Lab beach day 🏖️

Devastating for local (and global) wildlife www.theguardian.com/environment/...

One billion plastic pellets spilled into River Tyne after two ships collide

Up to 25 tonnes of nurdles, the raw material for plastic manufacturing, have spread further than initially feared

theguardian.com

The EMBO workshop (March 2027) on marine microbial chemicals communication is open for abstract submission and registration (deadline 20th Oct 2026). The inaugural meeting in 2025 was fantastic and there are already some great speakers lined up, highly recommended. meetings.embo.org/event/27-mar...

Abstract submission is now open for Bioprosp 27 in beautiful Arctic Norway 🌌 www.tekna.no/en/bioprosp/...

www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/c...

Sea Mining Could Devastate an Enigmatic Group of Creatures, Researchers Warn

nytimes.com

Long day, but rewarded with this stunning cycle home

Microbes that have the greatest genomic potential for secondary metabolism tend to be multicellular. Here, we show that signatures of ancestral BGC expansions within 3 bacterial phyla and 2 fungal lineages coincide with origins of complex multicellularity [1/12] 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Complex multicellularity is linked with expanded specialized metabolite production in microorganisms - Nature Microbiology

The evolutionary emergence of complex multicellularity in bacteria and fungi, such as the ability for mycelial growth, is strongly associated with increased genomic carriage of biosynthetic machinery ...

nature.com

Delighted to be asked to give a keynote talk at Bioprosp 20207 in Arctic Norwary (9-11 March). www.tekna.no/en/bioprosp. The abstract deadline is 1st October. There’s a diverse range of biodiscovery topics incl functional metagenomics plus it‘s a wonderful community.

This has been such a fun collaboration and a great example of team science

Patrick Moynihan@pmoyniha.bsky.social · last mo.

New paper in collaboration with @proftracypalmer.bsky.social, @lislowe.bsky.social and many more. We show that mycobacteria produce Type VII secreted anti-bacterial protein toxins. Excited to explore this new area of mycobacterial biology. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Latest from the lab and a fantastic collaboration with Eric Brown's team at @mcmasteriidr.bsky.social. Screening for new antibiotics from actinomycete extracts under nutrient-deprived conditions identifies a megacluster of synergistic antibiotics that target biotin biosynthesis. rdcu.be/fqejG

A Streptomyces megacluster encodes synergistic biotin-targeting antibiotics

Nature - In Streptomyces spp., a conserved biosynthetic gene megacluster produces an arsenal of distinct antimicrobials that converge on bacterial biotin biosynthesis as a naturally evolved...

rdcu.be

Check out our latest T7SS toxin story. These reverse toxins aren’t as rare as we thought!

bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · last mo.

A novel reverse lipase toxin substrate of the Staphylococcus aureus type VII secretion system https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.22.733114v1

Don't miss this review by Mark Butler & Robert Capon at the University of Queensland providing a comprehensive account of the 217 natural product inspired antibiotics approved for human use from 1943-2025 #chemsky #natprod #medchem Check it out on our website👇

Natural product inspired antibiotics approved for human use – 1943 to 2025

Covering literature to September 2025 This review provides a comprehensive account of the 217 natural product inspired antibiotics that have been approved for human use from 1943 through to September…

pubs.rsc.org

Our latest paper ‘Ecological context for bacterial natural products’ is now out in the Royal Society of Chemistry @natprodreports.rsc.org International effort with @jonathanparra.bsky.social, Marla I Macias-Contreras & Dulce Guillen Matus #puravida #naturalproducts pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/A...

Ecological context for bacterial natural products discovery

Covering: This review covers literature from 2015 to present.It is widely recognised that there is a significant gap between bacterial natural product potential and detected/described products. As suc...

pubs.rsc.org

Dr Carolin Kabros (University of Birmingham) presenting the work on Staphylococcus leading up to her BBSRC Fellowship at a @cbcb-newcastle.bsky.social @medicalsciencesncl.bsky.social @newcastleuni.bsky.social #newPI #Microbiology

Nature research paper: A natural depsipeptide antibiotic binds the E-site of the bacterial ribosome go.nature.com/3RMNwPW

A natural depsipeptide antibiotic binds the E-site of the bacterial ribosome - Nature

Improved fractionation strategies can identify antibiotics with previously unseen scaffolds and mechanisms, exemplified by manikomycin from Streptomyces rimosus, which acts by targeting the E-site of the bacterial large ribosomal subunit.

go.nature.com

Time for @kateduncan.bsky.social to talk about chemistry and why microbes use it via some interactive questions

We start of the ‘2026 Celebration of Microbiology’ event @newcastleuni.bsky.social @medicalsciencesncl.bsky.social organised by PhD and Postdoc reps from @mhd-newcastle.bsky.social @cbcb-newcastle.bsky.social Chloe, Natalia, Rachel and Jean-Lou

Want to research the basis of how drug resistant bacteria interact with human immune cells? Fully funded 4-year PhD position available (UK home students). Come and join our amazing interdisciplinary team at the intersection of microbiology, immunity, metabolism and the clinic! Please spread the word

Hiding in plain sight: How a multi-drug resistant pathogen evades detection and killing by human neutrophils at Newcastle University on FindAPhD.com

PhD Project - Hiding in plain sight: How a multi-drug resistant pathogen evades detection and killing by human neutrophils at Newcastle University, listed on FindAPhD.com

findaphd.com

🔓Be sure to read this #OpenAccess Highlight by Barbara I. Adaikpoh from the University of Illinois Chicago in our latest issue looking at microbial natural products activated by plant stress #natprod #secmet Find the full article on our website👇

Microbial natural products activated by plant stress

Covering: 2000 to August 2025 The search for new antimicrobial natural products from microorganisms has been limited by the transcriptional silencing of biosynthetic genes when microbes are…

pubs.rsc.org

Wonderful to have Dr Rebecca McHugh @rebeccamchugh.bsky.social at @newcastleuni.bsky.social to give a @mhd-newcastle.bsky.social seminar today on her BBSRC fellowship work at @uofgsii.bsky.social - fantastic to see talented people (Becca & group) working with talented bacteria (Streptomyces)

How I’ve managed to get new flowers on an orchid but kill off a fern is anyone’s guess 🤷🏻‍♀️ #academicplants

Our study on Bacteroides iron piracy is now out in @pnas.org. We show how surface-exposed lipoproteins bind xenosiderophores with different iron-chelating chemistries and propose a mechanism for xenosiderophore import across the outer membrane. Lots of structures (mostly X-ray this time)!

Structural basis of iron piracy by human gut Bacteroides | PNAS

Iron is an essential element that can be growth-limiting in microbial communities, particularly those present within host organisms. To acquire iro...

doi.org

🎉A wonderful day yesterday at Burlington House for the @natprodreports.rsc.org Editorial Board meeting! It was great to have all the board together in person to talk about the exciting future for the journal and natural products research as a field #natprod #secmet

Please share - full funded (UK students only) PhD studentship in the Duncan lab ‘intergrated ‘omics for accelerated antibtioic dicovery from abyssal actinomycetes’. Co-supervisors @thecopperdoctor.bsky.social, Marcel Jaspars, @zmaw.bsky.social- deadline 20th May www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Excited to announce our new paper in Nature Microbiology describing diphtheria toxin homologues in Streptomyces called Streptomyces antiquus insecticidal proteins (SAIP), stemming from a long term collaboration with Ying Xu, Min Dong, Cameron Currie, and many others. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Streptomyces produce a diphtheria toxin-like exotoxin that targets insects - Nature Microbiology

Bioinformatic, structural and functional analyses characterize Streptomyces antiquus insecticidal protein (SAIP) as a diphtheria toxin homologue that is lethal to insect cells and targets the Flower p...

nature.com

H2moo

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

Postdoc @zmaw.bsky.social giving a seminar for our Microbes in Health & Disease @mhd-newcastle.bsky.social research theme today #metabolomics #actinomycetes

Wonderful to have @pmoyniha.bsky.social from Western University, Canada (hosted by @lislowe.bsky.social) giving a @mhd-newcastle.bsky.social seminar @medicalsciencesncl.bsky.social @newcastleuni.bsky.social #mycobacterium #tb #cellwalls

Nothing says spring like the cows returning to town moor 🐮