Exciting work by H. Minh Thai, Debbie Hunt, Manisha Priya and colleagues from UK and NZ. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... wertheim.scripps.ufl.edu/2026/08/19/s...

A cloaked glutamate decarboxylase sustains the GABA shunt in Mycobacterium tuberculosis | PNAS

Despite the exponential growth in genome sequencing, the functional annotation of genes, particularly the discovery of novel enzymatic activities, ...

pnas.org

Exciting!! Not all protein functions are what we think. We found a protein that looks like a well-known enzyme but does a different job entirely. This discovery reveals hidden metabolic diversity in Mycobacterium and may have implications for malaria parasites and related organisms. Links below:

A bit late sharing this - but very happy to featured on the new BBC News CrowdScience episode on the history of #tuberculosis & the first trial of the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) #vaccine in Paris in 1921. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w... ➡️ the BBC World Service version airs on Monday

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, Why is TB still killing people?

Tuberculosis kills over a million people every year, despite a vaccine and a cure. Why?

bbc.co.uk

Is the scientific paper a fraud? How we write scientific papers does not reflect how we do science. Their formal structure infers a pre-ordained linear process rather than reflecting the messy creativity of research. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Universal vaccine for pneumococcal disease moves closer to reality www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Universal vaccine for pneumococcal disease moves closer to reality

Targeting shared proteins could help to control bacterial subtypes that current vaccines do not protect against.

nature.com

To re-up this, Jolijn did some very nice simulations on this trying to estimate the effective population size of goat as they were introduced to Mediterranean Europe in the Neolithic! #aDNA

Jolijn Erven@jolijnerven.bsky.social · 4w ago

How did the rapid Mediterranean dispersal of Neolithic livestock shape their genomes? 16 Neolithic sheep & goat genomes from the Mediterranean Áine Halpin, @gingerhowley.bsky.social Roger Alcàntara Fors, Maria Saña-Segui, @brad-dan.bsky.social and others www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #aDNA

🌍 New paper🌍 Here, I introduce the “cuprosphere” to connect how copper shapes fungal–bacterial interactions across One Health environments. rdcu.be/fwZqD #OneHealth #Microbiology #Copper #Fungi #Bacteria #Interactions @mrccmm.bsky.social @nihrexeterbrc.bsky.social @exeter.ac.uk

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🦠🧪

Mayo, the All-Ireland Football title and an incredible end to one of sport’s longest curses - The Athletic share.google/jiwDormEMrp3...

Mayo, the All-Ireland Football title and an incredible end to one of sport’s longest curses

Their 75-year wait for a title blew this year’s high-profile sporting exorcisms out of the water

share.google

“The famine is over! The curse be damned!! Hit the nuclear button! Mayo have won the All-Ireland!!” An all-time great sports commentary moment from Stephen Grealis and Martin McHugh on Mayo’s Midwest Radio. #gaa

John O'Grady and Dave MacHugh leveraged existing whole-blood RNA-seq from 48 TB patients before and during treatment to map cis-eQTL, response-eQTL, and cell-type interaction eQTL, identifying thousands of regulatory variants www.nature.com/articles/s43...

St Patrick’s says Mayo by 3

We rely on healthy soil microbial communities to support ecosystem functioning and plant growth, but what happens when soils are exposed to multiple environmental stressors simultaneously? Spoiler: it's not good doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Fungicide and warming interact to reduce soil ecosystem functioning

Abstract. Soil microbial communities are essential to the functioning of their ecosystems, providing vital services such as plant growth promotion and bior

academic.oup.com

www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-202...

Winelands learners win top research prize in Ireland

Two teenagers who are members of the Youth Research Advisory Group linked to the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative at UCT have won a global accolade.

news.uct.ac.za

Very pleased to announce that my Crick postdoc work has just been published in Nature Communications: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Big thank you to @bpradel.bsky.social, @jaksonluk.bsky.social, @maxgg.bsky.social and the rest of the host-pathogen interactions in TB lab that made it all possible!

Oh wow, what a game...am I dreaming? Mayo end 75-year All-Ireland drought with dramatic win over Kerry www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic...

Mayo end 75-year All-Ireland drought with dramatic win over Kerry

Mayo look to overcome reigning champions to end 75-year Sam Maguire wait

irishtimes.com

Multiple very interesting papers coming online in Nature Microbiology, but I would like to call your attention to this one. Particularly important for the mycobacterium drug discovery community. @siegristpalmore.bsky.social and team, congratulations. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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

Screening 1,572 compounds for mycomembrane permeation plus cheminformatic and machine learning analyses reveals features associated with improved permeation in the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis ...

nature.com

The CSO has released data on metered electricity consumption for 2025. The extraordinary headline figures: - Electricity consumption from data centres grew by nearly 10% last year, and now accounts for 23% of Ireland's electricity demand.

Two papers pin the introduction of smallpox on British colonists and suggest that Australia held far more people than previously believed. Learn more: https://scim.ag/3R2lLmf

First author is superstar PhD student Cecilia Kyany'a @katungececilia.bsky.social who was profiled here (and is looking for postdoc opportunities): sangerinstitute.blog/2026/06/24/b...

Breathing new life into cystic fibrosis research - Wellcome Sanger Institute Blog

Cecilia Kyany’a studies the fascinating microbiology of the airway microbiome, especially in people living with cystic fibrosis. As part of her PhD research, Cecilia is uncovering the hidden microbial...

sangerinstitute.blog

Very proud of this preprint out of my lab, our first (of hopefully many) host-microbe spatial transcriptomics paper. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Amazing insights into P. aeruginosa biology and chronic airway disease @cysticfibrosis.org.uk @sangerinstitute.bsky.social @asthmaandlung.org.uk

Fine dress does not charm him, and flattery's breath Is lost on the dog, for he's faithful to death; He sees the great soul which the body conceals— Oh, it's great to be young with a dog at your heels! #photography #photographie #photographers #EastCoastKin #Mayo #WildAtlanticWay

Check out our latest T7SS toxin story. These reverse toxins aren’t as rare as we thought!

bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A novel reverse lipase toxin substrate of the Staphylococcus aureus type VII secretion system https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.22.733114v1

If you're you have experience in working in animal / pathogen #aDNA and are interested in a postdoctoral position as part of my ERC Project HERDPATH, please DM/email me kevin[at]palaeome.org

📗✨ Happy Bloomsday! Today we celebrate the enduring legacy of James Joyce (BA 1902), UCD's most celebrated graduate, and his groundbreaking work, Ulysses. #bloomsday #jamesjoyce @ucdlibrary.bsky.social

Up Mayo!🇨🇦

The Irish Times@irishtimes.com · 2mo ago

Sun shines on Canadian prime minister as Aughagower welcomes world leader

Great letter in @nature.com from @roysleator.bsky.social 'Science must be seen as a viable profession for the many, not the few' www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Science must be seen as a viable profession for the many, not the few

Letter to the Editor

nature.com

Oh wow, amazing: "Discovery and identification of a handwritten laboratory notebook by Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin describing experimental studies and development of the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis at the Institut Pasteur" doi.org/10.1016/j.tu...

Only a couple of days left to register for the UK Cellular Microbiology Network Meeting - we will have a great line up of speakers and poster presenters investigating various pathogens in cell-based, tissue and in vivo models.

Gunnar N. Schroeder@gunnarns.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Registration and abstract submission for the 2026 UK CellularMicrobiologyNetwork Meeting are now open! Exiting keynote speakers and opportunity for researchers from the UK, Ireland and beyond to share their work on host-pathogen interactions. June 22nd/23rd @WWIEM in Belfast. www.ukcellmicro.org

This is cool - ‘Descent from a common ancestor restricts exploration of protein sequence space’ - www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... & a great commentary piece too- ‘Maynard Smith’s analogy, realized: Common ancestry constrains evolutionary percolation through protein space’ www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...