Come be our colleague. I have been in this Division for 27 years (4 as a postdoc and 23 as a PI). It is an amazing place to work, collaborate, and be inspired. If you are applying to be an Assistant or Associate Professor this Fall, don't miss this deadline.

Fred Hutch Basic Sciences Division@basicsci.fredhutch.org · 4w ago

Join @FredHutch.org's Basic Sciences Division as an Assistant or Associate Professor and help shape the future of fundamental biology. We welcome applicants whose work will complement, extend, or bring new directions to the division.

Happy to share the first preprint out of the Nomburg lab! Many aspects of cellular immunity are shared across the tree of life. Here, we show that some of these conserved aspects of cellular immunity are mirrored by conserved effectors of immune antagonism. Thread below! 1/15

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

Conserved folds enable immune antagonism across the tree of life https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.21.739742v1

#microsky New preprint from the lab! Widespread immune systems protect bacteria against conjugative plasmids www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Kudos to the extremely talented lead author Ludovic Poiré! Key contributions by @francoisrousset.bsky.social and also help from C. Lesterlin/TacC lab. 🧵⬇️

Widespread immune systems protect bacteria against conjugative plasmids

Conjugative plasmids are a class of mobile genetic elements capable of efficient transfer between bacterial cells. Although they can introduce beneficial traits such as antibiotic resistance to recipi...

biorxiv.org

Humans and bacteria share strategies to defend against viruses. We wondered: could they use each other's genes? Yes, both can! Bacteria can use human immune genes to defend against phages AND Human cells can use bacterial genes for viral defense. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Bacterial and human exonucleases mediate interkingdom antiviral immunity

All kingdoms of life have developed strategies to limit viral infection. In humans, interferons induce a suite of antiviral factors that collectively provide immunity. Some human immune genes are homo...

biorxiv.org

We've pulled up a chair for you and even made you a plate. Join us!

Julie Pfeiffer@jkpfeiff.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Faculty search announcement 2026: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Microbiology at UT Southwestern in Dallas. We seek candidates working in microbial pathogenesis (broadly defined). Come join our community! (1/5) www.utsouthwestern.edu/departments/...

Congratulations @kranzuschlab.bsky.social and @sgfern.bsky.social! A thrilling read borne from a fantastic idea!

Kranzusch Lab@kranzuschlab.bsky.social · 3mo ago

How do human cells defend against viruses? @sgfern.bsky.social discovers that human immune proteins named ISGs target ancient features of replication shared between animal and bacterial viruses – opening analysis of human immunity to the power of bacterial genetics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

(1/6) Thrilled to share this story! In our preprint from my PhD in the @kranzuschlab.bsky.social, with help from the Hatfull lab and @soreklab.bsky.social, we discover RyDEP, a phage-encoded RyR-domain glycosidase that allows phages to evade Thoeris defense. Highlights below! doi.org/10.64898/202...

📣Huge preprint 🔔 Today we share something our group has been working toward for a long time, led by @lucasmoriniere.bsky.social We asked can we predict which receptor a phage targets from its genome sequence alone? For most phages, we couldn’t. So Lucas set out to do something I had only dreamed of.

Hello world! I am excited to announce my lab is open at the University of Utah in the Department of Biochemistry. We are looking for scientists at all levels interested in studying host-virus interactions in both bacteria and animals. Come join us in beautiful Utah! (photo is 10 steps from lab)

🚀New preprint from our lab! I am very excited to finally share what has been the main focus of my PhD for the past almost 3 years! It is about viral dark matter and a powerful tool we built to shed light on it. 🧬💡 Continue reading (🧵)

🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages. Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms. A thread 1/8

Biology is much more complicated than most non-biologists can imagine. And AI is not going to change this anytime soon. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/we-still-c...

We still can’t predict much of anything in biology

Biology is hard. Yes, even for AI.

blog.genesmindsmachines.com

Lab’s 1st preprint! Menstruation is understudied due to societal taboos + a biological challenge: mice (a key system for research + drug discovery) don’t menstruate. @cagricevrim.bsky.social made menstruating mice + used them to discover early events in menstruation. He is on the job market!

Çağrı Çevrim@cagricevrim.bsky.social · 11mo ago

I’m thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! 🎉 @karalmckinley.bsky.social We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice. We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵

Viral AlphaFold Database (VAD) is live in Science Advances ~27,000 predicted viral protein monomers & homodimers Conserved folds across bacteria, archaea & eukaryotic viruses New toxin–antitoxin system KreTA uncovered Vast “functional darkness” remains uncharted www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The Viral AlphaFold Database of monomers and homodimers reveals conserved protein folds in viruses of bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes

VAD is a Viral AlphaFold Database of protein monomers and homodimers from viruses infecting hosts across the tree of life.

science.org

Join us on Friday at noon for a great seminar from Tera Levin @teralevin.bsky.social! @uwmadisonmmi.bsky.social

Photosynthetic slugs ??!!??! (also, I love the name 'kleptosome' for an organelle).

Harmit Singh Malik@harmitmalik.bsky.social · 12mo ago

www.cell.com/cell/abstrac... A host organelle (in sea slugs) integrates stolen chloroplasts for animal photosynthesis

Come be my colleague! I've been very happy at UTSW Micro. Why? Its a supportive environment full of excellent people. There's strong ambition, reflexive empathy, and excellent resources.

Julie Pfeiffer@jkpfeiff.bsky.social · last yr.

Faculty search announcement 2025: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Microbiology at UT Southwestern. We seek candidates working in microbial pathogenesis (some preference may be given to bacterial pathogens). Come join our community! (1/5) www.utsouthwestern.edu/departments/...

Our lab’s 1st manuscript was also Elsevier’s first test case for complying with the new NIH Public Access Policy. It was a bit tricky to figure out how to make everybody happy (you could put that on my epitaph...) A🧵 on how I threaded this needle of compliance!

Kevin Forsberg@kvnforsberg.bsky.social · last yr.

Oh, and also! We happened to be the first authors in all of Elsevier to contend with the new NIH Public Access Policy. Stay tuned for summary thread on that experience… (3/3)

Very proud to have our lab’s first work published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social! In this work, we use functional metagenomics to find phage defenses from human and soil microbiomes! Congrats to first author @luis840alberto.bsky.social ! www.cell.com/cell-host-mi... (1/3)

Metagenomic selections reveal diverse antiphage defenses in human and environmental microbiomes

Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al. use functional metagenomics to identify hundreds of sequences from diverse environmental bacteria that block phage infection when expressed in E. coli. Their discoveries inc...

cell.com

Kevin Forsberg@kvnforsberg.bsky.social · 2y ago

My lab’s first preprint! We used functional metagenomics to identify phage defenses in human and soil microbiomes. We scaled these selections while maintaining accuracy, enabling us to examine 9 habitats for defense elements against 7 phages. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/10

🦠🧍‍♀️From bacterial to human immunity. We report in @science.org the discovery of a human homolog of SIR2 antiphage proteins that participates in the TLR pathway of animal innate immunity. Co-led wt @enzopoirier.bsky.social by D. Bonhomme and @hugovaysset.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

1/10 New pre-print(s) from the Sternberg Lab in collaboration with Leifu Chang's Lab! We uncover the unprecedented molecular mechanism of CRISPR-Cas12f-like proteins, which drive RNA-guided transcription independently of canonical promoter motifs. Full story here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to share that my work in the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab describing chaperone-mediated phage sensing by a bacterial NLR-related protein is out in @plosbiology.org!

PLOS Biology@plosbiology.org · last yr.

Bacteria encode homologs of the human NACHT proteins that form inflammasomes and use them to defend against phage #infection. @amyconte.bsky.social @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social &co show that bNACHT25 detects diverse phages indirectly through interaction with the host chaperone DnaJ. 🧪 plos.io/4koXP60

My lab’s first preprint! We used functional metagenomics to identify phage defenses in human and soil microbiomes. We scaled these selections while maintaining accuracy, enabling us to examine 9 habitats for defense elements against 7 phages. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/10

Three must read papers for PhD students. #scisky #PhD #science #research #academicsky 1. The importance of stupidity in scientific research Open Access journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Out in NAR, AntiDefenseFinder & our "systematic" analysis of inhibitors of antiphage systems wt Bondy-Denomy lab led by @ftesson.bsky.social and E. Huiting. Not so "systematic" as very few known, fun stuff on MGE, antidefense islands and cool phages exaptations! academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Exploring the diversity of anti-defense systems across prokaryotes, phages and mobile genetic elements

Abstract. The co-evolution of prokaryotes, phages and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) has driven the diversification of defense and anti-defense systems ali

academic.oup.com

Wow - bluesky! 📈 🦠 Please help me amplify a special faculty search. We're looking for someone in "Microbial Systems Biology" to join me and @kreynoldslab.bsky.social at UTSW Sys Bio / Bioinformatics. There is an empty lab space right next to us waiting for you! apply.interfolio.com/154339 1/4

Oh boy! @harmitmalik.bsky.social is on bluesky?!? It's getting real! I can feel the added gravitas.

Come be my colleague! I've been very, very happy at UTSW Micro. Supportive environment. Strong ambition. Strong empathy. Excellent resources. jobs.utsouthwestern.edu/job/20847915...

Job Details

Discover Assistant Professor in Microbial Pathogenesis and other Faculty and Physicians jobs in Dallas, TX and apply online today!

jobs.utsouthwestern.edu

🚨My department is HIRING🚨 Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine invites applicants for tenure-track microbiology faculty at the Assistant or Associate Professor level. Our scope is broad, we seek creative colleagues! More info: tinyurl.com/PittMMG-Jobs

Come be my colleague! The Bioinformatics Dept at UT Southwestern has a new TT faculty position open in microbial systems biology, broadly defined: apply.interfolio.com/132461