s why it blew our minds.

Sonja-Verena Albers@archaellum.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Who would have thought I would ever publish an article about a bacterium? But here it is, but of course only because Litorilinea aerophilum actually has an archaellum! Here is what we learned about its cell structure and other surface appendages: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Neues aus der Mikrobiom-Forschung! Archaeen – kaum bekannte Mitbewohner in unserem Darm – senden winzige Bläschen, um mit ihrer Umwelt zu kommunizieren. Ein Team der Med Uni Graz hat das jetzt erstmals detailliert beschrieben. Veröffentlicht in Nature Communications ➡️ https://bit.ly/47gnl9R.

🚨 2 funded #PhD positions (ERC Adv Grant) in the Moissl-Eichinger Lab, Graz! Study Methanobrevibacter as a keystone in the gut microbiome. 💡 Omics, modeling, synthetic consortia 📅 Deadline: Sept 10, 2025 🌍 Int’l applicants welcome! Application link below. #microbiomesky #archaeasky #microsky

Congratulations to all winners - and "happy World Microbiome Day"!!

Cluster of Excellence 'MicroPlanet'@microbesplanet.bsky.social · last yr.

Today, June 27, marks World Microbiome Day! We're celebrating with the inaugural Austrian Microbiome Research Awards. Congrats to Cornelia Rottensteiner @cornelia-cr.bsky.social @cemess.bsky.social @univie.ac.at, Charlotte Neumann @medunigraz.at, and Daniela Wöber @AIT. @fwf-at.bsky.social Details👇

Some big news: I’ve been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant to further explore the roles of #archaea in gut #microbiomes and beyond. @erc.europa.eu #ERCAdG #ARCHMETH #Microbiome #Archaea #sciencepassion

Klimaschutz trifft Darmgesundheit: Unsere Mikrobiomexpertin Christine Moissl-Eichinger erhält den prestigeträchtigen Advanced Grant (2,5 Mio. €) des für ihre Forschung zu Methanobrevibacter – einem winzigen Mikroorganismus mit großem Potenzial ➡ https://bit.ly/3FDDJpO. #ERCAdG

New @fwf-at.bsky.social CoE Microplanet Publication in NatureComms! @theviktoriaeffect.bsky.social from the lab of @chmoei.bsky.social @medunigraz.at profiled the proteome & metabolome of extracellular vesicles from key gut archaea, revealed immune-stimulating capacities and unique molecular cargo.

🚨 New preprint alert! We report what might be the first mechanistic link between gut Archaea and human disease. Methanobrevibacter smithii is enriched in CRC patients—and boosts growth of cancer-associated bacteria like F. nucleatum. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @archaeasky @microbiomesky

Methanobrevibacter smithii associates with colorectal cancer through trophic control of the cancer bacteriome

The human gut is colonized by trillions of microbes that influence the health of their human host. Whereas many bacterial species have now been linked to a variety of different diseases, the involveme...

biorxiv.org

What a missed opportunity... 🤔 We should have declared an official "Archaeal Week" at Nature Communications! 😆 www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41... #Archaea #ArchaeaSky 🦠

📢 Big day for archaeal microbiology! Today, we jointly shed light on the mysterious world of archaeal extracellular vesicles from human gut archaea - published in @natcomms.nature.com ‬ in parallel with our precious colleagues around @mkrupovic.bsky.social 🇦🇹🤝🇫🇷.

The Archaeacast! Yes, a podcast about #archaea! by Priyanka Chatterjee, @cjhines.bsky.social, Alex Phillips, Theopi Rados & guests! 6th episode: Archaea and Us: Heroes or Villains? Guest: @chmoei.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a... @archaeapowerhour.bsky.social @archaeabio.bsky.social

Archaea and Us: Heroes or Villains?

Podcast Episode · ArchaeaCast · 05/20/2025 · 30m

podcasts.apple.com

Connor Hines@cjhines.bsky.social · last yr.

On our new episode of Archaeacast, Priyanka and I cover the Archaea we carry with us every day. Followed by a brilliant interview w/ @chmoei.bsky.social discussing a correlation between Archaeal populations and BMI, the absence of pathogenic Archaea, & more! #SciSky #AcademicSky #Microbiology #Life

🌍 #WorldIBDDay2025 Awareness for #IBD and support for patients worldwide: #IKMB and Cluster of Excellence “Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation” will light up two buildings on #UniKiel campus in purple tonight. #IBDawareness #ChronicInflammation #ResearchMatters 💜 youtu.be/BgHa13cR0Ks

Kiel is joining the global World IBD Day 2025 – Lightinstallation – IKMB, Kiel, Germany

YouTube video by IKMB – Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology

youtu.be

May’s ‘Microbe of the Month’ is a novel archaeon called Methanobrevibacter intestini which was isolated from a human faecal sample taken from an individual in the United States. Find out more about M. intestini and other exciting discoveries by clicking the link in our bio 🧫🔬

Check out our press release from the Medical University of Graz. @chmoei.bsky.social and their team has discovered a novel species of archaea in the human gut, furthering our understanding of archaea in the human gut microbiome

🚨 New publication: We describe a novel, cultivated #Archaea species from the human microbiome: #Methanobrevibacter intestini sp. nov. ! www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour... #Microbiome #GutMicrobiota #NewSpecies #archaeasky #microbiomesky

Expanding the cultivable human archaeome: Methanobrevibacter intestini sp. nov. and strain Methanobrevibacter smithii ‘GRAZ-2’ from human faeces

Two mesophilic, hydrogenotrophic methanogens, WWM1085 and M. smithii GRAZ-2, were isolated from human faecal samples. WWM1085 was isolated from an individual in the United States and represents a nove...

microbiologyresearch.org

Mikrobiolog*innen unseres Forschungsfelds Mikrobiom & Infektion, dem Leibniz Institute DSMZ @leibniz-dsmz.bsky.social und der University of Illinois haben eine bisher unbekannte methanbildende Archaeenspezies aus dem menschlichen Darm identifiziert ➡ https://bit.ly/4ion4Ul @chmoei.bsky.social

New postdoc position in our lab (2 y+): evolutionary genomics of integrons and MGEs with focus on vibrio-phage interactions. Great environment @pasteur.fr for science, career building. Super collaborators @celineloot.bsky.social @amazeld.bsky.social @fredoleroux.bsky.social 3 weeks to apply!

Realized I never posted about our recent article: we revisited prior claims linking #Methanobrevibacter to #MS using metagenomes from 115 patients & 115 controls. No overall #archaeome differences, defeating earlier hypotheses. But treatment was associated with elevated M. smithii & M. sp900766745.

New paper! We analyzed gut #microbiomes of 250+ individuals (ages 19–109). #Centenarians often show a high-methanogen “human cow” phenotype 🐄, with #Methanobrevibacter smithii dominance and youth-like archaeal profiles. #Archaea may stabilize networks in aging. Link: rdcu.be/egk03 @archaeasky

Nice article about data sharing and community building in Archaeal research 🥰 @archaeabio.bsky.social @archaeapowerhour.bsky.social #ArchaeaSky

BF Francis Ouellette@bffo.bsky.social · last yr.

From the @commsbio.bsky.social journal | Advancing archaeal research through FAIR resource and data sharing, and inclusive community building | #Bioinformatics #FAIR #OpenScience #OpenAccess #OpenData 🧬 🖥️ 🧪 🔓 ⬇️ www.nature.com/articles/s42...

This is a small study with limited interpretation but I do love birds, and I really like archaea. Do I like them both at the same time? (I do!👌) 🔗 journals.asm.org/doi/full/10....

Great news! New “Microbiome Science” Master Programme @univie.ac.at coordinated by CoE Key Researcher @jillianmpetersen.bsky.social. More brilliant minds with innovative ideas contributing to groundbreaking discoveries! 🦠🔬🌍 ❗Apply by April 7th! studieren.univie.ac.at/en/degree-pr...