A creamy colony of contaminant.

After a collective 28 hours of GPU time, the exosome for MD simulations for our iGEM project is ready. Now to do this exact thing 4 more times for other exosomes.

Working with M13 phages is so much fun because WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE PLAQUES TURN BLUE!?!?

End of 3rd year presentation really made me realise that job application season is coming towards me in the next few months.

Why did some #viruses evolve to be #giants while others did not? Our perspective piece on this topic with Eugene Koonin. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Why did some viruses evolve to be giants while others did not? | PNAS

Viruses are ubiquitous mobile genetic elements that are obligate symbionts of cellular life forms and replicate exclusively within host cells. The ...

pnas.org

It's finally published! What a journey @brownlab.bsky.social and I have been on with this one (ask me about it over a pint 🍻). Super excited to be able to say that it's finally out in Trends (author gift link to follow)! 🦠🧫 #phagesky

Trends in Microbiology@cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social · last mo.

The bacterial immune system: identifying evolved defense adaptations

Friends stick together

Phage on a (failed) western blot membrane. PS It’s insane how smooth these membranes are, I’d recommend writing on them.

I had seen water leak from the roof, but a squirrel leak is a first for me. The wonders of Firth Court.

Lilia H :)@lilia-elle.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New footage uncovered of Dr. Squirrel’s escape shows his attempt to elude @funnirudh.bsky.social

Very cool

Rob Edwards@linsalrob.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Starting with the DNA sequence of a #phage genome, #PholdAPhage will create a 3D reconstruction of the complete phage, almost like you did cryoEM on it! Check out Renee's awesome software github.com/reneegreen81... to assemble unknown phage particles one protein at a time

Some non-phage TEM today. It seems like our iGEM team has successfully managed to induce exosomes from HEK cells. Now to engineer its membrane and package our protein in it. #exosomes

New #microsky#AMR Perspective paper with @penamiller.bsky.social rdcu.be/fqBJo ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE (IE MIC) AND TOLERANCE ARE NOT BACTERIAL TRAITS! Please read on if you want an explanation for this provocative claim.

Beyond resistance and tolerance: rethinking evolutionary responses to antibiotics from the perspective of individual bacterial cells

Nature Communications - Beyond resistance and tolerance: rethinking evolutionary responses to antibiotics from the perspective of individual bacterial cells

rdcu.be

~£18,000 raised so far, with IDT and Vazyme sponsoring our reagents; we are making steady progress towards our goal of engineering exosomes that cross the blood brain barrier and deliver Dravet Syndrome therapeutics. #healthcare

🛠️💉It's time for engineering contractile injection systems! @chipericson.bsky.social & @davidschaumann.bsky.social introduce programmable CIS - PROCIS, combining tail length control, non-native cargo loading, and cell retargeting all in one system! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵 1/5

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!

Pretty pink single colonies on my pack of soft cheese. I wish my actual plates were so lucky. If anyone know what this might be, please do tell.

Free and open-source images, icons, and tools for creating scientific illustrations doi.org/10.59350/5zt... 🧪

Free and open-source images, icons, and tools for creating scientific illustrations

Phylopic, NIH Bioart, Bioicons, Scidraw, Open Science Art, Health Icons, Servier Medical Art, Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Noun Project, Segment Anything, Excalidraw, draw.io, Biographics

doi.org

Bit late to the party but I presented our work at Microsoc 2026 in Belfast this year. It was great to see so many talks on such diverse topics but of course I was biased towards phages and eukaryotic viruses talks.

Congratulations to everyone involved! Glad to have contributed to this work.

Rob Fagan@robfagan.bsky.social · 8mo ago

New paper from us. If you're interested in genetic manipulation of Clostridia, we have a few new tools for you! 36 new plasmids - all available from @addgene.bsky.social www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour... #microsky

Had the opportunity to present my work at Viruses of Microbes UK this year. Had a lot of fruitful discussions regarding the work and phage therapy. Looking forward to seeing everyone in Prague in July!

Thrilled to present the findings from my 2025 #SUREscheme project - 'Investigating the influence of latent bacteriophages on healthcare-associated C. difficile lysogens' - at the showcase yesterday evening. Huge thanks to @funnirudh.bsky.social and @robfagan.bsky.social for making this possible!

🚨 Fully funded PhD studentships 🚨 We have three fully funded PhD studentships available for Oct 26 start. Funded by the MRC DiMeN programme & the BBSRC Yorkshire Biosciences DTP. Details below as they are advertised. Contact me here or via email for more details or to discuss an application

Clostridial Cell Biology Group

We are the Clostridial Cell Biology Group at the University of Sheffield. We study all aspects of cell biology, including the architecture and biogenesis of surface structures on both vegetative cells...

sites.google.com

Look at this beautiful CsCl gradient. I’m lying, my gradient crashed. I lost my phages and I am going home.

Nothing feels better than a payday. #iGEM

You know that antibiotic use can exert pressure on bacterial populations to evolve resistance. So are vaccines exerting similar pressure on viruses? Let's talk about how vaccines MIGHT make viruses evolve to be LESS harmful over time. Warning: I'm speaking broadly here & biology loves exceptions.

Lab on tour - the wonderful #ClostPath2025 organisers have arranged great walking tours. Guess where we are?

We’re here, and we’re square.

A novel two-component system controls vancomycin resistance in epidemic Clostridioides difficile https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.21.671617v1

Me seeing the price of booking the cryo-EM for 3 days.

Moe Mahjoub@mahjoublab.bsky.social · last yr.

Me every month when the tissue culture and mouse facility invoices drop. #academia

Hello everyone! I am pleased to share information on the first ever Computational Structural Virology Symposium, conducted August 4th on zoom and highlighting work in this emerging field. You can register for this event here: forms.gle/CNiqskMwQEuV.... Please re-post!