Congratulations to Lukas! 🎉 PhD student #12, part of the “second gen PhD students”. Lukas was the first in my group to work on animal natural products. He laid the basis for several projects that will now follow up on his stunning work on ant venoms. #ants #venoms #proudPI

#Promotion in der Naturstoff-Forschung / Pharmazeutischen Biologie? Wir haben eine freie Stelle am Institut für #Pharmazie der FU Berlin... :-) jobs.fu-berlin.de/job/Wiss_-Mi...

Sachsen-Anhalt - überparteiliche Kampagne gegen AfD: 1️⃣ Auf taktisch-waehlen.de zeigt unser Tool die beste taktische Wahl je Wahlkreis. 2️⃣ Wir suchen noch Leute für 6 Aktions-Wochenenden vor Ort. Die Anmeldung ist kostenlos auf unserer Mitmachen-Seite. taktisch-waehlen.de

Taktisch Wählen

Die AfD möchte nicht, dass du erfährst wie du deine Stimmen bei der Landtagswahl in Sachsen-Anhalt am besten gegen sie einsetzen kannst...

taktisch-waehlen.de

Congratulations to Valerie! 🎉 PhD student #11, part of the “second gen PhD students”. Valerie was the first in my group focusing on mode-of-action work, and she did a great job elucidating the MoA of #aetokthonotoxin and the ambigols. #cyanotoxins #proudPI

Déjà vu! I am incredibly honored to receive our students' Teaching Award for the second year in a row. 🏆 I didn’t even know winning back-to-back was possible. A massive thank you to all the students who voted. Still discussing with the students what to do with the award money this year... 😁

Once again: German universities were the envy of the world before the Nazis rose to power and took an ideological wrecking ball to the entire enterprise. If you want to know how long it took for German universities to recover… they haven’t.

Katie Mack@astrokatie.com · 3mo ago

It’s truly astonishing to see how comprehensively the US government is tearing down every part of the system that has made it up until now a world-leading power in science, research, and technological development. The entire world will suffer from this wanton destruction.

Auf der #rp26 zeigte @arnesemsrott.bsky.social auf, wie die autoritäre Wende schon längst im Gange ist: Die Regierung setzt Wünsche der extremen Rechten um & übergeht die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung. Zeit, dass aus der demokratischen Mehrheit eine #Gegenmacht wird! www.youtube.com/watch?v=7waH...

New research finds that nursing carpenter ants apply their venom to their brood to prevent fungal infections, highlighting peptides’ role in colony hygiene and social immunity. Learn more in this week’s issue of #ScienceAdvances: https://scim.ag/3PfGh24

1/ A thread on our latest publication: Don't tell our beloved cyanobacteria, but we’ve been flirting with ants lately. 🐜 Formicine ants have long been regarded as simple "acid sprayers", containing only formic acid in their venom. Our study shows that this is not the case. 🧵 doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Beyond formic acid: Peptides in carpenter ant venoms aid in disease protection

Contrary to common belief, the acid sprays of carpenter ants contain lipids and antifungal peptides, aiding in disease protection.

doi.org

Why do publishers still send emails like these on a Saturday morning? They should known we might have families and plans for the weekend like everyone else? 🙈

Ja so eine Überraschung. "Deutsche Städte und Landkreise können ihre Einnahmen aus erneuerbaren Energien mehr als verdoppeln, wenn sie die Ausbauziele für Wind- und Solaranlagen erreichen." Die Ergebnisse kommuniziert das Ministerium allerdings nicht.

Wachstum durch Energiewende? Reiche lässt Studie verschwinden

Eine neue Studie im Auftrag des Wirtschaftsministeriums zeigt: Der Ausbau erneuerbarer Energien könnte die regionale Wertschöpfung in Deutschland verdoppeln. Die Ergebnisse kommuniziert das Ministerium allerdings nicht.

t-online.de

#Publication: "Curation of #MassSpectrometry #ReferenceData for Improved Identification and #Dereplication of #Cyanobacterial Specialized #Metabolites" in Journal of #NaturalProducts #OpenAccess 2905 highly curated reference spectra of 150 metabolites now in #Massbank doi.org/10.1021/acs....

This is the one big thing I really don't understand. Even if you don't care about the environment / climate change, you should prefer the cheapest possible ways to generate electricity - solar and wind. How can we teach the public that renewables are best in their own economic interest? #B1804

Highlight #4 – Mode of Action of Aetokthonotoxin. Remember our “bald eagle killer” story and the neurotoxic alkaloid #aetokthonotoxin (#AETX) we discovered from the #cyanobacterium Aetokthonos hydrillicola? (paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/..., behind-the-scenes thread: bsky.app/profile/nied...)

Timo Niedermeyer@niedermeyer-lab.bsky.social · 5y ago

A thread on our latest publication – a publication we worked > 10 years on. 🙃 This project has driven us mad at times. But in the end, it has made it onto the cover of tomorrow’s issue of @ScienceMagazine, so I suppose it was worth it... 😅 1/

Highlight #3 – New Mass Spectrometer. Mass spectrometry is the heartbeat of our research, so it was tough to leave behind our Q Exactive plus when we left the University of Halle. But we have found a worthy successor with our new timsTOF flex MALDI-2! 🎉

Highlight #2 – One of my personal highlights at the end of 2025 was the invitation to give the keynote speech at the BPhD (Federal Association of Pharmacy Students in Germany) meeting in Berlin, organized by our students. Great to see so many engaged students who care for the future of our field.

Highlight #1 – Teaching Award. I’m incredibly honoured that I have been awarded with the 2025 Teaching Award from our students. Research milestones are great, but being recognized by the people in the lecture hall is truly special. A huge thank you to the students for the nomination!

OK, let’s continue with other highlights from the past months. I will restrict myself to the top 4 highlights, as 4 is my lucky number… 🙃

Last but not least... Congratulations to Franziska! 🎉 PhD student #10 leaving the group, also part of the “second gen PhD students”. Franziska focused on advanced mass spec data evaluation and halogenated specialized metabolites from #cyanobacteria. #proudPI

Next one... Congratulations to Diana! 🎉 PhD student #9 leaving the group, also part of the “second gen PhD students”. Diana has worked intensely on #imaging mass spectrometry and natural products from fungal #endophytes. #proudPI

Congratulations to Laura! PhD student #8 leaving the group, and part of the “second gen PhD students” who started their work with me at the University of Halle. Despite a rocky start through Covid lockdowns, she did a great job characterizing #microcystin derivatives! #proudPI

I’ve been quiet for a few months, but the lab definitely has been busier than my feed. There’s a lot to catch up on, so I’ll try to share the most important stuff we have been doing throughout the coming week. I hope that by Friday, we’ll finally be back in the present. 🙃

I am currently moving from Twitter to Bluesky - the transferred tweets have the wrong timestamp on the top right, but the archive date and order is OK... 🙃

Interested in natural product producing microorganisms? 🦠 See you in Berlin... 😀

Interessanter Fund: Es gibt genau eine Partei, die die Aktualisierung der AAppO so wichtig fand, dass sie dieses Thema in ihr Wahlprogramm aufgenommen hat - @gruene.de: "Wir setzen uns für eine Novellierung der Approbationsordnungen des Pharmazie- und Medizinstudiums ein." 👍

I know there is a debate about whether scientists should leave Twitter/X or stay to keep some residual sanity on this platform. While I still enjoy being here (only reading posts from those I actively follow helps...), I do not really want to support this platform anymore.

📢 It is 5 min before 12❗ "Aufstehen für Demokratie" is committed to fact-based political decisions & democratic processes: www.aufstehenfuerdemokratie.de www.openpetition.de/!ychtb 📅 Join us on Feb 12th at 11:55 am at universities and research institutions in Germany. 🔬 Science needs democracy 🤝

Now replace 'driving' with 'piloting', or any other task requiring high level of attention. A virus that can go inside your neocortex, what could possibly go wrong? #NeuroCovid

Paul Ehrlich in his office. If Paul Ehrlich had had an internet browser, he would have had too many tabs open. 🙃