Dear microbiome enthusiasts: I'm excited to be moving my lab to New York University this fall (& the NYU Institute for Engineering Health); with joint-appointment @isbscience.org I'm hiring a postdoc @ NYU to look at diet-driven evolution in the gut: apply.interfolio.com/189980 Please share! 🦠🤓

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

This is awful to hear, describing how Sean Eddy (HMMER, infernal, pfam, rfam) has been defunded. The letter said his work "had been determined to be of absolutely no value to the US taxpayer, and therefore it was being specifically terminated," www.npr.org/2026/05/21/n...

Researchers say the Trump administration is finding new ways to punish science

Even with federal grants largely restored, scientists say the Trump administration is still preventing those funds from reaching them. The consequences, they say, are already becoming clear.

npr.org

Please share widely. The new (simpler) MIRA R35 for Early Stage Investigators (ESI) NOFO is published. First due date is 10/2/2026. files.simpler.grants.gov/opportunitie...

@hsiehyp.bsky.social and Ian O’Keefe’s recent paper presented as a “Research highlight” in Nature Reviews Microbiology www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Candida albicans steals magnesium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa unleashes resistance - Nature Reviews Microbiology

This study uncovers how Pseudomonas aeruginosa acquires colistin resistance in magnesium-depleted environments created by Candida albicans by accumulating unique mutations in the lipid A biosynthetic ...

nature.com

Does anyone know if carmine red affects gut microbiota composition in mice? This paper says it does not but doesn’t seem to actually show the data and the only other papers we found cite it to support the claim 🫠. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26406373/

Regulators of gut motility revealed by a gnotobiotic model of diet-microbiome interactions related to travel - PubMed

To understand how different diets, the consumers' gut microbiota, and the enteric nervous system (ENS) interact to regulate gut motility, we developed a gnotobiotic mouse model that mimics short-term dietary changes that happen when humans are traveling to places with different culinary traditions. …

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Here’s the latest preprint from my work on evolved resistance to Type VI Secretion system (T6SS) weaponry, funded by a @wellcometrust.bsky.social Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship. So happy to see this out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Two weeks left before the deadline! My colleague extraordinaire @whelanfj.bsky.social is looking for a post-doc to work on P. aeruginosa genomics in the context CF lung infections. This is a collaborative project between my lab, hers and @jpcote.bsky.social's lab. The data is ready to be analyzed!!

Fiona J Whelan@whelanfj.bsky.social · 7mo 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!

If you're a senior PhD student or recent graduate interested in doing work at the intersection of AI and microbial genomics and/or microbiomes, please feel free to reach out to discuss the possibility of applying together for an MIT Novo Nordisk Fellowship engineering.mit.edu/novo-nordisk

Novo Nordisk Fellowship

Potential areas of focus for postdoctoral fellows participating in the MIT-Novo Nordisk Postdoc Program include, but are not limited to, the following: Your complete application should include: In the...

engineering.mit.edu

Our story on the evolution of colistin resistance is just out on @plosbiology.org (journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... Evolution doesn’t happen in isolation. We show that competing fungi can rewire the evolutionary trajectory of colistin resistance in P. aeruginosa. Great teamwork with the Ernst lab

Magnesium depletion by Candida albicans unleashes two unusual modes of colistin resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa with different fitness costs

Bacterial resistance to the vital last-resort antibiotic colistin is an increasing challenge. This study shows that magnesium sequestration by C. albicans enables P. aeruginosa to evolve much higher l...

journals.plos.org

We’re hiring a Microscopy Core Director at the Wadsworth Center! It's a state position (job stability & PENSION!) in a uniquely academic, research-driven environment 😎 Please share 🙏 statejobs.ny.gov/public/vacan...

I am seeking a postdoc to join my group at UCLA -- ideally the candidate would have some experience in either population genetics or microbes/microbiome (computational background needed). We have a range of projects and are happy to tailer to your interests. Please dm/email me if interested.

Excited to announce the upcoming 2026 Microbial Toxins and Pathogenicity GRC and GRS meeting taking place July 12 - 17, 2026 at Waterville Valley in New Hampshire. This meeting will be chaired by yours truly and co-chaired by @sunnyshinlab.bsky.social www.grc.org/microbial-to...

very sad news. Peer Bork was one of the leaders of our field, a wonderful scientist, and he's much too young to be gone. www.embl.org/news/embl-an...

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

Here, we find that many Genomic islands have origins of transfer (oriT) mobilisable by conjugation, incl. known Pathogenicity & defense islands. iOriT use only an oriT for transfer by hitching on conjugative elements: they make abundant, diverse, ancient families of mobile genetic elements. See🧵

Manuel Ares-Arroyo@aresarroyom.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Bacteria chromosomes contain Genomic Islands that provide virulence, antibiotic resistance, MGE-defence,... They transfer between cells, but the mechanism of most remains elusive. Here we explore the conjugative capacity of these mysterious Genomic Islands. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Proud to announce SimPhyNI, a new tool for bacterial GWAS with higher precision and scalability than existing tools. Try it out and let us know what you think!!

bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 9mo ago

High Precision Binary Trait Association on Phylogenetic Trees https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.24.696407v1

A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication

A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication

We create vector graphics of model organisms and emerging biological research organisms to enhance our publications. We’re sharing these editable graphics under a CC0 license for other scientists to...

doi.org

Grateful to share our paper on gene-specific selective sweeps in human gut microbiomes, now out in Nature! It has been a joy to work with @rwolff.bsky.social, whose insights and hard work made this possible. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Gene-specific selective sweeps are pervasive across human gut microbiomes - Nature

Development and application of the integrated linkage disequilibrium score (iLDS) reveals both selective pressures impacting the human gut microbiome and the mechanisms by which gut bacteria adapt to ...

nature.com

Beautiful work from Jay Winans in the Nadell Lab @dartmouthartsci.bsky.social showing IncF plasmid pED208 spreading like wildfire through E. coli biofilms www.cell.com/current-biol...

Bacterial conjugation can restructure biofilms and increase their resilience while constraining host cell dispersal

Winans et al. show how plasmid transfer can reorganize bacterial communities into dense aggregates, conferring antibiotic and phage tolerance to otherwise sensitive host cells. Conjugation-dependent a...

cell.com

The first ever cover art from my lab! And an awesome story about how chromatin changes in response to the N/C ratio from my first grad student, Anusha Bhatt!

EMBO Reports@emboreports.org · 10mo ago

Have a look at the new issue: link.springer.com/journal/4431... The cover features work by Amanda Amodeao @aaamodeo.bsky.social and co-workers showing that local nuclear to cytoplasmic ratio regulates #histone H3.3 incorporation during zygotic #genome activation. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🚨New faculty job opportunity 🚨 Please share this ad for a faculty position in our department at UC Irvine, in the fields of microbiology and infectious disease. MD/PhDs and PhDs are desired and should apply! recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09954

Pediatric Infectious Diseases/Microbiology - Professor Series (tenure track/tenure), Open Rank

University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.ap.uci.edu

I think some folks might be happy to see this. NIGMS MIRA R35 for EI/NI has been published. PAR-26-121 files.simpler.grants.gov/opportunitie...

I wrote my PO who said that they are hoping it will come out soon but this has to now be reviewed at the HHS level and so they have no more info. Said that since it has to be posted 60d ahead of first deadline, the Jan deadline may have to be postponed. Mild panic is ensuing.....

I’m curious if anyone has heard anything about the status of the NIGMS R35 MIRA, currently there is no next submission deadline for established investigators and we have now passed the forecasted new announcement date

Poster deadline for the Keystone Microbiome Meeting in Banff is December 30th www.keystonesymposia.org/conferences/... Will be a great meeting focused on human microbiomes, spanning basic, mechanistic, and applied. Organized by myself, @amibhatt.bsky.social , and Harry Sokol. Join us!

Assistant Professor position posted for my Department, Biological Sciences at UNC Charlotte! Current research foci: Immunology, Microbiology, Virology; Biomolecular Function; Proteostasis; Genome Integrity; Epigenome Regulation; Cancer; Environmental Risks. jobs.charlotte.edu/postings/65141

Two unrelated Pseudomonas aeruginosa phages require the exopolysaccharide Psl for infection NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes from Courtney Reichhardt and @micheleleroux.bsky.social and colleagues www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Two unrelated Pseudomonas aeruginosa phages require the exopolysaccharide Psl for infection - npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

npj Biofilms and Microbiomes - Two unrelated Pseudomonas aeruginosa phages require the exopolysaccharide Psl for infection

nature.com

Excited to share some new work led by grad student Sophie Walton (w/ @petrovadmitri.bsky.social). We used in vitro gut communities to study how natural selection acts on strains of the same species as they compete within larger communities. Check out Sophie's thread below for details!

Sophie Jean Walton@sophiejwalton.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Super excited that the bulk of my PhD work is now preprinted! Here we used whole-community competition, or coalescence, experiments to quantify selection acting on genetically diverged strains within larger communities. (1/n) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congratulations to BCB Professor Soni Lacefield on Receiving the Genetics Society of America Ira Herskowitz Award! This prestigious award recognizes “outstanding contributions in the field of yeast research in the last 20 years”