New postdoc opportunity in our team! Topic is computational analysis of (meta)genomic data to study evolution of plant-microbiome interactions. Part of the AEGIS consortium (aegisearth.bio/en). Apply here: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p... Please RT!

Postdoc on computational (meta)genomic analysis

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges for global food security, requiring new approaches to understand and harness the natural diversity that enables plants and their associated microbiomes...

wur.nl

Are you correlating natural product #metabolomics and bioactivity data? Annoyed by the lack of tools that also integrate #antiSMASH results? Meet #FERMO, our metabolomics data analysis webtool (fermo.bioinformatics.nl), now finally published in ACS Meas Sci Au doi.org/10.1021/acsm...

FERMO: A Dashboard for Biochemometric Prioritization of Molecular Features from Mass Spectral Data

Many natural products can selectively modulate biological processes, making them prime candidates for drug discovery. However, the complexity of biological samples makes clear attribution of activity ...

doi.org

Very excited to share our new paper out in Nature. Congrats to Xiaoqian (Annie) Yu and all the coauthors. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations 👏 🎉 to Felicia Wolters to compete two studies at the same time! 🙌 They describe a FAIR compliant plant metabolomics dataset and a systematic profiling thereof! Thanks to all coauthors!! #ProudPI in #CompMetabolomics #metabolomics See for details: www.linkedin.com/posts/felici...

Now out in @acs.org JACS Au, the manuscript by #BarbaraTerlouw et al. describing PARAS, a high-accuracy machine-learning algorithm to predict substrate specificities of nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) adenylation domains, key for estimating natural product structures from BGC sequence. 1/n

Check out this blog from @catarinacarolina.bsky.social on the story behind the paper: communities.springernature.com/posts/making... A story of overcoming challenges, careful engineering and collaborative teamwork.

Marnix Medema@marnixmedema.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Now out in @natcomms.nature.com : versions 2.0 of both BiG-SCAPE and BiG-SLiCE! With significant speed and accuracy increases, as well as new interactive functionalities. Read the full paper here #openaccess: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our new review article "Microbial secondary metabolites: advancements to accelerate discovery towards application" in Nature Reviews Microbiology is now published! rdcu.be/d6BHX

Microbial secondary metabolites: advancements to accelerate discovery towards application

Nature Reviews Microbiology - In this Review, Dinglasan and colleagues explore innovations that facilitate rapid microbial secondary metabolite discovery, focusing on recent techniques for the...

rdcu.be

Are you interested in how to predict functions of natural product biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) and their products? And/or do you love metallophores and would love to identify their producers in microbiomes? Check out @zachreitz.bsky.social 's new paper! elifesciences.org/articles/109... 1/n

Automated genome mining predicts structural diversity and taxonomic distribution of peptide metallophores across bacteria

Automated detection of metallophore biosynthesis reveals that metal-chelating non-ribosomal peptides are widespread, chemically diverse, and deeply rooted in bacterial evolution.

elifesciences.org

Sounds like a great opportunity for a professor position in computational biology in the Netherlands careers.universiteitleiden.nl/job/Assistan...

Now out in @natcomms.nature.com : versions 2.0 of both BiG-SCAPE and BiG-SLiCE! With significant speed and accuracy increases, as well as new interactive functionalities. Read the full paper here #openaccess: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Make sure to join us in the MIBiG Annotathons! The MITE database (mite.bioinformatics.nl) will join the efforts! If you are interested in tailoring enzymes/maturases, make sure to join us!

@nicoleeavalon.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The MIBiG 5.0 Annotathon is coming soon, and registration is now open! 🧬 Does your research involve biosynthetic gene clusters? Do you love natural product biosynthesis? Do you have an interest in rare & exotic enzymes? We can use your help & expertise. Register here 👉 forms.gle/C1cWcLHtrjT2...

Come join us again in a next round of this massive online open science community effort! 💪 Sign up using the link in the thread. It’s great fun, and really helps the scientific community. What more can you ask? 🙂

@nicoleeavalon.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The MIBiG 5.0 Annotathon is coming soon, and registration is now open! 🧬 Does your research involve biosynthetic gene clusters? Do you love natural product biosynthesis? Do you have an interest in rare & exotic enzymes? We can use your help & expertise. Register here 👉 forms.gle/C1cWcLHtrjT2...

The MIBiG 5.0 Annotathon is coming soon, and registration is now open! 🧬 Does your research involve biosynthetic gene clusters? Do you love natural product biosynthesis? Do you have an interest in rare & exotic enzymes? We can use your help & expertise. Register here 👉 forms.gle/C1cWcLHtrjT2...

Come join us again in a next round of this massive online open science community effort! 💪 Sign up using the link in the thread. It’s great fun, and really helps the scientific community. What more can you ask? 🙂

@nicoleeavalon.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The MIBiG 5.0 Annotathon is coming soon, and registration is now open! 🧬 Does your research involve biosynthetic gene clusters? Do you love natural product biosynthesis? Do you have an interest in rare & exotic enzymes? We can use your help & expertise. Register here 👉 forms.gle/C1cWcLHtrjT2...

The students in my lab just started a Bluesky account 🦋 -- give them/us a follow to see events, scientist spotlights, and announcements!

Nicole Avalon Lab@nicoleavalonlab.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Welcome to the Bluesky page for the Avalon Lab! Currently located at UC Irvine, we explore marine natural products in pursuit of discovering novel neurotherapeutics. Keep up with our lab through our social media posts! Learn more about the Avalon Lab through the Linktree in our bio :)

Welcome to the Bluesky page for the Avalon Lab! Currently located at UC Irvine, we explore marine natural products in pursuit of discovering novel neurotherapeutics. Keep up with our lab through our social media posts! Learn more about the Avalon Lab through the Linktree in our bio :)

#SynBYSS welcome Profs. Jae-Yean Kim at Gyeongsang National U., Pimchai Chaiyen, President of Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC), Marnix Medema at Wageningen U. & Yajun Yan, an NAI fellow at U. Georgia as the 279th-282nd pioneer speakers! Thanks! @marnixmedema.bsky.social

We have an open position for a bioinformatics/theoretical microbial ecology PhD student to study viral strategies in the global Microverse! Join us at the @microverse.bsky.social at @uni-jena.de, please apply through this link: jobs.uni-jena.de/jobposting/9...

I am delighted and feel honored to be appointed as chair of Bioinformatics at @w-u-r.bsky.social . I look forward to working with the team and with our collaborators worldwide on keeping bioinformatics science and education flourishing at WUR and beyond. www.wur.nl/en/news/marn...

Marnix Medema appointed chair of Bioinformatics at WUR

Marnix Medema has been appointed Chair of the Bioinformatics Group at Wageningen University & Research as of 1 February. He aims to further strengthen bioinformatics as a connecting discipline within ...

wur.nl

Working in aquaculture, marine biotech, agrochemicals, biopharma or exploring marine natural products & blue‑biotech applications? Then join us at the MARBLES Stakeholder Summit! 📅 26 March 2026 📍 Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden 🌟 Register now: forms.office.com/e/y2kCNfH8BT 🌟

www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/f... Become our new colleague (and next door neighbor) and lead a chair/group/department of Biophysics at Wageningen University. Reach out to me for info and please spread!!!

Full Professor and Chair Laboratory of Biophysics

We are looking for a Full Professor in the Biophysics chair group, part of Wageningen University & Research (WUR)

wur.nl

We mourn the passing of Peer Bork, EMBO Member since 2000: https://www.embl.org/news/embl-announcements/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork/

In remembrance of Peer Bork  | EMBL

EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General. 

embl.org

Ever wondered about the funny moss growing on trees? Chances were good that you were looking at #lichen! These hybrid fungal-algae/cyanobacterial colonies are biosynthetically surprisingly diverse, as we show in our newest publication led by @garimasingh-gs.bsky.social doi.org/10.1099/mgen... (1/5)

Paired-omics-based exploration and characterization of biosynthetic diversity in lichenized fungi

The increasing demand for novel drug leads requires bioprospecting non-model taxa. Comparative genomics and correlative omics are a fast and efficient method for linking bioactive but genetically orph...

doi.org

Grab the chance to already pre-register for the MIBiG 5.0 annotathons that we plan to organize in spring 2026!

Mitja M. Zdouc@mmzdouc.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Speaking of MIBiG hackathons: iteration 5.0 it is planned for spring 2026 and registrations are open! Please sign up if you are interested and feel free to share with your colleagues! (7/8) forms.gle/JKsf3XL3d1XN...

Now available online: the new 2.0 version of gutSMASH, with capabilities to detect 12 new types of catabolic gene clusters relevant to gut microbiome ecology, as well as predictions of their regulation through transcription factor binding site detection. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

gutSMASH 2.0: Extended Identification of Primary Metabolic Gene Clusters From the Human Gut Microbiota

Microbiota-derived metabolites serve as key messengers mediating host–microbe and microbe–microbe interactions, often through specialized primary meta…

sciencedirect.com

Have you ever used a #bioinformatics #database and were frustrated by its lack of coverage? Did you ever think about starting your own resource? We just published a new strategy for community-driven #biocuration, based on our experiences with the #MIBiG database (1/8)! doi.org/10.1093/bib/...

Strategies for community-sourced biocuration in bioinformatics: a case study on MIBiG 4.0

Abstract. Biocuration is essential to transform molecular sequence data into standardized, machine-readable resources. Such curated datasets enable compara

doi.org

Impressed by the hyper modern campus of Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology. All built in just over one year... 😮

Now out in @asm.org #mSystems! journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... Congratulations to Robert and thanks to all collaborators. See thread below for a summary of the work, exploring the use of cross-species coexpression analyses to predict primary and secondary metabolic interactions in microbiomes.

Using cross-species co-expression to predict metabolic interactions in microbiomes | mSystems

An improved mechanistic understanding of microbial interactions can guide targeted interventions or inform the rational design of microbial communities to optimize them for applications such as pathog...

journals.asm.org

Marnix Medema@marnixmedema.bsky.social · 11mo ago

New preprint out by #RobertKoetsier, the first of his PhD project, on assessing the use of cross-species coexpression analysis to identify primary and secondary metabolic interactions in microbiomes: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Happy to share our newest manuscript about the discovery and hererologous expression of metanodin, a new lassopeptide with unprecedented structural features directly from soil metagenomes. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.... #secmet #lassopeptides #syntheticbiology

Discovery and Heterologous Expression of the Soil Metagenome-Derived Lasso Peptide Metanodin with an Unprecedented Ring Structure

Culture-independent metagenomic approaches have proven to be effective tools for identifying previously hidden biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) encoding novel natural products with potential medical relevance. However, producing these compounds remains challenging as metagenomic BGCs often originate from organisms phylogenetically distant from available heterologous hosts. Lasso peptides, a subclass of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide (RiPP) natural products, exhibit diverse bioactivities, yet no lasso peptide has previously been discovered directly from a metagenome. Here, we report the discovery and heterologous expression of the first soil metagenome-derived lasso peptide. Expression of its biosynthetic gene cluster in Escherichia coli, followed by mass spectrometry analysis, strongly supported the predicted amino acid sequence and lasso structure of the peptide. Notably, this lasso peptide is the first to feature asparagine as the ring-forming residue at position one. Taxonomic analysis of the corresponding BGC identified an uncultivated member of the Steroidobacterales family (Gammaproteobacteria) as the closest known relative of the potential native host. These findings underscore the potential of metagenomic genome mining to reveal structurally novel RiPPs and to expand our understanding of the natural diversity of lasso peptides.

pubs.acs.org

Kudos to @elenadelpup.bsky.social for this significant update to plantiSMASH! Try it out now...

Elena Del Pup@elenadelpup.bsky.social · 9mo ago

🌱plantiSMASH 2.0💥 is now live! I’m very excited to share that the 2.0 version of plantiSMASH is now available online and as a preprint on bioRxiv 📄https://lnkd.in/dN4F56pf 🌱 What’s new in plantiSMASH 2.0? ⬇️