Successfully defended my PhD last Thursday :) Dissertation Title: “Exploring foundations of animals of host–microbe interactions in a freshwater sponge” Lab: @scottnichols.bsky.social #sponge #immunology #symbiosis

Join us Wednesday, 29th April, at 4pm WEST (Lisbon time), for two Symbiosis Alumni Seminars by @omaistrenko.bsky.social and @pawley.bsky.social. Zoom link upon free registration at gimm.idloom.events/symbnet_semi... @symbnet.bsky.social, @moorefound.bsky.social, @mblscience.bsky.social, ECODIM

“We can’t afford cancer research but $11 billion for one week of an absurd war is fine” is a hell of an argument

Thank you, Sir, for speaking plain truth.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

This made my day and week—and will become fuel as I finish this thing they call a dissertation :,)

New preprint from @pawley.bsky.social @scottnichols.bsky.social is a great testament to how intentional imaging helps untangle potential functions and mechanisms of host-microbe interactions The discovery of an external bacterial niche reconciles sequencing-based microbiomes in a freshwater sponge

The discovery of an external bacterial niche reconciles sequencing-based microbiomes in a freshwater sponge https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.07.704605v1

First manuscript of the PhD is officially a preprint, wooo! #sponge #microbe #microscopy

Putting “can multi-factor authenticate through DuoMobile with my eyes closed” on my CV

I find it *extremely* disturbing that Jay Bhattacharya—who campaigned for RFK Jr during RFK’s Presidential run—is repositioning the NIH to be the research arm of RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine, anti-science MAHA movement😨

This is one my favorite images I’ve ever taken of a freshwater sponge The depth-coded image (stained for F-actin) beautifully shows the static nature of the choanoderm and the extremely dynamic nature of migratory cells along and around the outer epithelia :) #FluoresenceFriday #confocal

Motherfucking wind farms…

There’s a nonzero chance you will die from a cancer that could have been curable because people who couldn’t pass 7th grade biology and are scared of things like “mRNA” and “riboflavin” and “walkable cities” decided to make their ignorance everybody else’s problem

You can take the funds from a scientist, but you will never take their passion #4thofJuly @haleyrwom.bsky.social

Sponge choanoderm belongs in a museum #FluorescenceFriday

If we all somehow agreed to follow some unwritten rule that nobody can publish more than four or five papers per year, I think that would make our culture healthier for everybody.

This work is finally officially out! Check out our paper, where we use various advanced microscopy techniques to shed light on the structures of a complex symbiotic organ and the communities of bacteria that live inside it. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

I say this every time de-extinction comes up: it makes no sense to devote science to bringing back extinct animals when we can’t be bothered to keep extant ones alive in the first place.

For grad students and postdocs: We'd love to see you at the Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis course at the Marine Biological Labs this summer! Application deadline is Apr 14, so apply soon. Please share with anyone who might be interested! www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

Happy to see this finally coming to light… …sad beyond measure to know it’s a reality I spent 6 months on Johnston Atoll, an uninhabited wildlife refuge, doing conservation/invasive species eradication work in 2019 The wildlife here will ALWAYS be more important than rockets #Johnston #Elon

This is what happens when people speak up.

It is happening again! Consider taking our course on the Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis at @MBLScience. We extended the deadline for applications to Apr 14, 2025. www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

I was a member of the Crazy Ant Strike Team on Johnston Atoll in 2019 It is sickening that Elon & SpaceX are planning to decimate decades of SUCCESSFUL invasive species eradication, and a truly remarkable rebound of several species of critically endangered seabirds, all for 10 rocket missions 1/n

Inconclusive results make for a fun lil journey: “okay, let’s make art instead” [I study freshwater sponges 🙂]

I made a website! Come check it out! Get to know me! See cool pictures! Learn that I'm looking for a post doc in fall 2025! www.derrickkamp.com

From 2010 to 2016 (latest data I have ), NIH research contributed to EVERY drug approved by the FDA

We have a better setup now, but this was an early ‘success’ video of capturing bacterial chemotaxis in action!🦠💨Shows something important—bacteria are strong swimmers! Despite the flow, Salmonella head straight for the nutrients. Makes sense, gut has a ton of flow! 🧪 #Microbiology #Microsky #idsky

Transgenic means that genes from 1 organism have been put into another. We make transgenic mice to understand how genes influence biological processes. We make transgenic plants to make them more nutrient rich. We make transgenic bacteria so they make medicine for us. It's wide-ranging & v. useful.

Today, the House GOP censured me for speaking out for the American people against @POTUS’s plan to cut Medicaid. I accept the consequences of my actions, but I refuse to stay silent in the face of injustice. #WeShallOvercome x.com/repalgreen/s...

If you’re afraid that books might change someone’s thinking, you’re not afraid of books, you’re afraid of thinking.

To be proud, or to be scared ?

This is fantastic news, and so well-deserved :) Congratulations, Nat!

Took some beauty pictures this past week of choanoderm in the freshwater sponge, Ephydatia muelleri :) These choanocyte chambers facilitate filter feeding and direct phagocytosis of organic matter and microbes #sponge #confocal #cellbiology

Happy to be among the science again :)

Well this is fun :) Looks like there’s a planarian hanging out in this sponge’s osculum #sponge #biology #invertebrates [Twitter archive: 6.24.24]

Zooming in and speeding it up a touch, we once again see Ephydatia muelleri constitutively secreting (presumably) sponge waste along mucosal tracts 😀 #sponge #biology [Twitter archive: 6.20.24]

Took a Timelapse to commemorate this #sponge being 6 months old! Alas, an unexpected bout of shrimp cannibalism has stolen the show… [Twitter archive: 6.20.24]

A herd of shrimps, eating Petco mystery pellets, looms yonder. [Twitter archive: 6.2.24]

This is Barbara, my sponge child, whomst turned 4 months old today 🥹 [Twitter archive: 4.18.24]

Sponge symbiotic-algae-mediated photosynthesis :) [Twitter archive: 4.3.24]

It appears sponges move quite a lot in the span of 2 hours 🧽🏃💨 [Twitter archive: 3.4.24]

Best part about water-change day is being able to watch photosynthesis in real time, when the water is no longer saturated in O2 🙂🤓🌿🌱 #biology #science #photosynthesis [Twitter archive: 3.4.24]

Love going through old confocal scans and finding gems like this of the coverslip loaded with diatoms and bacteria :) #biology #diatoms #microbes #microscopy [Twitter archive: 2.28.24]

Still not over this sponge that made a shrimp poo one of its own ❤️ [Twitter archive: 2.26.24]

I wonder if I will ever fail to be blown away (pun intended) by the speed at which sponges move water through their tissues… …the flow being generated by countless, coordinated beats of flagella ??! 🤯🤯🤯 I love them ❤️🧽 #sponge #biology *video shot in real-time, 60fps* [Twitter archive: 2.22.24]

A fun lil side project this year has been trying to sustain sponges in lab long-term Turns out the difficult-to-replicate idea of a community-driven system sourced primarily from sponges’ natural habitat—from grasses and microbes to worms and isopods—did the trick :) [Twitter archive: 11.15.23]

Is taking a harmless, benign, adorable lil video of a freshwater limpet still considered procrastination or … ? [Twitter archive: 8.20.23]

One of the better images of porocytes (pore-forming cells) I’ve ever taken 🙂 [Twitter archive: 8.11.23]

Sponge beauty 😗😗 [Twitter archive: 7.17.23]