New pre-print: Eco-evolutionary responses of phage to different thermal regimes. Great work led by Sam Greenrod and fun collaboration with Kayla King's lab. 1/2 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I'm just trying to find a plasmid term and now Google's AI thinks I'm having a meltdown over grammar 😭

Searching for a PhD in Microbiology? 🦠 Prof Stineke van Houte& @davvi36.bsky.social are looking for a prospective PhD student to start in October 2026 who is excited about bacteria, how they interact, and how they exchange DNA with each other. Deadline 20.10.25. gw4biomed.ac.uk/developing-c...

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 🧵

PhD opportunity, please share: We are looking for a prospective PhD student to start in October 2026 who is excited about bacteria (Klebsiella pneumoniae), how they interact, and how they exchange DNA. All details can be found on the funder website 👉 gw4biomed.ac.uk/developing-c...

Our paper “Genetic determinants of pOXA-48 plasmid maintenance and propagation in Escherichia coli” is now online in @natcomms.nature.com ✨ 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41... @cnrs-rhoneauvergne.bsky.social @mmsb-lyon.bsky.social

#phagesky I am looking for phages infecting Streptococcus pneumoniae to test a phenotype - does anyone have some and willing to share ? Repost appreciated :)

New paper out! 🔈🔈📣📣 Plasmids promote antimicrobial resistance through Insertion Sequence-mediated gene inactivation. Combining experimental and computational approaches, we unveil how two of the most prevalent bacterial MGE accelerate the evolution of AMR. 🧵👇🏻 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🧬💊Our new paper in @ismepublications.bsky.social🧬💊 "Ecology-based approach to predict no-effect antibiotic concentrations for minimizing environmental selection of resistance" In collaboration with @umweltbundesamt.bsky.social Read the thread below: academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #AMR 1/9

Phage resistance research position with a fantastic supervisor 👇

Feels surreal to say but: I'm hiring! If you are or know anyone interested in looking at the evolution of phage resistance using A. baumannii and natural transformation, then this might be for you www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Brilliant idea!

Want to name a real virus? I have recently discovered 9 new phages which now need names! To enter, you simply need to donate to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust on my JustGiving page (£2 = 1 entry) and share your email with me on donation (see link info). Please share 💚 www.justgiving.com/page/meaghan-c-1

Plasmid leading regions & their contribution to plasmid establishment are all the rage in the plasmid world right now. This review summarizes why 👉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Please share! 🦠 Workshop on Phage Therapy in Liverpool on 25th November organised by Stineke van Houte, @jojofoth.bsky.social, @brockhurstlab.bsky.social, & Edze Westra. Limited FREE tickets & more info here: sites.exeter.ac.uk/vanhoutelab/... #MicroSky

New manuscript from the group 'IS1216 drives the evolution of pRUM-like multidrug resistance plasmids in Enterococcus faecium' www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... /1

New paper with @rwheatley8.bsky.social and Cedric Lood Actual title: Chromosomal capture of beneficial genes drives plasmids towards ecological redundancy. Sensationalist title: Plasmids carry useless genes academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Scaling laws of bacterial and archaeal plasmids www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Curious about plasmid biology? Our latest paper is out now in Nature Communications! 🚨 doi.org/10.1038/s414... We analyzed thousands of diverse bacterial plasmids to shed light for the first time on a key aspect of plasmid biology: plasmid copy number. 1/7 👇

An absolutely horrible idea to store nuclear bombs in the UK which belong to a country that looks far too close to a proto-fascist regime for comfort UK to expand nuclear deterrent with US fighter jets capable of carrying warheads www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

New phage therapy publication!🦠 #phagesky We analysed an MRSA phage therapy case study, assessing how predictions made in vitro differed when using one (standard practice) or multiple bacteria isolates from the patient. Collaborative work: Exeter and Queen Astrid hospital doi.org/10.1093/jamb...

. @emgoodall.bsky.social presenting her cool new transposon-based method on discovery of novel small proteins #EESMicrobiology

Happily representing @multidefence.bsky.social at the #EESMicrobiology in Heidelberg! Come to my poster if interested in prophage-mediated phage defence! Also don't miss @emgoodall.bsky.social's talk today, and @alekseiagapov.bsky.social and @davvi36.bsky.social posters!

Made it to Heidelberg for #EESMicrobiology @events.embl.org! Find me at poster 240 and make to check out @annaolina.bsky.social & @alekseiagapov.bsky.social 's posters and @emgoodall.bsky.social 's talk to see everyone from the lab 😁

🚨 Reminder! You have just over two weeks to submit an abstract, if you want to present at the @microbiologysociety.org meeting "Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics" in Liverpool in November! #microsky 🦠🧫🔬

How do multiple coexisting bacteria and phages (co)evolve? Well... they don't (or do so much less! In this paper we tracked bacteria-phage (co)evolution in monoculture (individual bacteria-phage pairs) or in polyculture (all three pairs) over 6 weeks. Read more here👇 doi.org/10.1099/mic....

I highly recommend this conference, i thoroughly enjoyed the 2022 meeting 👇🏻

The abstract submission deadline for Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics 2025 is soon approaching! Make sure to submit by 23:59 BST on 7 July 2025. microb.io/Abstracts #MicroEvo25

The latest work from my lab, Phage Disco, a method @ellie-rand.bsky.social developed for targeted discovery of bacteriophages based on the bacterial receptor, defense system, or other component they interact with, is now live in mSystems journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

New opinion paper from the lab! www.cell.com/trends/micro...

CRISPR-Cas is beneficial in plasmid competition, but limited by competitor toxin-antitoxin activity when horizontally transferred https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.09.653016v1

You are a "citizen of nowhere", they said. A "queue-jumper", they said. Now I am a "squalid chapter", they say. A risk as I might make this an "island of strangers", they say. I am "pulling the country apart", they say.

cool preprint from a few months back: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Really intriguing IS strategy to become fixed in plasmids, where the IS cuts up any plasmid that doesn't contain the insertion sequence

I *finally* get to share our work on plasmid competition– super proud to now have this on bioRxiv: CRISPR-Cas is beneficial in plasmid competition, but limited by competitor toxin-antitoxin activity when horizontally transferred www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/6 👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Searching for lytic phages in bacterial genome assemblies ..!

Very happy to say I've been re-elected to Truro City Council! 🥳

A really good result for us greens though - going from 0 to 1 to now 3 green councillors! 🥳

We are pleased to announce that registration for 3rd MGE Workshop is now live! If you are interested in giving a talk please register online through our website by Friday 16th May. We look forward to seeing you all in Southampton in June! www.ukmgeworkshop.org

"Bar chart not drawn to scale" is a crime against data science

If you needed another good reason to leave Barclays, this is it www.theguardian.com/business/202...

New publication from our Lesterlin lab in collab with lab of @knutdrescher.bsky.social We determined the spatiotemporal dissemination of conjugative plasmids within biofilms and found that they spread only in specific structural regions. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

tinyurl.com/UoATransphobia ☝️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 im sure many of you are aware of hostility towards #trans staff & students in my department myself & other ECRs have published a desperate call for action on #transphobia from departmental and university management please read, share and SIGN IN SOLIDARITY ❤️

Thousands show solidarity at #TransRightsAreHumanRights Demo in Parliament Square.

Spooky thing happened on Facebook last night (yes, I know, I know). This random person messaged me through my public writing page to say my website was down. It was late, so I thought, "Oh hell" and went to check my site. Which was fine.

New postdoc position in our lab (2 y+): evolutionary genomics of integrons and MGEs with focus on vibrio-phage interactions. Great environment @pasteur.fr for science, career building. Super collaborators @celineloot.bsky.social @amazeld.bsky.social @fredoleroux.bsky.social 3 weeks to apply!

Had a great time today at #ESCMIDGlobal presenting on using CRISPR-Cas9 to kill E. coli ST131 and the emergence of different escape populations. Big thanks to @escmid.bsky.social and everyone who came by!

I remember seeing and getting excited about this study! How anyone can think that climate change is 'a scam pushed by the establishment' is beyond me, when so often the opposite is true. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Interested in the evolution of microbial pangenomes? Submit your abstract for #ESEB2025 to Symposium 45! Deadline is 25th April. Hope to see lots of you in Barcelona this summer! 🧬🦠☀️

last day to apply for a post-doc position in my group #phagesky #microsky

🐟🧬🐠🧬🐟 First paper from my PhD student Faina Tskhay's project is now out in #OneHealth @elsevierconnect.bsky.social "Fish are poor sentinels for surveillance of riverine antimicrobial resistance" Read more on this work below: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #AMR #microsky #JPIAMR 1/7