orcas have the chance to do the funniest thing

Some Lego fun with Mr4 on New Year's Eve!

I did some actual science this week - like actual handled some bacteria! Not sure I can make sense of the results or if they will ever see the light of day but I still feel like I did something

Eventful Thursday! Pip cut her paw on something in our house, leading to a quick trip to the vets for some super glue. So she's had to come into the office with me. Apologies to everyone I've talked to today for the barking Labrador in the background!

I had an amazing time at my viva! It was a privilege to work in such an amazing lab and my examiners were so friendly and knowledgeable which led to a great discussion!

Congratulations to the new Dr @bexx-menday.bsky.social! And huge thanks to fantastic examiners Peter Rosenthal and Ellie Harrison

Our paper with @robfagan.bsky.social @jasonwils.bsky.social and Louis-Charles Fortier on #phage has been included in this year's LSA special collection. www.life-science-alliance.org/content/cell...

Kate Willett pass her viva yesterday, congrats Dr Willett! Huge thanks to @robfagan.bsky.social @ @jeremykeown.bsky.social

The deadline for the first of our three fully funded PhD studentships is tomorrow! Determining the role of the dual-function VanT in C. diff vancomycin resistance. Collab with @gavinhthomas.bsky.social and Marjan van der Woude

It's time for our annual lab hike and Christmas dinner - so of course there's torrential rain. I hope the pub has the fires lit!

Inseparable

There's just over 2 weeks left to apply for a fully funded PhD studentship with us working on C. difficile vancomycin resistance. Two more studentships - linked in the thread below - close in early January

Absolutely delighted (and proud) that @freyaallen.bsky.social passed her viva with minor corrections today. Thanks very much @jessicamablair.bsky.social @robfagan.bsky.social for examining!

Thrilled to present the findings from my 2025 #SUREscheme project - 'Investigating the influence of latent bacteriophages on healthcare-associated C. difficile lysogens' - at the showcase yesterday evening. Huge thanks to @funnirudh.bsky.social and @robfagan.bsky.social for making this possible!

🚨 Fully funded PhD studentships 🚨 We have three fully funded PhD studentships available for Oct 26 start. Funded by the MRC DiMeN programme & the BBSRC Yorkshire Biosciences DTP. Details below as they are advertised. Contact me here or via email for more details or to discuss an application

🚨 Fully funded PhD studentships 🚨 We have three fully funded PhD studentships available for Oct 26 start. Funded by the MRC DiMeN programme & the BBSRC Yorkshire Biosciences DTP. Details below as they are advertised. Contact me here or via email for more details or to discuss an application

And just like that PhD student number 9 has finished! Congratulations Dr @anneswilliams.bsky.social and huge thanks to @claireyt.bsky.social and Laurence Wilson for acting as examiners. In the chaos yesterday I didn't get a photo so instead here's a drawing of our puppy by multi-talented Dr Williams

The UK needs to be "culturally coherent" apparently - it's incredibly concerning when these disgusting racists feel comfortable enough to say this kind of garbage in public

Nesting habits of a 60lb Labrador puppy. So well camouflaged I almost didn't see her....

Who says TV isn't educational? I just had our 4 year old explain coastal erosion to me - courtesy of the Octonauts apparently

Beautiful CryoEM work by our University of Sheffield colleagues @molmicrosheffield.bsky.social Structural basis of multitasking by the apicoplast DNA polymerase from Plasmodium falciparum url: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Starting the day with news of a fire in our office early this morning. Thankfully no one hurt and no lasting damage but an unpleasant start to the day!

LMB PhD studentship available in the Baum lab to use informatics to infer cell structure from genomic data in collaboration with the brilliant Tom Williams. If you write to me and I don’t reply - try again - the spam filter is hungry…

Making the most of a few days off before I have to get back to the day job! I think I've finally found the puppy's limit

There are definite benefits to living on the edge of the Peak District. 5 min walk from our front door we reach the edge of the woods and after that the only limit is my legs. Today's mission was to clear my head and tire out the puppy

Having a few days off to recover from a really full on summer & to get some DIY jobs done so we can sell our house. Was all going well until I got the carpet cleaner out. Managed to do half of one room before the magic white smoke escaped. Now two upset dogs and all the windows open. House stinks 😩

Sigh...

Willing to join us @pasteur.fr for a PhD for a project on how interactions between mobile genetic elements shape bacterial adaptation? Subject to be tailored to candidates with keen interest in evolution, genomics, computational biology, microbiology. Check www.pasteur.fr/en/education...

👏👏👏 👏👏

Saturday morning Lego fun with Mr4!

Our French hosts really outdid themselves with the venue for last night's #ClostPath2025 congress dinner. A fantastic night, a fantastic week of science and now just two years to wait to do it all again in Rio

Looking back at a great #clostpath2025, and ahead to #icds2026 (Bled) and #clostpath2027 (Rio de Janeiro).

Delighted to see some excellent work on C. diff vancomycin resistance at ClostPath. The evidence for emerging resistance is mounting and it's becoming clear that even fairly low level resistance causes treatment failure

Lab on tour - the wonderful #ClostPath2025 organisers have arranged great walking tours. Guess where we are?

Our RW media are sharks. Labour spent the summer feeding them buckets of raw chum. 76 anti-immigration tweets in August 2025 from Starmer's Twitter account, the Home Office, and the official Number 10 account. I compiled them all into a 10-minute Youtube video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=naaj...

net immigration fell by more than half last year and the politics has gone in the complete opposite direction. It's not really about the numbers

I'm tempting fate here but the transpennine express hasn't let me down yet - first stage of journey to #ClostPath2025 underway

The posters are done so we're officially ready for #ClostPath2025 @pasteur.fr next week. Now all I have to do is submit a programme grant and 3 PhD studentship applications and I'll be good to go too!

Greetings from the (not at all sunny) Yorkshire coast!

New preprint from us! The latest part of our C. difficile vancomycin resistance story. We identified a new two-component system (VnrRS) that can control expression of the vanG pathway - just needs one amino acid change @buddlejess.bsky.social @brockhurstlab.bsky.social @claireyt.bsky.social

I think someone would quite like me to take a break and go out for a walk

Many spores from the Firmicutes group are decorated with hair-like structures. Since the 60s, they remained a mystery. @remaut-lab.bsky.social named these fibres ENdospore Appendages (ENAs). Using Cryo-ID, we report the identity, structure and function of F-ENA. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Note for whoever needs to hear it - if you want to pull the "in my email dated" crap, you should probably check that that is what you actually wrote in your email dated....

The @microbiologysociety.org ‪Journal of Medical Microbiology is looking for a new Editor for One Health - Emerging, Zoonotic and Environmental Diseases. Come join us!

Recharging our batteries on Howth Head

Karolinska is looking for 20 (!!) assistant professors and offering 6 year appointments with ~1M USD startup packages. ki.se/en/about-ki/...

Just took the puppy out for a final wee before bed and stepped barefoot on a slug. How's your evening going?

Is it just me or are the vocals on Wicked massively over-produced? Finally got around to watching it as it's Ms7's new favourite movie. I have to admit that I'm fairly underwhelmed - not a patch on the stage show, especially the original cast

This is incredibly sad. Every childhood death is an absolute tragedy but even more so when it's entirely preventable. MMR uptake in Liverpool is 73% - ripe for a huge outbreak www.thetimes.com/article/bb28...

Is it sad that I've really enjoyed my evening making figures, with a glass of wine on hand and V for Vendetta on the TV?