'In 2021, 11,021 deaths and 353,634 DALYs were attributable to VREfm worldwide, (...) 2,991 deaths and 82,025 DALYs attributable to VREfs. (...) VREfm burden is projected to continue rising across all indicators by 2050, while VREfs shows a sustained decline.' www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🧵Enterococcus faecalis is not just an extracellular organism. 🧵 A growing body of work shows it can survive + REPLICATE inside host cells, and that intracellular life may seed persistence, dissemination, and reinfection. 1/n #MMBR @asm.org journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

🤩 Long ago in 2021, Irina Afonina saw E. faecalis prophage tail fibers co-purify with membrane vesicles, but we didn't know their fxn: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC.... In this new preprint, Mike Gilmore and colleagues show us what the tail fibers (aka efagins) actually do! Super cool work. 🤩

Thrilled to share that neutrophils produce extra long fibrillar components named proteoglycofili or PGF. PGF are released by living neutrophils and do not contain DNA. They might look like NETs but are not NETs… www.cell.com/cell-reports...

New preprint from our lab www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...! Andrea Dos Santos and Clément Vulin combine experiments and models showing how adding glucose can strengthen negative interactions between microbial species. This can be used in tandem with antibiotic treatment to inhibit pathogens!

Excited to share our first look at Enterococcus faecium infection biology: diabetic wounds are complex, and E. faecium persists despite early immune responses. In diabetic mice, it shows impaired clearance + sustained neutrophil recruitment, worsening healing.

Metabolic cross-talk promotes persistence of Enterococcus in a model of polymicrobial catheter-associated urinary tract infection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.19.689321v1

Registration is now open for @keystonesymposia.bsky.social "Beyond #Antibiotics: Emerging Strategies Combating #BacterialInfection." Deadline for scholarships and abstract selected short talks is Jan 7! Join us this May for an amazing meeting! keysym.us/KSBeyondAntibiotics26 #KSBeyondAntibiotics26

Enterococcus being one step ahead when it comes to stress… once again! Loved figuring this one out🤓 bsky.app/profile/kimi...

Why does daptomycin resistance appear so fast in Enterococcus? We finally have a clue. DAP resistance in enterococci pops up quickly. What’s been missing is why resistance-associated membrane changes look the way they do, and why the classic path of mutations is so predictable.

A conserved sRNA regulates mucin adhesion and gut colonization across the Enterococcaceae https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.687296v1

We're just 6 months away from @keystoneSymposia.bsky.social Beyond #Antibiotics : Emerging Strategies Combating #BacterialInfection, May 2026 in Breckenridge! 👉Scholarship and short talk abstract deadlines are Jan 7! 🧐 keysym.us/KSBeyondAntibiotics26 #KSBeyondAntibiotics26

Postdoc position (please re-post) A funded postdoctoral position, will open in 2026 to study aspects of Neisseria gonorrhoeae pathogenesis, antigenic variation, genetics, or physiology. If interested in more information, please contact Hank Seifert [email protected] #MicroSky

📣 Ready to lead your own lab? NTU Singapore's Nanyang Assistant Professorship offers a 100% paid salary & a S$2.75M start-up package. We're visiting the US this Sept to recruit top talent. Meet us in NYC, Boston & more! #FacultyJobs #TenureTrack Register HERE: lnkd.in/gSy5qpA7

💕 Such a joyful day celebrating the wedding of our longest-standing lab member Pei Yi (since 2012!) and former PhD student Kelvin. 💍 Their special day brought together generations of the Kline Lab family - a wonderful reminder of the friendships and community that science builds along the way. 💕

Our latest efforts to understand Enterococcal wound infection. In long-term collaboration with @gthibault.bsky.social, we discovered how E. faecalis makes extracellular ROS - via EET!⚡️Which in turn dysregulates host UPR to delay wound healing. Led by @aarontan.bsky.social - his videos below are 🤩!

Enterococcus faecalis modulates phase variation in Clostridioides difficile https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.24.666506v1

At my 1st @femsmicro.org congress (in Milan!) - it's a fantastic meeting. I co-chaired a superb session on Microbial Dark Matter with @jlewillett.bsky.social, who also kicked off the session with a talk on her lab's work. 🤩 We also heard from my FEMS Microbes co-EIC Kathleen Scott! 💪🏽 #FEMS2025

Vancomycin-resistant 𝙀𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙤𝙘𝙘𝙪𝙨 𝙛𝙖𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙪𝙢 (VRE) thrives in the antibiotic-perturbed gut VRE gobbles up enriched sugars and amino acids, and loss of short-chain fatty acids (acetate, propionate, butyrate) eliminates natural growth brakes Therapeutic angle: Prebiotic SCFA mixtures block VRE growth!

🔬Calling all microbiologists. 🔬 Ever feel like your paper is too small for some journals, but too solid to sit on? #FEMSMicrobes welcomes well-executed microbiology manuscripts, and they put special attention on promoting ECR authors, eg the webinar below. 👇 @femsjournals.bsky.social @femsmicro.org

Very happy to share that a large part of my thesis work is out today: B. subtilis uses the second messenger c-di-AMP to modulate its turgor pressure in response to the state of its cell envelope. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

FEMS MICRO Milan is buzzing with excitement! 🎉🧫 Over 1,900 participants from 90+ countries are ready for 1,700+ posters & 100+ sessions (debates, expert panels, keynotes). This is Europe's premier microbiology event🏆🔬 Regular registration closes today, at 23:59 CEST: buff.ly/6f7yHDV

Our paper in @science.org 👉🏽 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... is accompanied by an especially thoughtful perspective by Carey Nadell and Chris Marx 👉🏽 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Jun #SGBUG with Aaron Tan from the groups of @kimingeneva.bsky.social and @gthibault.bsky.social talking about exciting findings on E. faecalis pathogenesis, and @weeboont.bsky.social from our lab sharing his newest work on phospholipid transporters in E. coli! @scelse.bsky.social Awesome crowd!

New tenure track assistant professor position in molecular microbiology in our department @dmf-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social! We are casting a wide net for an experimental molecular microbiologist. Apply here: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...

New from The Strain Team: 🎊 Springer Nature Discovers MDPI 🎊 Springer Nature has spawned a copycat journal series called "Discover" mimicking #MDPI journal titles and citation behaviours. We even made a browser game to prove it (see 🔗). Gross! 😀 1/n #ResearchIntegrity #SciPub #AcademicSky

Our very own 🤩Deepti Rawat🤩 is competing in the PhD Booster program at the University of Geneva, a program supporting career advancement by developing skills to communicate science to the public. Vote for her in the People's Choice Public Prize here! 👇 www.unige.ch/medecine/org...

Call for Group Leaders - Join us at GIMM, 7 days till the deadline!

Blaskovich & Cooper review the pipeline of conventional antibiotics and highlight in depth numerous promising alternatives—including potentiators of antibiotic action, bacteriophage, lysins and microbiome modulation—the impact of CARB-X on innovation is patently clear www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Great meeting coming up next May www.keystonesymposia.org/conferences/...

All of NIH funding to Northwestern University is frozen. This pause includes noncompeting approved funding, new and competing grants with fundable scores. No reimbursements for money already spent have been received since March. This situation is rarely reported so please Please get the word out!

Fantastic opportunity!👇🏼

Absolutely thrilled to present our latest review, where we discuss how host microenvironment and bacterial subversion strategies can undermine traditional antimicrobial sensitivity testing, and whether better models may one day get us "beyond the MIC" #IDSKy rdcu.be/emYoh

Weird intersection of math & centrifuge balancing: Visual proof that it's possible to balance a 24-position centrifuge rotor for any number of equally-filled tubes EXCEPT 1 and 23. Some of these are anxiety-inducing, though. (🧑‍🎨: aliyoh, labrats subreddit)

Delighted to announce the @keystonesymposia.bsky.social meeting: Beyond #Antibiotics: Emerging Strategies Combating #BacterialInfection. Join us in Breckenridge in May 2026!! You can check out the program and amazing lineup of speakers below: keysym.us/KSAntibiotics26 #KSAntibiotics26

We will put forward a 500 million package for 2025-2027 to make Europe a magnet for researchers. As well as ambitious proposals for R&I in the next EU budget. We will also offer the best and brightest the right incentives to come to Europe ↓

Which FDA-approved vaccines had randomized, placebo-controlled trials? ALL OF THEM. Polio? Measles, mumps, rubella? Haemophilus influenzae B? Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis? Meningococcus? Varicella? Pneumococcus? Rotavirus? RSV? Hepatitis B? Influenza? HPV? COVID-19? Shingles? YEP. A thread🧵 1/

New online! E. faecium gains an edge from bacteriocin

Join us for the next #FEMSMicrobes Webinar on Microbial Dark Matter on 7 May (16:00 CEST). Explore uncharted territories, including novel sources of antimicrobial compounds, complex protein functions in pathogenic bacteria, and advanced imaging techniques. Register: buff.ly/7nFyEIj

We are recruiting 🤩🤩🤩!!! If you are looking to establish ylur lab in a multidisciplinary institute with state-of-the-art facilities, horizontal structure and diverse faculty, apply!!!

The publishing model has to change Big journals make BILLIONS on margins unheard of in any other business @oana-sandulescu.bsky.social @hoferu.bsky.social @angelahuttner.bsky.social @anniejoseph.bsky.social @escmid.bsky.social #escmidglobal2025

🚨 Big news! Infection and Immunity is now open access! 🌍🔬 That means wider visibility & impact for your research. Worried about fees? 💸 Check out how IAI stacks up against other journals—you might be surprised. #OpenAccess #SciComm #Microbiology

The latest discovery from the lab and great colleagues at McMaster and U Illinois, Chicago. Lariocidin, a new lasso peptide antibiotic that inhibits the ribosome. rdcu.be/efdha

Well, this is a very cool paper. RNA modifications in pathogenesis...so much to learn. #RNAsky #microsky

Emerging strains of a deadly ‘superbug’ seem to have picked up an advantage over other micro-organisms: a chemical weapon that kills competing bacteria https://go.nature.com/4lb8279

We are now over 2/3 full for the 2025 Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction GRS! Apply to join us July 19-20 (through 25 for GRC) at Salve Regina University! It’s going to be a great meeting with amazing science and people!Please re-post!! #MAST

Excited to share our latest, out today in @naturemicrobiol.bsky.social Bacteriocin production facilitates nosocomial emergence of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium www.nature.com/articles/s41... @idpittstop.bsky.social

'Linear plasmids [in enterococci] can play a key role in the spread of oxazolidinone and glycopeptide resistance with serious consequences for public health.' academic.oup.com/jac/advance-...

Replicative selfish genetic elements are driving rapid pathogenic adaptation of Enterococcus faecium https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.16.643550v1

Riveting and timely article on infectious disease mysteries like brain-eating #Balamuthia, rare disease treatment, and federal workers trying to effect change. #IDsky #Microsky wapo.st/41s6EUx