After a bit of a rough patch my lab's funding situation has taken a significant upturn, so if you're looking for a Postdoc position please keep us in mind...Pseudomonas aeruginosa genetics, regulation, and physiology - with a focus on the cell envelope. Please repost. andrewdarwinlab.org

Thanks Monir and Danae for covering our work!

Monir Moniruzzaman@giantvirus.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Our News and Views article discussing @mfels.bsky.social et al's work on how a giant virus manipulates its host's translation during infection is out today in Nature Microbiology. PhD student Danae Stephens is a co-author. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am once again begging universities to take political action and support faculty taking action. Instead of doubling grant-writing efforts, give faculty .01 fte for writing op eds and articles telling the public how important their research is. Devote communications resources to the same.

@nitzantal.bsky.social @romihadary.bsky.social @soreklab.bsky.social use structure prediction and in silico binding site analysis to discover viral immune evasion proteins! Exciting for our lab @reneechang.bsky.social @riveralopz.bsky.social to help with this project. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The giant viruses surprised us at almost every turn of this project, but ultimately led us down a very rewarding path. Happy to share this work is now available online 🧪

Cell - a Cell Press journal@cp-cell.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Now online! Giant DNA viruses encode a hallmark translation initiation complex of eukaryotic life

Viral entry converges on a cellular stress pathway to remodel host ribosomes by redirecting an additional copy of a 60S ribosomal protein to the 40S subunit! Really cool story from my colleague Hsin-Yu.

bioRxivpreprint@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Ribosome remodeling drives translation adaptation during viral infection and cellular stress https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.24.684008v1

The latest preprint from the lab is out! Here we used structural clustering and immunoprecipitations to uncover some networks in our knowledge of giant virons proteomes. An interesting story by Hela Safi and @ambsch.bsky.social. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Elucidating the interaction network of one of the largest icosahedral capsids in the virosphere

Giant viruses challenge traditional boundaries of virology with their large particle sizes, complex genomes, and unique replication strategies. Yet, despite its 750 nm diameter and incorporation of do...

biorxiv.org

Are viruses capable of regulating protein synthesis in the nuanced way of cellular organisms? Kinda! I’m excited to share some of my postdoc work that leveraged giant DNA viruses to address this question.

Giant DNA viruses encode a hallmark translation initiation complex of eukaryotic life

In contrast to living organisms, viruses were long thought to lack protein synthesis machinery and instead depend on host factors to translate viral transcripts. Here, we discover that giant DNA virus...

biorxiv.org

Our story describing the Panoptes bacterial immune defense system is now finally peer-reviewed and published today! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Panoptes system uses decoy cyclic nucleotides to defend against phage - Nature

The Panoptes antiphage system defends bacteria by detecting phage-encoded counter-defences that sequester cyclic nucleotide signals, triggering membrane disruption and highlighting a broader strategy of sensing immune evasion through second-messenger surveillance.

nature.com

>18,000 new genomes of giant DNA viruses! An incredible trove of new genes and insights into evolution of host-virus interactions from @fmschu.bsky.social and @jgi.doe.gov www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Starting the lab Bluesky account to share a preprint from @aragucci.bsky.social and @sadieantine.bsky.social‬ that reveals molecular principles shared across diverse nuclease-NTPase anti-phage defense systems in bacterial immunity (1/7) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Nuclease-NTPase systems use shared molecular features to control bacterial anti-phage defense

Bacteria encode an enormous diversity of defense systems including restriction-modification and CRISPR-Cas that cleave nucleic acid to protect against phage infection. Bioinformatic analyses demonstra...

biorxiv.org