I'm happy to announce the release of GlobDB r232! This version contains 346,233 bacterial and archaeal genomes, based on 26 datasets. More info globdb.org 🦠🖥️🧬

Super excited to share my first paper from my PhD in the @dodonova-sveta.bsky.social lab. We visualise how chromatin from archaeal cells is organised using cryo-ET and SPA. Big thanks to everyone involved in this project!

Archaea the hornets of the microbial world. Discuss. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... TLDR: Archaeon kills bacterium with secreted phospholipase. Pretty nifty way to kill bacteria if you are a microbe with a very different lipid make-up, I reckon. No need to worry about accidentally killing yourself.

Eukaryogenesis was about more than a proteobacterium hitching a lift with an archaeon. Genes from other kinds of bacteria came along for the ride, stitched together with viruses. Paper in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Chromatin organization in Asgard archaea: histones, SMC complexes, and the archaeal roots of eukaryotic chromatin: Trends in Genetics www.cell.com/trends/genet... New review by @jvhooff.bsky.social & @damelab.bsky.social

Can vouch! I worked a lot with Dani and he's one of the most thoughtful, generous scientists I know. If you're into archaea and want a PI who invests in his people (and yes, the cake breaks are real), apply. You won't regret it.

Excited to say that my new paper with @maxlechte.bsky.social (and others not on bluesky) has come out in @nature.com! Study of sediments, geochemistry and fossils from rocks 1.75 to 1.4 billion years old indicate that the oldest known #eukaryotes were aerobic and benthic! #protists rdcu.be/fjNgL

New preprint! Cell division has to happen at the right place but how Archaea pick that place is unknown. We now identified a three-protein system, Dip, that positions the divisome at midcell in H. volcanii and is broadly conserved across Archaea. A thread 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🧵 New pre-print out from my time at @mib-wur.bsky.social showing how the titration of the initiator protein DnaA on the chromosome of E. coli can generate stable DNA replication @hohlbeinlab.bsky.social @nicoc-micsynmet.bsky.social doi.org/10.64898/202...

Do biofilms give an ecological advantage? Yes! A fantastic follow-up to our previous biofilm work in ammonia-oxidizing archaea: "Biofilm Lifestyle Drives Ecophysiological Niche Expansion in an Archaeal Soil Nitrifier" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Congratulations to all authors! #archaea

We are excited to share a new preprint from Dimitris Dalkidis that identifies the effects of inhibitors DMPP and ATU in ammonia-oxidizing archaea! #archaea "Common nitrification inhibitors exhibit varied physiological mechanisms on an ammonia-oxidizing microorganism" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

How do mitochondrial ribosomes keep pace with membrane insertion? Now out in NSMB: We show that mitoribosomes slow down at defined positions linked to membrane insertion and protein topology: rdcu.be/fhqIT #Mitochondria #Ribosome #CryoEM

Happy to share our latest paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Great collaboration with @ifremer.bsky.social, @cbitoulouse.bsky.social & @pasteur.fr. Studying stress in P. abyssi with near-native, minimally purified ribosomes, we identified HibA, a new hibernation factor widespread in Archaea.

Excited to share our discovery of a new programmable RNA-guided DNA-targeting system hiding inside bacteriophages that predates CRISPR. We call it VIPR (Viral Interference Programmable Repeat), and it uses an entirely new logic to find its targets. Thread + link below.

A new family of rolling-circle replication endonucleases widespread in archaeal viruses and plasmids. This family is unrelated to the HUH superfamily Reps, but distantly related to the bacterial Rep_trans enzymes. @narjournal.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Finally published at long last (at least in the pre-view version). Explore the wild and woolly world of archaeal histones! Interactive archaeal histone graph incluced rdcu.be/fdFjv. Congratulations to first author Shawn Laursen

A recent publication in The Journal of Chemical Physics by ISTA alumni Felix Frey and Miguel Amaral with Professor Anđela Šarić explores how geometry controls archaeal membrane stability and lipid organization. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0325170

An Asgard archaeon from a modern analog of ancient microbial mats (Current Biology) Beautiful microscopy of an Asgard archaeon, in the same family as Lokiarchaea, in syntrophy with a sulfate-reducing bacteria Very very nice paper we saw in preprint form: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Phylogenomics of Asgard archaea reveals a unique blend of prokaryotic-like horizontal transfer and eukaryotic-like gene duplication www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

What if AI could invent enzymes that nature hasn’t seen? 👩‍🔬🧑‍🔬 Introducing 🪩 DISCO: Diffusion for Sequence-structure CO-design 📝 Blog: disco-design.github.io 📄 Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2604.05181 💻 Code: github.com/DISCO-design...

Such an incredible journey building DISCO 🪩. Love working with this team. DISCO is a co-design model with functional, de novo, new-to-nature enzymes. Huge shoutout to my co-authors for making this a reality! 🚀👇

PostDoc position available! (links in post below) Feel free to share!

Chromatin organization in Asgard archaea: histones, SMC complexes, and the archaeal roots of eukaryotic chromatin #microbiology #genetics #genome #chromatin #archaea #eukaryotes #MicroSky @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New review in @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social on the fascinating world of chromatin organization in Asgard archaea. Very nice joint effort with @jvhooff.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We have just published a short note on archaeal phylogeny: complex mixture models support a deep placement of Methanonatronarchaeia within Euryarchaea and indicate that three recently described groups (Halorutilales, Afararchaeaceae, and Ordosarchaeia) are actually the same. shorturl.at/5GMpU

New paper in mSystems! 🧵 - how much of your metagenome is actually bacterial/archaeal DNA? For many samples, nobody knows. We built SingleM prokaryotic_fraction (SPF) to answer this, then ran it on >100,000 public metagenomes. 🧬🖥️🦠 Here's what we found 👇 doi.org/10.1128/msystems.01062-25

Having a hard time keeping up with the fast-moving field of origin of eukaryotes/Asgards archaea? Our new perspective article can help, we review the status of research over the last decade and where it's going. The archaeal roots of eukaryotic life www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The archaeal roots of eukaryotic life | PNAS https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2516062123

Asgard archaea on CBC radio. ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premie...

ICYMI: New online! Diversity, ecology, cell biology and evolution of the Asgard archaea

Out Now! Prediction of eukaryotic cellular complexity in Asgard archaea using structural modelling #MicroSky

New online! Diversity, ecology, cell biology and evolution of the Asgard archaea

Asgard archaea: have we found our microbial ancestors? link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Read our review about the "Diversity, ecology, cell biology and evolution of the Asgard archaea" in @natrevmicro.nature.com here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... By @kassipan.bsky.social @stephkoe.bsky.social @micropat.bsky.social & @gerbenz.bsky.social

Just over ten years after the discovery of the first Asgard archaeal genomes, we revisit the rapid expansion of this remarkable archaeal lineage. From diverse genomes and metabolisms to eukaryotic signature proteins and the first cultured representatives. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Finally out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com: Prediction of eukaryotic cellular complexity in Asgard archaea using structural modelling. Great work by @stephkoe.bsky.social @kassipan.bsky.social @jvhooff.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧵 1/10 New paper out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com from my postdoc at @mib-wur.bsky.social! 🎉 How eukaryote-like was the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes? Sequence searches alone can't tell us — so we used protein structure prediction to look deeper. 🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Last year, we proposed a model of plasmid evolution via fusion and fragmentation (via mge mediated recombination) generating mosaics, by studying historical isolates. Excited to see a MASSIVE paper from @jrpenades.bsky.social , @epcrocha.bsky.social expanding on this www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Explore how genetics, evolution and ecology intertwine at EMBO Workshop "Evolving together: From genomics to biological interactions" in #Taipei, TW, 24–27 Apr 2026. Abstract submission/Registration by 20 Jan/28 Feb https://meetings.embo.org/event/26-bio-interactions#Taipei#EMBOEvoGenBio #EMBOevents 🧪

Finally out in @nature.com: a new piece of the puzzle of how complex life evolved. Lead by @archaeal.bsky.social & @katyappler.bsky.social. Great collab with @greening.bsky.social and @kassipan.bsky.social. More pieces to follow soon! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper from my team detailing a greatly expanded genomic database of Asgard archaea revealing of high energy metabolism those related to eukaryotes! Led by @katyappler.bsky.social lots of help from @jameslingford.bsky.social @valdeanda.bsky.social @kassipan.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s415...

We are happy to share our newest preprint on a novel strain of Ca. Lokiarchaeum ossiferum, that contains an active provirus, capable of excision and independent replication! We propose a novel virus family: Fylgjaviridae. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our latest preprint: Together with the team of Jan Löwe, @danieltamarit.bsky.social and many others we discovered and characterized several Asgard tubulin genes and propose that microtubule architecture and dynamics evolved in Asgard archaea prior to eukaryogenesis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Active virus-host system in a Lokiarchaeon culture https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.13.705702v1

Today we published a Correction on our 2023 @nature.com paper reporting the heimdallarchaeial ancestry of eukaryotes: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Corrected paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Importantly, the re-analyses of the corrected dataset are consistent with the original findings.

Postdoc position on Asgard archaea in Thiago’s new lab for someone well trained in biochemistry, cloning, and protein purification: international.au.dk/about/profil...

I have a postdoc position in metagenomic exploration available in my group. Candidates with documented experience in phylo & metagenomics and preferably with petabase-scale data mining and GLM workflows are encouraged to apply. Come join us! 🧬🦠💻 Please repost Apply here: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p...

1. As we recently joined BlueSky, we want to repost this story for all newcomers! We sat down with @radler92.bsky.social to get more insight into the unique videos from his recent preprint on Promethearchaeota (formerly Asgard archaea). doi.org/10.1101/2025... (Videos and info below)