Great to be there for it! Already looking forward to Liverpool 🧬

Paul Fogg@pcmfogg.bsky.social · last mo.

A massive (if a little delayed) thank you to everyone who attended this year's @mgeworkshop.bsky.social in York. Awesome talks and a wonderful atmosphere made hosting the event a pleasure! Already looking forward to next year in vibrant Liverpool with @jpjhall.bsky.social.

Delighted to have collaborated with the T6SS aficionada @pbernalt6ss.eurosky.social on this one. Congrats to Cristina Civantos and the rest of the team on a beautiful piece of work on Rsm-mediated control of Pseudomonas putida's T6SS! 🧬

Patricia Bernal@pbernalt6ss.eurosky.social · last mo.

Fresh out of the lab! Our new preprint is now up on BioRxiv, exploring how the beneficial bacterium Pseudomonas putida controls its T6SS nanoweapon. It turns out the Gac/Rsm pathway acts as a strict molecular brake on the system. 👇 (1/4) Read the full preprint here: doi.org/10.64898/202...

I'm looking for an enthusiastic student to join my team as a PhD candidate on archaeal genome evolution 🦠💻 Work in beautiful Utrecht, at @binfutrecht.bsky.social, an international group full of caring, amazing scientists, and with frequent cake breaks! www.uu.nl/en/organisat... Please share! 🙏

Many thanks to @pbernalt6ss.eurosky.social for the kind invitation, the hospitality, and the stimulating discussions. Always a pleasure to exchange ideas with a true T6SS aficionada! Looking forward to future collaborations 🙂

Patricia Bernal@pbernalt6ss.eurosky.social · 3mo ago

Delighted to host @joaoftsbotelho.bsky.social at the University of Seville. He gave a fantastic talk on mobile genetic elements. Thank you so much for your visit, great to have you here.

Very happy to share our Druantia III–Zorya II synergy story, now on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2026.05.12.724681v1 It appears alongside several Druantia III papers from excellent colleagues, each telling a different part of the story. (links below)

When is an antiphage mechanism an evolved defence adaptation? This question has been on my mind for so long, because despite the field’s rapid progress there is currently no widely agreed framework in place to answer it. So @brownlab.bsky.social and I wrote this, and I'm happy to share the preprint!

📣 Whelan lab is hiring 📣 We are looking for an entry level technician to help us with our culturing and DNA sequencing prep of cystic fibrosis lung microbiome samples. Applications close 20 May 2026. www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Research Technician in Microbiology and Molecular Biology:Oxford Road

jobs.manchester.ac.uk

This one means a lot. Our paper, “Large extrachromosomal replicons are widespread across bacterial lineages and show coordinated replication termination and spatial coupling with the chromosome,” is out! doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Excited to share our new paper out today in @science.org 🎉 We show that HGT via natural competence drives diversification of chromosomal integrons in V. cholerae 🤩 Below a 🧵 on key findings incl. background on natural competence in V. cholerae 1/ #microsky #phagesky www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

My lab at Pitt is looking for a Research Scientist to help us make phage therapy for patients with antibiotic-resistant infections. Please share and apply! cfopitt.taleo.net/careersectio...

Out in @natcomms.nature.com! We show that while most MGEs are blocked by RM systems🛡️, the chromosome is still mobile! 🧬And that cells with defective systems act as "gateways" for HGT. Can you find the hidden Easter egg🐇🥚? Hint: There's a nod to my 🇲🇽 heritage in one of the figures! rdcu.be/fbUC8

📣 The Whelan lab is hiring a bioinformatics postdoc 📣 Together with @fabricejpierre.bsky.social, we are offering a 1-year bioinformatic PDRA position in comparative genomics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. To find out more please visit whelanlab.co.uk/contact/. Applications close 3 April 2026!

🔊 Looking for a Research Assistant in Bacterial Evolution to join my lab 🦠 🥼Main duties: Research (AMR + microbiome) + lab assistance. ⏲️ Post duration: 30 months 🗓️ Closing date for applications: 20th April 2026 💰 Salary: ~£35k Details and how to apply: tinyurl.com/2a3v66y7 Please share!

📣 Still time to apply to this bioinformatics postdoc position with us! If you have any questions, please DM me here or send me an email. Deadline 3 April.

Fiona J Whelan@whelanfj.bsky.social · 5mo ago

📣 The Whelan lab is hiring a bioinformatics postdoc 📣 Together with @fabricejpierre.bsky.social, we are offering a 1-year bioinformatic PDRA position in comparative genomics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. To find out more please visit whelanlab.co.uk/contact/. Applications close 3 April 2026!

New preprint alert!!! 🚀🤓 We are very happy to finally share this with the world — the result of seven years of work and a new tool to study integrons and discover new functions encoded in these bacterial platforms. If you want to know more, here is a thread 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

My group at MIT is seeking a research scientist with a strong *experimental* background to lead and help shape the lab’s experimental infrastructure, supporting efforts to advance AI-driven enzyme discovery and characterization. See the full JD here: acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:...

New preprint! We show that conjugation accelerates the segregation of #plasmid alleles -> horizontal transfer is a route for allele segregation in MGE evolution. Led by Lisa Hartmann, with @mariosanter.bsky.social &Nils Hülter. Naturally, reviewed by @qedscience.bsky.social! doi.org/10.64898/202...

Still not in the final format but couldn't wait to share it with you, after a long jpurney to get here. Our latest work (with @davidalbesa.bsky.social lab) on Tke5 T6SS toxin from my favourite bug P. putida KT2440. 🧵 1/5 www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Could everyday exposures like water, soil, animals, or outdoor air influence antibiotic-resistant infections? We are studying this through a One Health approach. Take our short, anonymous survey (a few minutes, open to everyone): forms.office.com/e/2MeixcU4Hr #AMR #OneHealth #MicroSky

In our latest work, we characterise the Tmn defence system. We reveal plasmolysis as a new way to block phage infection, dramatically reducing secondary infections.

Predicting protein-protein interactions (PPIs) at proteome scale can take months with co-folding models due to the massive all-vs-all comparisons required. We are excited to announce FlashPPI, a contrastive learning framework that predicts proteome wide physical interfaces in minutes. 1/🧵

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two years thinking about genome evolution and how recent research revealing complex gene-gene interactions has complicated traditional ‘gene-centric’ genomic approaches to evolution. So here is a review that consolidates these thoughts! rdcu.be/e6pHY

Epistasis and co-adaptation in bacterial genome evolution

Nature Reviews Genetics - Bacterial genome evolution is shaped by epistasis, which can constrain or promote specific evolutionary paths. The authors review how integrating the effects of epistatic...

rdcu.be

📢 Our paper from @schulenburglab.bsky.social is now out in @isme-microbes.bsky.social 🦠 What happens when a pathogen population is genetically diverse AND under antibiotic pressure? TL;DR #AMR is a community effort! #MicroSky #Pseudomonas aeruginosa

João Botelho@joaoftsbotelho.bsky.social · last yr.

New preprint alert! 🧫 Proud to share Aditi Batra's (former colleague at @schulenburglab.bsky.social) work on #AMR evolution in polymicrobial infections. We found that strain variation & bacterial interactions significantly influence how P. aeruginosa populations respond to antibiotics. #MicroSky

📢 Opportunity to apply for a PhD fellowship to join our group and work on MGE-MGE interactions and phage defence systems! @mmsb-lyon.bsky.social See informations about eligibility and research project on this web page: graduate-plus.fr/immunology-v... Contact me if you are interested !

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...

Are you a post-doctoral microbiologist interested in characterising bacterial resistance evolution and want to apply your knowledge and expertise to developing new therapeutics for Klebsiella (and other Enterobacterales) infections? Then we need you! Apply now bit.ly/3MX39Ce close date March 13th 👀

The increased mutation rate of DNA-repair–deficient mutators accelerates resistance evolution in bacteria and cancer. In a great collaboration with @mulkern.bsky.social, we find that DNA-damaging antibiotics can turn this advantage into a liability—but only for certain genotypes.

Out now in @plosbiology.org : our big joint effort on the role of #CRISPR in plasmid competition. Read on for a really fun (I’m biased ok) analysis of how a defence system has new selective pressures when it’s mobile journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... 1/6

New paper out in @pnas.org, and it made the cover! 👁️ We represent plasmids as circles and mutations as dots, resembling an eye, because in this paper we literally 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ plasmids evolve. ‼️Check Paula’s 🧵 and the paper👇 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘀𝗺𝗶𝗱 𝗺𝘂𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Paula Ramiro-Martínez@paularamiro.bsky.social · 7mo ago

New paper out in PNAS!!! 🎉 Do more plasmid copies mean faster evolution? 🧵 Dive into the story www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Big week: welcomed a new baby boy Harris Lopatkin, AND our PlasAnn paper is finally out: academic.oup.com/nar/article/... (obviously the first more important than the second 🥰). Currently on leave but if anyone has the need to annotate large plasmids, go check it out!

PlasAnn: a curated plasmid-specific database and annotation pipeline for standardized gene and function analysis

Abstract. Conjugative plasmids are key drivers of bacterial adaptation, enabling the horizontal transfer of accessory genes within and across diverse micro

academic.oup.com