Do plasmids really move around that much? Well, maybe not always Thrilled to have contributed to this story with two of my favourite microbiologists: @jrpenades.bsky.social & @sanmillan.bsky.social This great work was led by Akshay Sabnis & @wfigueroac3.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-reports...

✨New paper from @jrpenades.bsky.social and @sanmillan.bsky.social labs. We found that non-conjugative plasmids 🧬 tend to have low mobility to promote functional diversity ⚔️💊 in bacterial communities🦠🦠. Brilliant work by Akshay, @asantoslopez.bsky.social and others. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

New paper with my (amazing) friend and mentor @jrpenades.bsky.social Really looking forward to see what plasmid aficionados think of this one!! With @asantoslopez.bsky.social @wfigueroac3.bsky.social Akshay Sabins and others www.cell.com/cell-reports...

We are running a hackathon at EBI in Feb: biomics.bacpop.org If you are at EMBL, ETH Zurich, GRC or GIMM working on a biological problem in data science or programming, consider putting a project forwards!

Three Bicentenary research fellowships on offer at @officialuom.bsky.social @fbmh-uom.bsky.social for exceptional ECRs with <3y postdoc experience 3yrs salary + £30k pa research expenses Do you have a great idea & want to join @mermanchester.bsky.social? www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/research/sup...

New pre-print www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Plasmid-dependent phage (PDPs) are ubiquitous, but the selective pressures that they impose on plasmids are not well understood. Project led by Daniel Cazares in collaboration with @brockhurstlab.bsky.social! #phagesky#microsky

Imagine we could travel back in time ⏪⌛️to explore the world of bacterial pathogens before humans discovered and industrialised antibiotics We just did that to study the history of #AMR spread @science.org doi.org/10.1126/scie... If you like time travel & biology, this 🧵is for you👇

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) causes over a million deaths each year, and is rising. Scientists analysed 40,000 bacterial plasmids across 100 years and six continents, to reveal that a few plasmids evolved after antibiotic use to drive most multi-drug resistance. www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/r... 🧬💻

Super interesting-dig in Pre- and postantibiotic epoch: The historical spread of antimicrobial resistance | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Modern plasmids have evolved through complex microevolution and fusion events into a distinct group of highly recombinogenic, multi-replicon, self-transmissible plasmids that now pose the highest risk to resistance dissemination, and therefore to human health. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Samples from 1917 have helped identify the genetic culprits responsible for the spread of treatment-resistant infections 🔎 By mapping plasmid evolution since the pre-antibiotic era, experts found that a minority of plasmids cause most of the multidrug resistance in the world 🧵

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols. Thread 1/n