Super excited to share the final project of my postdoc career! We found that Borgs and mini-Borgs are widespread across diverse ecosystems. They don't just exist in Banfield Lab — they are everywhere! 🌎

New preprint alert 🚨: Who actually drives methane production in anoxic sediments 🧬🔥? We point to a transcriptionally dominant 🦠 clade: VadinHA17. shorturl.at/Rijc0 @bledinadede.bsky.social @taylorpriest.bsky.social

Studying DNA modification in microbes shouldn't be limited by methodology. 🧬 We’re excited to introduce MODIFI, our new scalable method for detecting DNA modifications in PacBio metagenomic data and estimating ECE-host linkage. Check out the preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Very interesting observation on the ribosomes of our distant relatives! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Today in Nature Communications, a team of IGI researchers from The Banfield Lab and Pam Ronald's labs uncover a new way to reduce methane emissions from rice by influencing the activity of rice paddy soil #microbes. Read more: https://ow.ly/45j150Y3WsI#microbes

Excited to share our discovery of archaeal circular, jumbo extrachromosomal elements (up to ~535 kb genomes). One related, 409-kb genome is integrated in CH4-eating Methanoperedens, representing the largest integrative element in Archaea so far! Curious about what they are doing? See the paper

Out now in Nature Communications: Convergent evolution of viral-like Borg archaeal extrachromosomal elements and giant eukaryotic viruses www.nature.com/articles/s41... @luisvalentin.bsky.social @lingdong-shi.bsky.social @martianmicrobe.bsky.social @mschoelmerich.bsky.social

Glad to share our paper out today @NatureEcoEvo: “Serial innovations by Asgard archaea shaped the DNA replication machinery of the early eukaryotic ancestor”. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #microsky #archaeasky

Out now: Structure of an archaeal ribosome reveals a divergent active site and hibernation factor @jhdcate.bsky.social @banfieldlab.bsky.social @diptinayak.bsky.social & co #microsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Many of you gave me so much encouragement when I posted here earlier about my 10 year long passion project to make a microbial map of the ocean. Pinch me because I can't believe I get to update you that today that research was published in the journal SCIENCE! @science.org

🚨 Fresh from the press! We created and analyzed over 100 in vitro cyanobacterial consortia using well-characterized model cyanobacterial hosts to better understand how cyanobacteria recruit and interact with their microbiomes. Check it out: doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Happy to share our recent work on rRNA processing and conformation: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Huge thanks to @ppenev.bsky.social @Amos Nissley @Dipti Nayak @Rohan Sachdeva @jhdcate.bsky.social @Jill Banfield @banfieldlab.bsky.social !!