Happy to share that I’m opening my lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science! We’ll study systems-level regulation of bacterial defense, driven by RNA-protein interactions shaping cell fate. Now recruiting PhD students & postdocs tinyurl.com/4yfa55vd Please reach out and share!

Feeling festive? Why not deck the halls with @cvrinfo.bsky.social's papercraft #VirusSnowflakes and celebrate the science of viruses and the fight against viral diseases. Download for free: cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl... #scicomm #sciart #decorations

Preprint: Systematic discovery of TIR-based immune signaling systems in bacteria Conservation of TIR-derived signals accross the tree of life! We found bacterial TIR immune systems that signal via canonical cADPR (like in humans) and 2'cADPR (a plant immune signal). Documented 11 Thoeris types

New Thoeris systems reveal a deep connection between bacterial TIR-produced immune signals to plant and human immunity🦠🌱🧍‍♀️ It was a great honor to contribute to this project! Congratulations to @erezyirmiya.bsky.social and Azita Leavitt!!🎉🥂

🦠🧪🧬🚨 New paper and database alert: the new IMG/VR release is now MetaVR ! We have a new website - meta-virome.org - with quick search capabilities for the >24M viruses, >12M vOTUs, and >42M protein clusters (including >790k with predicted structures !). academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Very excited to join the upcoming meeting this May!🦠🧫

Looking forward to the meeting on the immune system of bacteria! Rockefeller, 5-7 May 2026. A fantastic lineup of speakers, expecting exiting science

🧬🛡️How are new immune mechanisms created? We show how Lamassu antiphage system, originated from a DNA-repair complex and evolved into a compact and modular immune machine, wt Dinshaw Patel lab in @pnas.org. 👏 @matthieu-haudiquet.bsky.social, Arpita Chakravarti & all authors! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

I'd also like to highlight a recent publication by @audeber.bsky.social, @enzopoirier.bsky.social, and colleagues showing FAM118B, which they term "SIRal", is essential for innate immune response in mammalian cellular models; they also have great phylogenetic analysis and insights into biochemistry.

Great structural study expanding on the role of NAD-cleaving sirtuins in humans

📣 New preprint from us at phagefoundry.org 📣 A solid machine learning framework & to predict strain-level phage-host interactions across diverse bacterial genera from genome sequences alone. Avery Noonan from the Arkin Lab led this massive effort www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Congratulations to Sorek lab alumnus Nitzan Tal, who won the prestigious 2025 Science & SciLifeLab prize for the best PhD thesis in Systems Biology! 💫 Read her Prize Assay, published in the journal Science today www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @nitzantal.bsky.social

Our nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole @doudna-lab.bsky.social and everyone at @innovativegenomics.bsky.social

Viral NblA proteins negatively affect oceanic cyanobacterial photosynthesis www.nature.com/articles/s41... this project was led by @omernadel.bsky.social and is a joint work between the labs of @bejalab.bsky.social, Debbie Lindell and Oded Kleifeld from @biologytechnion.bsky.social

📖Latest from the lab: Evo. characterization #antiviral #SAMD9/9L across #kingdoms🚶‍♀️🦍🦠🧫🖥️: ancient #convergence + #adaptations @natecoevo.nature.com Led by amazing Alexandre Legrand +major contributions by Rémi Demeure & Amandine Chantharath @ciri-lyon.bsky.social 1/n www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How is epigenetic information inherited? We found that CDCA7 proteins are critical players in the inheritance of DNA methylation at CG sites in plants, and this is true both in the lab and in the wild. How does this work? 🧵👇

An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

After 5 years of waiting, the new #CRISPR classification by Makarova et al. is out @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Amazing discovery by @ostermanilya.bsky.social - two systems that can detect methylated mononucleotides after genome degradation! Watching Ilya decipher this mechanism was a masterclass of scientific detective work - and I was happy to contribute a bit with a phylogenetic perspective🔎

Hi everyone, a few years ago, we started a list of labs studying bacterial immunty for students, editors, conference organizers... (currently n=79). Update time ! Send me a message to 1) add your lab or others 2) Correct info docs.google.com/spreadsheets... #Phagesky #Microsky

Last year it was discovered that a single bacterial NLR-like protein can recognize multiple, structurally unrelated phage proteins (Béchon et al, Kibby et al) Now, a new study shows the same for a plant NLR. Another example how principles of immunity remain conserved from bacteria to eukaryotes

New article alert: Bacterial TIR-based immune systems sense phage capsids to initiate defense Out now in Nature Microbiology by Cameron G. Roberts, Chloe B. Fishman, Zhiying Zhang, Dalton V. Banh, Dinshaw J. Patel & Luciano A. Marraffini #microsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 Systems Virology Journal Club – 8th Series! 🚨 #BillSchneider and I are delighted to announce another round of cutting-edge talks in #SystemsVirology! 🦠💡 Join us and an outstanding lineup of speakers, starting Oct 30. Free registration: shiraweingartengabbay.com/systems-viro... 🔬✨

Perfect timing in the field for a beautiful review on NAD+ in bacterial immunity by @hugovaysset.bsky.social and @audeber.bsky.social @cp-molcell.bsky.social #MicroSky www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

We are happy to share our latest work in @nature.com . We study the genomic and cellular basis of facultative symbiosis in Oculina patagonica - a Mediterranean coral remarkable for its ability to survive long periods without algal symbionts. Led by Shani Levy and @xgrau.bsky.social rdcu.be/eLbaZ

A little late to the Panoptes party, but I’m delighted to share that our paper is published! 👁️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Now online at @nature.com we show how the Panoptes defense system protects against viruses that attempt immune evasion - and expands our understanding of the role of oligonucleotides in immunity. Check out this work co-led with @benadler.bsky.social here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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

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/...

Happy to share the Biodiversity Cell Atlas white paper, out today in @nature.com. We look at the possibilities, challenges, and potential impacts of molecularly mapping cells across the tree of life. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very important paper and resource. Bryophyte genomes expanded by one order of magnitude. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

MMseqs2-GPU sets new standards in single query search speed, allows near instant search of big databases, scales to multiple GPUs and is fast beyond VRAM. It enables ColabFold MSA generation in seconds and sub-second Foldseek search against AFDB50. 1/n 📄 www.nature.com/articles/s41... 💿 mmseqs.com

hey bluesky 👋 visa hurdles mean I’m looking for opportunities outside the US. I’m a computational biologist (bacterial + phage genomics, postdoc in Koonin’s group @ NIH). I am interested in teaming up on funding apps. reach out if this resonates!

Phage "satellites" that produce capsids but have no genes to produce tails have puzzled scientists for a long time. These are abundant as prophages in bacteria, but it was unclear how they can infect without tails Now, Penadés & co show that they hijack tails from other phages. Incredible!

Looking for a new approach to studying or eliminating phages? Check out our study introducing anti-phage ASOs (antisense oligos) out in @Nature today. nature.com/articles/s4158…

Come join the Nomburg Lab in lovely Vienna! As our first listing, we have a research technician position available to help support the research and operations of the lab. If you're passionate about virology and innate immunity, apply here! aithyra.onlyfy.jobs/job/3njyn4ey

Very happy to share our latest work “Systematic discovery and engineering of synthetic immune receptors in plants” out in @science.org ! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

How can we understand the earliest events in evolution of eukaryotic immunity? @yao-li.bsky.social reports incredible molecular fossils of complete bacterial-like operons in eukaryotes that illuminate how animal immunity was first acquired from anti-phage defense www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

📣 We are excited to share our latest paper, led by @taliashaler.bsky.social! We explore the transcriptional basis of #microalgae resistance to #viral_infection and identified a core group of resistance-related genes. >> (1/3) #New_Phytologist #Marine_Biology #Viruses

Preprint: De-novo design of proteins that inhibit bacterial defenses Our approach allows silencing defense systems of choice. We show how this approach enables programming of “untransformable” bacteria, and how it can enhance phage therapy applications Congrats Jeremy Garb! tinyurl.com/Syttt 🧵

📢 New preprint alert! We designed synthetic proteins that can block bacterial immune systems, allowing phages + plasmids to overcome natural defenses. This could transform phage therapy + genetic engineering. Here’s what we found 🧵 Preprint🔗: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

An inspiring read! academic.oup.com/genetics/adv... A beautiful historical perspective on Ester Lederberg's legacy from @ccwendling.bsky.social & @zacharybailey.bsky.social

New paper alert! We suggest caution in the analyses of viral auxiliary metabolic genes and propose a new overarching term - 'auxiliary viral genes' (AVGs) to describe different types of such genes. @simrouxvirus.bsky.social #phagesky #Microsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Two major breakthroughs for the nucleotide immune signaling field in pre-print by @romihadary.bsky.social @soreklab.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... (1) Beautiful bioinformatic analyses reveal known viral nucleotide sponges are members of enormous protein families ubiquitous in phages

#structuralphylogenetics #strphy #3di

Exciting study further expanding the world of viral sponges! Congratulations Romi!🎉

In July we had the 3rd edition of the Ukrainian Biological Data Science Summer School. Now a regular, it has created a sense of community: young people eager to learn new topics, network across the country&world. Seeing how science is a positive&optimistic force. www.huber.embl.de/group/posts/...

The beautiful, ever-expanding universe of viral proteins targeting nucleotide immune signals! Paper by @reneechang.bsky.social in @cp-molcell.bsky.social on a nucleotide sponge www.cell.com/molecular-ce... and preprint by @doudna-lab.bsky.social on viral nucleases www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to share our new preprint co-led by @jnoms.bsky.social! Here we reveal an exceptional diversity of viral 2H phosphodiesterases (PDEs) that enable immune evasion by selectively degrading oligonucleotide-based messengers. This 2H PDE fold has evolved striking substrate breath & specificity.