I’m happy to share our new preprint! We uncovered the full diversity of bacterial TIR-based antiviral immune signaling, massively expanded the known diversity of Thoeris systems, and revealed conservation of TIR-derived immune signals across the tree of life. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🧬🛡️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...

What is the best strategy to win any contest? Eliminate your opponents of course. Recently, my friend @fernpizza.bsky.social showed how plasmids compete intracellularly (check out his paper published in Science today!). With @baym.lol, we now know they can fight. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very happy to share our collaborative project on FAM118 proteins - noncanonical sirtuins that form filaments and process NAD in human and other vertebrate cells.

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.

Thrilled to share that the final piece of my PhD work is now on bioRxiv! biorxiv.org/content/10.1... With support from @nvidia and the @NSF, we used AlphaFold to screen 1.6M+ protein pairs, revealing thousands of potential novel PPIs. All data can be viewed at predictomes.org/hp

Bacteria can sense when a virus starts shredding their genome — by detecting methylated mononucleotides. Here’s the story of how we discovered the Metis defense system 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Preprint: Bacteria sense virus-induced genome degradation via methylated mononucleotides tinyurl.com/ch3damp We show how molecular byproducts released during virus-induced cell exploitation are used as signals to trigger host immunity Revealed by the amazing Ilya Osterman. See his thread below👇

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

Check out our latest work led by two talented postdocs, Madhura @mkulkarni.bsky.social and Chris. We find that CASP4/5 can cleave and activate CASP3/7, acting as initiators of both pyroptosis and apoptosis. Notably, both are needed for full pathogen defense! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our new preprint is out 🥳🥳🥳 Henipaviruses, like Nipah and Hendra, package their genomes inside helical shells built by thousands of nucleoproteins. These nucleocapsids are essential to protect the viral RNA, but how do they ever let the polymerase in to read the sequence? 👇

The Wilkinson Lab is open for science! @mskcancercenter.bsky.social 🧬We'll be finding funky new RNA biology, mainly by looking at reverse transcriptases (i.e. the Best Enzymes In The World)🧬 annnd: I'm hiring - come join! Especially postdocs and PhD students - please get in touch (NYC is great)

Excited to share: DNA glycosylases are diverse antiviral effectors. They recognize phage base modifications and initiate genome destruction. A structure‑guided approach made the scope of this discovery possible! 🧪 #phagesky doi.org/10.1101/2025... #phage #microbiology

I’m thrilled to share our Retron Eco8 paper published in Molecular Cell today. Thanks all Fu lab members and our collaborators. 👉Phage SSB detection by retron Eco8 msDNA unleashes nuclease-mediated immunity. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

The Kim Lab (sskimlab.org) at UC Irvine is recruiting motivated grad students interested in uncovering how transcriptional regulators direct cell fates. We accept students through the CMB (cmb.uci.edu) and MCSB (ccbs.uci.edu/education/mcsb/) PhD programs. Please share with prospective grad students!

Reading the microbial warfare literature

We are searching for a lab manager! If you are detailed oriented, like southern california, HSV-1, sequencing and microscopy, please get in touch :)

Lab’s first paper is out!! We show the first structures of #Asgard #chromatin by #cryo-EM 🧬❄️ Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Our home department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at UC Irvine is looking to hire a new tenure-track assistant professor in the broad area of structural biology. Come be our colleague! recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09887 Please apply and/or share this post.

Excited to share some new work from the lab, led by @shelbyeandersen.bsky.social where we developed a method and computational pipeline to identify antiphage defenses across diverse bacterial phyla.

I'm hiring a lab technician to help me explore some exciting new questions about virus-host interactions! Biochemistry and/or mammalian cell culture experience is desired.

Apply to work with us! careerspub.universityofcalifornia.edu/psc/ucm/EMPL...

Many antiphage systems use NAD+, in many ways. @hugovaysset.bsky.social reviewed them all! Read to know more about all their molecular mechanisms, how phages counteract them, their distribution in bacteria and their conservation in eukaryotic immunity! www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from? Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from? Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral reverse transcriptases, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

My home department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at UC Irvine is looking to hire a new tenure-track assistant professor in the broad area of structural biology. Come be my colleague! recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09887

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...

My home department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at UC Irvine is looking to hire a new tenure-track assistant professor in the broad area of structural biology. Come be my colleague! recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09887

Phages evolve fast, or do they? In oysters, some stay identical for years. With >1,200 phages & 600 Vibrio genomes, we reveal long-term stability and new mobile elements. Proud of this collaborative work across our teams (Roscoff-UdeM and @epcrocha.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Our work on the Panoptes antiphage system is published! Here we find that Panoptes "watches" the cytosol for phage immune evasion proteins–captured in this illustration by Clair Huffine of Insight Illustrations. A beautiful example of the effector triggered immunity paradigm.

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

My pleasure @erinedoherty.bsky.social and @benmorehouse.bsky.social - for me this was the stand-out discovery of the last year in the field

Are viruses capable of regulating protein synthesis in the nuanced way of cellular organisms? Kinda! I’m excited to share some of my postdoc work that leveraged giant DNA viruses to address this question.

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

The NSF GRFP is now limited to undergrads and first-year grads drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/09/26/t...

You’ve heard of ubiquitination, meet deazaguanylation: Doug Wassarman in our lab discovered phage defense pathways have co-opted Q nucleobase biosynthetic enzymes to catalyze a new form of protein conjugation chemistry @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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…

A new theme issue of #PhilTransB examines the evolutionary history of bacterial immune systems, their modes of action, and the patterns how different bacterial immune systems are distributed across different ecosystems. Read: buff.ly/Z4qdxY1

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...

📢 Preprint out! Together with @reneechang.bsky.social @kranzuschlab.bsky.social and the amazing @soreklab.bsky.social, we explored viral sponges to map their diversity and function. Discovered huge diversity, including sponges that inhibit Pycsar & Type IV Thoeris! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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 my PhD work in the @kranzuschlab.bsky.social, out now in Molecular Cell @cp-molcell.bsky.social We discover Acb4, a new family of viral sponges that sequesters nucleotide immune signals and defines molecular features that enable ligand specificity. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

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.

Read the adjoining research paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#News&Views Bacterial prions form amyloids in response to phage infection and induce cell death to prevent viral replication, similar to the processes in fungi and across the tree of life. #MicroSky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very interesting work from Ibarlosa and colleagues regarding functional amyloid forming proteins in prokaryotic immunity. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Check out our News & Views summary of the work as well! rdcu.be/eBHxh

1/ Excited to share the first preprint from my lab! 🎉 My postdoc Paz asked how cholera toxin (CT) helps Vibrio cholerae thrive in the gut. Turns out, CT rewires epithelial metabolism toward L-lactate production—fueling pathogen growth in the small intestine during disease

Read my review with @soreklab.bsky.social on the nucleotide pool as a central playground in antiviral immunity across humans, bacteria and plants! 🧍‍♀️🦠🌿 & how viruses overcome these nucleotide-based immune mechanisms 🗡️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

First preprint from the Nemudryi Lab! 🍾 In this work, we link antiviral immunity in bacteria and humans by showing that homologs of human Schlafen nucleases protect bacteria from phages. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...