1,500x !!!! Incredible how much the limit has been pushed on expansion microscopy!

Ignacio Vega-Vásquez@igvegvas.bsky.social · 2w ago

(1/4) We are very excited to share our latest preprint from @sauer-lab.bsky.social: Mega Expansion Microscopy (Mega-ExM)! We combine iterative hydrogel expansion with whole-proteome NHS labeling and post-expansion immunostaining, reaching tunable expansion factors up to ~1500× in whole cells 🤯

Can’t wait to use it!

PLOS Biology@plosbiology.org · 2w ago

Graphing and statistically analyzing data is challenging without coding expertise. This Community Page by @avishenoy.bsky.social introduces grafify online, a free, browser app for generating publication-quality graphs and performing statistical tests and comparisons. 🧪 #AcademicSky plos.io/3RpUg6E

No, it’s not AI - this is a real species, the purple harlequin toad! Native to the rainforests of French Guiana, their psychedelic skin warns predators of their toxicity. Sadly, this tiny toxic toad is critically endangered.

Insane fortune: can you imagine reading on a newspaper about queen Victoria’s coronation, the start of World War I or the 19th century revolutions across Europe?!

British Library@britishlibrary.bsky.social · 3w ago

Exciting news - the British Newspaper Archive's new platform is here Explore millions of digitised pages of newspapers and other publications from our British and Irish collections, dating as far back as the 1700s We can't wait to get exploring 🗞 link.bl.uk/7ci

Important highlight on a deadly worrying topic!

Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research@ineosoxford.bsky.social · last mo.

Private antibiotic dispensing in England doubled in 5 years, yet no central database tracks it. Oxford DPhil student Hao Huang is investigating this data gap to inform national policy and strengthen AMR stewardship as NHS faces 400 resistant infections weekly. Read more 👉 https://ow.ly/R5oU50ZnioN

If you want to explore how fluidics affects infection dynamics and you are in Oxford, you can now learn from the best, @microberamon.bsky.social ! deadline August 17th. We’ll be hiring a Research Technician in our group at UCL soon as well, stay tuned! #UTISky #microbiology

Ramon Garcia Maset@microberamon.bsky.social · last mo.

📢 We’re hiring a Research Assistant at the University of Oxford funded by The Urology Foundation (TUF). We aim to study how urination-like shear stress shapes uropathogenic E. coli behaviour, particularly bacterial filamentation, using an advanced human bladder model under flow

Perfect grant writing cabin by the sea!

Landed back in London after an unforgettable @toxo18.bsky.social conference in Brazil! Thank you to the organisers for selecting a wonderful location and program. Grateful to be part of this ever-evolving community that feels home and to meet old colleagues and future collaborators!

Today marks 30 years since we identified the apicoplast, a relict plastid in human and animal parasites (PMID 8632819). Apicoplasts are the target of the widely used antimalarial prophylactic doxycycline, which has saved many thousands of malaria infections.

How climbing the academic ladder feels like! (also, nature is pretty incredible)

Springer Nature@springernature.com · 3mo ago

Tiny fish less than 5 cm long have been observed climbing a 15‑metre waterfall in the DRC, using fins and body movements to ascend over hours, reports Scientific Reports. Study highlights a rare form of animal locomotion: spklr.io/63323EMvif @natureportfolio.nature.com #AnimalBehaviour

It’s graduation day at UCL 🎉

Incredibly fascinating story with wider relevance touching anybody interested in AMR and tolerance!

Sebastian Shaw@millseba.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Excited to share our new paper, co-led by Gracyn Buenconsejo and me. Why did a promising anti-#Cryptosporidium drug fail? We asked whether the parasite itself might already be genetically prepared to escape treatment. doi.org/10.1038/s415... #Clofazimine #forwardgenetics

Deadline for this fantastic meeting is tomorrow May 12th!

Gunnar N. Schroeder@gunnarns.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Registration and abstract submission for the 2026 UK CellularMicrobiologyNetwork Meeting are now open! Exiting keynote speakers and opportunity for researchers from the UK, Ireland and beyond to share their work on host-pathogen interactions. June 22nd/23rd @WWIEM in Belfast. www.ukcellmicro.org

Volume-sensing: fascinating! I wonder how much you need to shut down that pathway when intracellular pathogens increase the host cell volume of >10x! Like for Plasmodium liver stage, Toxoplasma in neurons, UPEC in urothelial cells … classic elephant in the room situation

Journal of Cell Biology@jcb.org · 4mo ago

Cook, Green et al. @manchester.ac.uk show that #macrophages sense cell volume disruption as a danger signal promoting transcriptional reprogramming and inflammatory responses via type I interferon signaling. rupress.org/jcb/article/... #Inflammation #CellSignaling #Immunology

Fungal pathogens are incredibly fascinating!

The MRC Centre for Medical Mycology@mrccmm.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Two strains of Aspergillus fumigatus on agar: green = wildtype white = mutant The difference? We removed the pksP gene - this is responsible for pigment and how the immune system detects it. Breaking genes helps scientists uncover roles in infection & drug resistance. 🧫 #immunology #sciencefact

CO2 tolerance as a virulence trait, or just extreme adaptability as a fitness determinant, my favourite topic

PLOS Biology@plosbiology.org · 4mo ago

How does the fungal pathogen #Cryptococcus neoformans adapt to the high #CarbonDioxide levels found in the human body? This study shows that CO₂ tolerance depends on coordinated metabolic, oxidative & membrane remodeling, partly via TOR–Ypk1 signaling @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3RmnKSc

With so much attention on these lethal Hantavirus cases, I wanted to share that in my PhD I studied the virus’ natural reservoir: these cute bank voles! We developed new tools for research on voles(pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29434310/ and more soon) 1/2

Such a good start in the day when you see beautiful expanded Toxoplasma on a cover!

Journal of Cell Science@jcellsci.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Issue 7 is complete Explore our Toc: journals.biologists.com/jcs/issue/13... Our cover image is an UExM image of tubulin-based structures during the early stages of Toxoplasma gondii daughter cell formation. See article from Sladewski and Heaslip: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Do i understand well? A bacterial protein that does ncRNA > RNA bypassing the DNA step? 🤯 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

📢📢📢 Our next LINE seminar will be at KCL: On Thurs 23rd April, we'll hear from @safimicro.bsky.social about Salmonella and from James Griffiths about Candida! Come for the science and stay for the networking social! All info and registration to join in person or online here: tinyurl.com/544sdm5e

Currently in Nashville to talk about uropathogens for the next couple days! Those persistent, hard to treat bugs! Come by to poster 57 on Friday to see how I screen a gof pathogenic library on bladder organoids #UTICONF26 @globaluti.bsky.social

Prof Jenny Rohn@jennyrohn.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Here’s (most of) the Rohn Lab for the launch of globalUTI.bluesky.social UTIGA26! @nickyuen.bsky.social @microberamon.bsky.social @victoriachu.bsky.social @fratorelli.bsky.social @murraybeno.bsky.social #UTICONF26 #UTISky #UTI

🧑‍🔬 The program for the scientific session of the ParaFrap Next Generation in Parasitology Workshop is now available! 🎟️ A few places are still available to attend the session in Montpellier. Registration is free but mandatory. 👉 forms.gle/q1ZZJbqu87CD...

Unfortunately this year I won’t be able to attend but it’s such a good meeting!

UK Cellular Microbiology@ukcellmicro.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Registration and abstract submission for the 2026 UK CellularMicrobiologyNetwork Meeting are now open! Exiting keynote speakers and opportunity for researchers from the UK, Ireland and beyond to share their work on host-pathogen interactions. June 22nd/23rd @WWIEM in Belfast. www.ukcellmicro.org

Neat work about my favourite topic: stress adaptation! It seems that most UPEC virulence factors are neighbours in the same pathogenicity island

Cell Host & Microbe@cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social · 5mo ago

UPEC subverts neutrophils Uropathogenic E coli regulatory system DanRI is induced by nucleosomes present in NETs. DanRI regulates broad cellular responses and dampens neutrophil responses by attenuating reactive oxygen species production & NET formation www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

You know you did a great job selecting students when they come to the lab with the t-shirt from the Parasitological Museum of Tokyo 😍

I love it when things that before were not possible become possible

ParasitesRule@parasitesrule.org · 6mo ago

🚨🚨🚨Game changer for babesia research from the Mamoun lab: Continuous In Vitro Propagation of the Human Pathogen Babesia microti in Human Erythrocytes @yalemedicine.bsky.social @yalepress.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

💡 We are inviting you to nominate a woman in microbiology whose work or impact deserves to be seen. Selected nominations will be featured on the FEMS website and across our social media channels on International Women’s Day, 8 March. 👉 Who inspires you? Nominate them by 4 March . buff.ly/AKyMbQD

An amazing postdoc opportunity for who wants to work on an important neglected disease and do single cell transcriptomic in Zürich!

Sebastian Shaw@millseba.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🚨 Postdoc position 🚨 I’m moving back to Switzerland this summer to launch my lab at the University of Zurich and am recruiting a Postdoctoral Fellow (start: late 2026). Details & application: jobs.uzh.ch/job-vacancie.... Please share! 😊

Groundbreaking study for who of us wonder how those expanded GTPases kill intracellular pathogens! Lipid curvature matters to bind active caspases. Could be the same for rounding vacuoles just prior breaking proint? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Caspase-4 binds to LPS membranes with positive curvature for non-canonical inflammasome activation

The non-canonical inflammasome, comprising caspase-4 in humans, initiates pyroptosis upon sensing cytosolic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Gram-negativ…

sciencedirect.com