I am pleased to share that our paper is now published in Cell! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... I am deeply grateful to all co-authors for making this possible. This work was made possible through the guidance of Dr. Peer Bork. I share this in grateful memory and with deep respect for his mentorship.

Just published: "Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats" by @podlesny.bsky.social @chanyeong-kim.bsky.social and @jonas-bio.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... See the quoted post below for a thread on the preprint!

In the largest study of its kind, scientists in the Bork Group at EMBL have found that a small subset of microbes can carry and transfer genes across disparate habitats, creating a planet-wide, interconnected network of microbiomes 🌍 🦠 🔗 Read more here: www.embl.org/news/science...

It has been two weeks since the unexpected death of Peer Bork, and all of us in his research group are deeply missing him. His scientific vision brought us together as a team, and we are immensely grateful for the time we spent together. 🧵

FoldMason is out now in @science.org. It generates accurate multiple structure alignments for thousands of protein structures in seconds. Great work by Cameron L. M. Gilchrist and @milot.bsky.social. 📄 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🌐 search.foldseek.com/foldmason 💾 github.com/steineggerla...

EMBL is deeply saddened by the passing of our Interim Director General Peer Bork, a pioneering scientist who left an indelible imprint on life science research in Europe and beyond. We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues. www.embl.org/news/people-...

This is such hard news to process. Such an amazing scientist and inspiration for so many of us. www.embl.org/news/embl-an...

metaTraits: a large-scale integration of microbial phenotypic trait information academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

We're excited to release metaTraits.embl.de! 🦠 Interactively explore 140+ 𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘁𝘀, harmonized & integrated from culture-derived collections 🔬 & genome-based predictions 🧬 for >2M MAGs & genomes. Publication at NAR: doi.org/10.1093/nar/... @narjournal.bsky.social #microsky 🧵 1/8

Super happy to share our latest preprint in #liverdisease & #gut microbiota mechanisms. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

New preprint from the lab: "Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats" analysing 85k metagenomes across the world, e.g. looking into generalism across habitats www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... – see the thread below for more details! #MicroSky 🖥️🧬🦠

Our new preprint is out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... In this study, we present the largest systematic analysis of microbiome structure and function, integrating 85K uniformly processed metagenomes from diverse habitats worldwide. @podlesny.bsky.social @jonas-bio.bsky.social @borklab.bsky.social

The team's first preprint is out! Led by ‪ ‪@vishnuprasoodanan.bsky.social‬‬ & @omaistrenko.bsky.social , we asked a question (almost) as old as microbiology: how many prokaryotic species exist on Earth? More specifically, how much diversity is "hiding" in existing metagenomic data? A 🧵.

The rare microbial biosphere harbors many chemosensitive microorganisms undetectable by regular shotgun metagenomics. We can now explore them using our custom target-capture sequencing approach. Impressive work by Claudia Sanchis, part of her PhD thesis! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Europe’s choice is clear. To put science at the heart of its economy. To become the home of scientific freedom and collaboration. And to welcome talent from all over the world. I’m glad to present the first elements of our Choose Europe Initiative. → europa.eu/!TTbWbJ

Live in 2h: Metagenomic microbial strain tracking in the cloud! I'll be doing a quick demo showing how to use the SameStr workflow on the @nfdi4microbiota.bsky.social Cloud-based Workflow Platform (CloWM) - GUI / no-install / scalable / free for scientific use.

Our latest paper, in which @brinda.eu (along with @zaminiqbal.bsky.social and others) introduces phylogenetic compression for storage and search of enormous microbial genome libraries, was published today in @naturemethods.bsky.social: rdcu.be/eg4OA 1/

Die Faschisten sind auf dem Vormarsch - schon wieder - und wir machen genau die gleichen Fehler - schon wieder. datajournal.org/schon-wieder/

Dass nur eine einzige Redaktion sich hier traut, zu schreiben, was jeder sehen konnte: "Musk macht Hitlergruß" – das ist so dystopisch, ihr werft uns denen zum Fraß vor.

Die deutschen Mainstream-Medien sind soweit nach links gerutscht, dass sie einen Hitlergruß nicht mehr Hitlergruß nennen.

NEW ONLINE! New online! A phylogenetic approach to comparative genomics

I’m excited to share our new paper published in Nature Communications! In our work, we discovered TANB77, a bacterial clade previously obscured by a polyphyletic grouping in conventional taxonomy, as a reliable biomarker across diverse immunotherapy recipient groups. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share our preprint with @savitski_lab led by @tarabartolec.bsky.social, @KMitosch & Clément Potel! We uncovered a mechanism by which the T7 phage broadly counteracts DNA-targeting bacterial defenses by deploying a loose cannon kinase in its genome @embl.org www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨 New review in @natrevgastrohep.bsky.social: Should you take probiotics with antibiotics? www.nature.com/articles/s41... Bottom line: current evidence does not support the common perception that probiotics can facilitate the gut microbiome's recovery from antibiotics. BUT! 1/🧵

Today we report that an engineered skin bacterium, swabbed gently on the head of a mouse, can unleash a potent antibody response against a pathogen. Could lead to topical vaccines that are applied in a cream. @djenetbousbaine.bsky.social led the charge... @natureportfolio.bsky.social 1/55

If you missed #MVIF 34, no worries, here is Vedanth's talk and other amazing talks! www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnDy...

About one week left to apply! Open postdoc position for analysing environmental microbiome data, e.g. from @embl.org 's TREC expedition along the coastlines of Europe www.embl.org/about/info/t...

Hot off the press: "Fecal microbial load is a major determinant of gut microbiome variation and a confounder for disease associations" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... See below for @suguru-nishijima.bsky.social 's thread on the preprint! #microsky #microbiome

1/AlphaFold 3 code now available, following researcher criticism for not providing it with the initial publication. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Hi everyone, I tried assembling a Microbiome & friends starter pack. 🦠🧫🔬 Still learning to use bluesky and might have missed you, let me know if you would like to be included. go.bsky.app/Fq36egy

We're looking for a postdoc on the Computational Analysis of Environmental #Microbiome Data! www.embl.org/jobs/positio... In the past two years, #EMBL scientists have gathered more than 3000 soil, sediment and water samples from Europe's coastlines within the #TREC expedition. (1/4)

The first day of our lab retreat is underway. We didn't venture far from EMBL, just up the hill to Königstuhl overlooking Heidelberg and the Rhine valley. However, we did invite guest from other labs who are working on the microbiome and are enjoying the discussions across the groups!

⚡️ Our latest preprint "Refined Enterotyping Reveals Dysbiosis in Global Fecal Metagenomes" led by @maelschermarisa.bsky.social is now available! We’ve revisited the concept of #enterotypes using a massive dataset of 16,772 human fecal #metagenomes from 38 countries! 🌍🧬 doi.org/10.1101/2024... 🧵

New paper: "Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus Probiotics and Gut Dysbiosis in Preterm Infants: The PRIMAL Randomized Clinical Trial" showing that while the probiotics did not reduce the incidence of MDRO+, they modulated their microbiome toward eubiosis. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... (1/2)