Do you study human microbiomes? Have you used the word "commensal"? Then this paper was written with you in mind! It was an absolute pleasure to write this with the incomparable @ginalewin.bsky.social journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

mGem: Tapping into the language of symbiosis to advance human microbiome research | mBio

An overarching goal in microbiome research is to understand how the complex communities in our bodies contribute to health and disease, and ultimately, we aim to leverage and control these communities...

journals.asm.org

On May 1 the lab celebrated the end of a tough but productive semester! Five papers submitted and a lot of work put in. The lovely Ariane Peralta send over an Edible Arrangement to celebrate Lily's tenure packet submission and we all chowed down :)

Belated congrats to postdoc @ian-oiler.bsky.social for winning a poster award at the RUMP (Rutgers University Microbiome Program) Symposium! He presented his work on honeypot-associated Fructilactobacillus genomes and genome-scale metabolic models. Thanks RUMP and the RAD Collaboratory!

A new paper, "Honeypots: a review of repletism across the ants" from our lab was published today, with grad student Bianca Nogueira as first author, and co-authors DiemQuynh Nguyen, @adriatica.bsky.social, and @haidomyrmex.bsky.social. It was a labor of love! doi.org/10.25849/myr... 🧵

Together with the @brittbertolet.bsky.social lab, we decorated cookies and will take them to the department holiday party later this week 🎅

Most of the lab attended the Theobald Smith Society meeting last week. Faith, DiemQuynh and Ian all presented posters, and DiemQuynh presented a brief talk on her work. We all learned a lot, received great feedback and had great conversations with other attendees. @njmicrobe.bsky.social

The team is all here! Faith, DiemQuynh and Bianca (PhD students), Lashon (undergrad), Lily (PI) and Ian (postdoc). Excited for a lot of great science from a group of excellent people.

Good fun in the field with DiemQuynh who is learning how to collect honeypot ants while hanging upside down