I'm excited to be co-organizing the 2026 Midwest Microbial Pathogenesis Conference, which will take place Sept 25-27 on the UMN campus in Minneapolis! Poster abstracts due Aug 7! Submit yours & register here ➡️ mmpc2026.umn.edu

Save the date! The 23rd International Conference on Bacilli and Gram-Positive Bacteria will take place from June 29 to July 2 in Ljubljana, Slovenia! #pogacar #pogi #subtiwiki

Pls share. Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences - Genetics/Genomics at Smith College. apply.interfolio.com/190342

Work on the new edition of the Mycobacteria Protocols is well underway. We have a couple of spaces, so if you are interested and have a new method you think would be a no brainer to include, drop us a line.. #Mycobacteria #MycobacteriaProtocols #TB #TBResearch🦠🧪

Bacteriology-Focused Assistant Professor Position in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan Application deadline: August 15, 2026 Come be my colleague!

Next summer's Epigenetics GRC (I'm co-chairing with Deborah Bouch'is) is shaping up nicely with an all-star lineup of speakers working on a broad range of organisms and systems and everything from molecular mechanisms to new phenomena. Apply and put it on your calendar! www.grc.org/epigenetics-...

Please repost! #microsky🦠 The Glickman Lab at MSK is recruiting! Projects in Mtb pathogenesis, basic biology of mycobacteria, and mycobacterial cancer therapies. See our publications here: tinyurl.com/3f386f4x Send CV and cover letter to: glickmanmycolab@gmail.com

Another example of a clonal transmissible cancer, this time in catfish. Previously reported in bivalves by Steve Goff and others. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Brown bullhead catfish melanoma represents a novel transmissible cancer - Nature

Whole-genome sequencing analysis of tumour and matched non-tumour host tissues of the brown bullhead catfish reveals a type of naturally occurring transmissible cancer.

nature.com

University of Colorado Boulder is hiring: Postdoctoral Research Associate in Complex Demographic Processes in Mountain Environments #postdoc #ecology

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 · 2w ago

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

Replication-coupled search positions MutH for strand incision in DNA mismatch repair https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.21.739762v1

Matching T cells to their cognate peptides presented on MHC molecules from sequence data is a key unsolved problem in computational immunology. A transformative collaboration with @quaidmorris.bsky.social. Led by Olga Lyudovyk, @levinejon.bsky.social & Melissa Pathil! 👇 @mskcancercenter.bsky.social

Quaid Morris@quaidmorris.bsky.social · 2w ago

Can we predict which T cells recognize which peptides? A lot of the signal is hiding in AlphaFold3's (AF3's) hallucinations. enFoldX: instead of one predicted structure, we use the whole noisy ensemble to predict TCR:pMHC binding. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 💻 🧬 github.com/jonlevi/enFoldX

Amazing week of science & camaraderie at GRC Microbial Toxins & Pathogenicity! Many thanks to chair @torreslab.bsky.social & the discussion leaders, speakers, poster presenters, attendees, & staff for an awesome meeting! Excited to organize the next one with new vice-chair @sauerlab.bsky.social!

This is a fantastic opportunity, I started my lab through this scheme and the support throughout is phenomenal, please share.

The Dunn School, Oxford@dunnschool.bsky.social · 3w ago

Are you a postdoc interested in the mechanisms of disease? Do you have a great record and an exciting vision? Come and start your own lab @dunnschool.bsky.social by applying for sponsorship for early career fellowships. Deadline 22nd of September...please share! www.path.ox.ac.uk/work-with-us...

Tired of AI-generated figures? I asked our talented scientific illustrator Manon Zuurmond to draw some of the instruments and lab equipment we missed in NIH's otherwise fantastic BioArt resource. First batch now available as CC BY. Free for everyone to use in publications: github.com/Center-for-P...

Cool. See also this paper for a similar approach pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

A split ALFA tag-nanobody system for protein localization and proximity proteomics in mycobacteria

Tuberculosis remains a globally significant infection, and new insights into the biology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are badly needed. Discovery of protein localization and protein complex compositi...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Felipe Opazo@opazo.bsky.social · last mo.

New paper! 🚀 A high-affinity anti- #mNeonGreen #nanobody turns #mNG into a #multifunctional Tag. @nanotag.bsky.social decided to openly share the #nanobody for research use. Not common, but we strongly believe well-defined reagents are key for reproducible science. We hope you find it useful! 💚

Mark it in your calendars. Vector-Pathogens Keystone Symposium (February 1-5 2027) in Geneva, Switzerland. www.keystonesymposia.org/conferences/...

Out Now! Identification of chemical features for improved outer membrane permeation in mycobacteria using machine learning #MicroSky

Identification of chemical features for improved outer membrane permeation in mycobacteria using machine learning

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 30 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02412-5Screening 1,572 compounds for mycomembrane permeation plus cheminformatic and machine learning analyses reveals features associated with improved permeation in the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis and model organism M. smegmatis.

go.nature.com

Pls share: U of Washington has an opening for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor. This position is expected to specialize in molecular virology or bacteriology. Here is a link: microbiology.washington.edu/index.php/ne...

📢 We're hiring! The Department of Microbiology & Cell Biology at Montana State University is hiring an Assistant Professor of Microbiology. We welcome applicants working in microbial pathogenesis, immunology, genetics, microbial evolution, and related areas. Apply: jobs.montana.edu/postings/52009

I wanted to like QED's new 1% preprint ranking. I really did. But the more I looked at the data, the more uncomfortable it made me. Here is my full peer review. open.substack.com/pub/blekhman...

My Peer Review of The 1%

I wanted to like QED's new 1% ranking. I don't.

open.substack.com

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

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

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/...

Latest work from my lab, in which @amycrobes.bsky.social probes the evolutionary consequences of prophages potentiating death at otherwise sublethal antibiotic doses

Amy Zamora@amycrobes.bsky.social · last mo.

We're excited to share our work on how prophages influence the evolution of resistance against DNA-damaging antibiotics! This has been a fun project with @sianowen.bsky.social, @baym.lol, @theshreyaspai.bsky.social, @kepatitis-c.bsky.social, & @fernpizza.bsky.social biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/

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...

Gloves are off! TODAY WE RELEASE THE 1% A list of the year’s very best papers 👇 (see thread)

Come join the new Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Design as a group leader Cool science in a great scientific environment in wonderful and very family friendly Copenhagen There are two positions that can either be at TT assistant or associate prof level employment.ku.dk/tenure-track...

Tenure-track Assistant Professor or Associate Professor of De novo Protein Design

The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Design at the University of Copenhagen seeks to appoint two new group leaders in de novo protein design from 1 February 2027 or as soon as possible thereafter. These positions will be at the Assistant or Associate Professor level and associated with the Department of Biology (Faculty of Science) or the Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology (Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences).

employment.ku.dk

Yesha Patel here reviews how mutations in RNAP contribute to antibiotic resistance, with examples from both laboratory evolution and clinical settings. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... This work builds on two of her prior papers (PMIDs: 36779708 and 39908144). #MicroSky #antibiotics

Cas9+ conditionally immortalized neutrophil progenitors as a tool for genome wide CRISPR screening for neutrophil differentiation and function

Cas9+ conditionally immortalized neutrophil progenitors as a tool for genome wide CRISPR screening for neutrophil differentiation and function

Abstract

buff.ly

This has me worried, but remember, the next Biology of Mycobacteria GRC is now 2028!

MRC-LMB Cell Biology Division@cellbiol-mrclmb.bsky.social · 2mo ago

If you have ever chaired a GRC this is for you - so close to the truth that it is barely parody!

Thanks for highlighting this topic, and for including bacteria in the story.

Philip Ball@philipcball.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I suspect it's not widely known that (or how much) genetic variation that would otherwise be deleterious is "hidden" by buffering. Much of that is accomplished by a protein called Hsp90. I've written a feature for Nature about it. www.nature.com/articles/d41...