Leslie Day, PhD
@lesliedaymicro.bsky.social
Anaerobic Microbiologist Damon Runyon Fellow Postdoc @ O’Toole Lab, Dartmouth
Join us on August 7 for George O'Toole's lecture on the “gut-lung axis” and how it may open new possibilities for treating airway disease with gut-targeted probiotics. Free and open to the public for in-person and virtual attendance. 🔗 More info here: go.mbl.edu/fel
How does one conceive of time for Earth's history & the time of humans on the planet?? Go back to the basics - 1000 sheet role of toilet paper. John Spear lead the lesson and showed how little time humans have been on the planet - just a small fraction of one sheet. @mblscience.bsky.social
Bacteriology-Focused Assistant Professor Position in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan Application deadline: August 15, 2026 Come be my colleague!
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Hypothesis Fund@hypothesisfund.bsky.social · last wk.2/ Awardee @acharlesorszag.bsky.social thinks that the secret to how complex life began on Earth 🌎 might still be unfolding around us today. He's investigating archaea-bacteria symbiosis to find out. 🍾 Congrats Dr. Charles-Orszag! @ucdavis.bsky.social 🙏 #HFScout @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social
✨ Meet our newest awardees, who are wading into the unknown to uncover new knowledge about the origin of complex life, antimicrobial peptides, social behavior, regeneration, and cell development. Learn about their projects: bit.ly/HFAwardees and hear from their #HFScouts in our 🧵 /1
With Prevotella recently split into many new genera (over 55 species down to ~21!), what's left? Our new review explores the remaining mucosal species, with a particular focus implications for the human oral, airway, and vaginal niches. 🧪 Journal of Bacteriology journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
The redefined identity of Prevotella: new implications for oral, respiratory, and vaginal health | Journal of Bacteriology
Over a century ago, Dr. William Wherry and his student, Wade Oliver, reported the isolation of a bacterium they called Bacterium melaninogenicus (1). This organism was described as a pigmented, Gram-negative, strictly anaerobic organism found frequently in the human mouth on carious teeth, but also recovered from the throat, tonsils, genitalia, and wound abscesses. Later classified under the genus Bacteroides, these and related organisms were frequently described as difficult to grow and maintain in pure culture, with biochemical assays yielding inconsistent fermentation and proteolytic profiles (2, 3). In 1947, Schwabacher, Lucas, and Rimington found that the characteristic pigments were not composed of melanin, as the name suggests, but rather hematin (4). In the 1960s, others showed that some strains required both hemin and vitamin K/vitamin K derivatives for growth (5). Consequently, as similar organisms were isolated from human oral and mucosal sites in the following decades, Shah and Collins proposed the reclassification of several species into their own genus, Prevotella, in 1990. Shah and Collins had previously argued that Bacteroides contained considerable heterogeneity, particularly with regard to fermentative capacity. They suggested that inclusion in Bacteroides should be limited only to highly fermentative species phenotypically similar to B. fragilis. The “nonsaccharolytic Bacteroides” were reclassified into the genus Porphyromonas, while the remaining 15 “moderately saccharolytic Bacteriodes” became Prevotella. Using a combination of biochemical and 16S rRNA-based analyses, they described Prevotella as organisms that may or may not produce pigment, are sensitive to bile salts, are moderately saccharolytic, and lack both glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) and 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (6PGDH) (6).
journals.asm.org
In Microbial Diversity we understand that all life can be explained in one slide (or why one should NEVER memorize glycolysis). @mblscience.bsky.social
Our Dept of Microbiology & Immunology @Geisel School of Medicine @Dartmouth has an opening for an Assistant Professor. Looking for programs bridging multiple areas in Micro & Immuno. A great place to be! Programs: www.M2P2.org www.dartmouthbiofilm.org Job ad: apply.interfolio.com/187637
Highly recommend adding whimsy to your lab whenever possible w/@maggiepren.bsky.social
🚨 Thesis Seminar Alert: Nicole Kordana from the Cramer Lab will be presenting her research tomorrow at 10am in Chilcott! 🦠
Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) secreted by Bacteroides can be an important mechanism of host-pathogen interactions in the colon by reducing CFTR Cl⁻ secretion; the effects on CFTR Cl⁻ secretion depend on the strain of Bacteroides fragilis. #IAIJournal: asm.social/2Y7
I'm happy to share the first pre-print of out Lab! 🎉 Introducing ArchaeaHQ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We curated 21,644 genomes across all 4 archaeal kingdoms to bridge the gap in public datasets for computational biology What is inside ArchaeaHQ... (1/2)
Your mouth is home to its own highly specialized microbial community. New research suggests that these oral microbes may play an equally important role as the gut microbiome in maintaining health. Read the full story here: go.mbl.edu/mouth-microbe
May the whimsy of showing mentees rumen fluid under the scope never go away
This is why we fund basic science. You never know from what little curiosity will derive the tools that enable greatness.
TK (Takashi DY) Kozai@bioniclab.bsky.social · 2mo ago🪼 Your tax dollars paid a scientist to squeeze jellyfish through cheesecloth. Osamu Shimomura processed tens of thousands on an NSF grant to understand why they glow. He found a protein that glowed green under UV light. Called it "green protein." Nobody cared. For decades.
It is with enormous joy that I announce that with $5534.56 raised (and a bit more to come!), #ArvCon2026 concludes having again met its goal to support @damonrunyon.org! I'll have a more detailed set of thank yous in a few days, but until then: thank you so much to everyone who made this possible!
#ArvCon2026 to benefit @damonrunyon.org begins with our Pre-Show TOMORROW, Thursday the 21st at 7:30 p.m. ET...please mark your calendars for an event full of community, giveaways, surprises, interviews, music, and--of course--lots of TTRPGs! Please spread the word, and we'll see you tomorrow night!
Gregory A. Wilson@gregoryawilson.com · 3mo agoThe time has come to announce the official schedule for #ArvCon2026, our twelfth annual TTRPG actual play/concert/interview/giveaway/surprise/and more event to benefit @damonrunyon.org, beginning next week on www.twitch.tv/arvaneleron! Please join us, spread the word, and share widely! 1/?
Who needs a sauna when you can work in an anaerobic chamber on a warm summer day before the AC has caught up
Finally, Day Four of #ArvCon2026 wraps up at 3:15 p.m. EDT with a special one-shot TTRPG adventure in the Gumshoe system, featuring @damonrunyon.org scientists @lesliedaymicro.bsky.social, @txrwang.bsky.social, and Hui Chiu as players, and @therisingtithes.bsky.social as GM! 11/?
ArvanEleron - Twitch
I'm Arvan Eleron, a writer and gamer. My favorite games are RPGs, particularly tabletop D&D, but I'm also a sucker for a good adventure or turn based strategy game (and I love Gran Turismo, if I can e...
twitch.tv
Day Two of #ArvCon2026 begins on May 23rd at 12 p.m. EDT with an interview of amazing @damonrunyon.org scientists @lesliedaymicro.bsky.social, @txrwang.bsky.social, and Hui Chiu! 4/?
ArvanEleron - Twitch
I'm Arvan Eleron, a writer and gamer. My favorite games are RPGs, particularly tabletop D&D, but I'm also a sucker for a good adventure or turn based strategy game (and I love Gran Turismo, if I can e...
twitch.tv
The extreme halophilic archaeon Haloferax volcanii reduced Fe(III) to conserve energy from extracellular electron transfer #microbiology #archaea #Haloferax #MicroSky #ArchaeaSky @asm.org journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
The Barrick & Lenski Labs in Dept of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology at Michigan State Univ seek a Research Assistant II to manage their research operations and participate in projects related to microbial evolution and synthetic biology. See details below. careers.msu.edu/jobs/researc...
Research Assistant II - East Lansing, Michigan, United States
Position Summary The Barrick and Lenski Labs in the Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology at Michigan State University are seeking a Research Assistant II to manage their research ope...
careers.msu.edu
Doing the periodic cleaning of used plasmid miniprep columns and realized in honor of Earth Day it may be worth reminding you molecular biologists: Plasmid miniprep columns can be cleaned and reused essentially indefinitely! Just add 1 M HCl, soak overnight and wash 3x w/ water. Save $ and plastic
🎉 This is also a symbolic moment for the field: around 50 years since Carl Woese and colleagues first recognised Archaea as a distinct domain of life, fundamentally changing our understanding of evolution.
🔈Paper out! We turned the most fascinating phage host-switch mechanism, diversity-generating retroelements, into a programmable mutagenesis tool, DGRec. You can perform targeted hypermutation of any 50-200bp sequence directly in vivo in E. coli www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Diversity-generating retroelements for programmable targeted hypermutagenesis - Nature Biotechnology
Diversity-generating retroelements are engineered for directed evolution in E.coli.
nature.com
Breathing both ways: simultaneous aerobic–anaerobic respiration in microbes www.cell.com/trends/micro... #jcampubs
Breathing both ways: simultaneous aerobic–anaerobic respiration in microbes
Microorganisms have historically been classified as obligate aerobes or anaerobes, facultative anaerobes, or microaerophiles, reflecting differences in respiratory strategies dictated by the use of ox...
cell.com
