AI is replacing tasks we have grown reluctant to do ourselves – thinking, writing, creating, analysing.

Emerging advances in prokaryotic transposition: TnPedia as a promising tool

Delighted to share our latest work exploring the regulation of desiccation tolerance in Acinetobacter baumannii. Great effort by @lharkova.bsky.social and @rdedios.bsky.social www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Une opportunité unique de former des étudiants talentueux à la biologie des bactéries à l'ENS Lyon et mener des recherches sur les phages, l'immunité bactérienne, le transfert génétique horizontal (HGT) et/ou les éléments génétiques mobiles au sein du département de bactériologie du CIRI.

SimUrine: a novel, fully defined artificial urinary medium for enhanced microbiological research of urinary bacteria journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Coupling DNA processing to early gene expression drives antibiotic resistance plasmid dissemination https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.09.698686v1

Starting 2026 with a hike to the castle on top of my hometown Jaén. Lovely views to kick off the year.

Gene dependence during mammalian Acinetobacter baumannii pneumonia and septicaemia infections. Published Open Access and fee-free in MGen using a Publish and Read agreement: doi.org/10.1099/mgen... #MGen #PublishAndRead

academic.oup.com/nar/article/... Collaboration with Y. Yamaichi. Killing donor bacteria in conjugation mixes using water enables transcriptomic profiling of early plasmid genes ! Superb tool for studying zygotic induction of these early genes, which include anti-SOS and anti-RM factors. #microsky

Research institutes: What makes the magic? Was fun to help my old boss Sarah Teichmann and her friend Frank Bradke put this piece out for the FEBS Network. A reflective follow-up to our PLOS Biology article in 2023. With art by the amazing Catherine Bone network.febs.org/posts/resear...

I just got an email from a former mentee telling me that one dinner conversation changed how he writes papers♥️ I told him: “just write the paper, get it out—the next one will be better, and the next even better.” Perfectionism is a trap (and a way to procrastinate...:))

After 5 years of waiting, the new #CRISPR classification by Makarova et al. is out @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Paul Nurse describing the main job of a PI (From ‘The Thinking Game’, 2024)

New adventures, same old fantastic companions. @lharkova.bsky.social and I just joined @sotonbiosciences.bsky.social at @unisouthampton.bsky.social with the whole @ronanmccarthy.bsky.social lab. Looking forward to collaborating with such a great research community!

"What Grant Reviewers Actually Look For (and What They Ignore)" jim-olds.org/2025/10/23/w...

Thrilled to share our multidisiplinary work on how genome-wide DNA bridging by H-NS reshapes the stationary phase bacterial nucleoid and affects the transcriptional landscape. With Xindan Wang and @meyerroc.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Here's the link to the system, try it! qedscience.com @qedscience.bsky.social

New preprint! Ever wondered why only a fraction of genomes encode CRISPR immunity? 🧬 🦠 Turns out CRISPR is rarely beneficial against virulent phages, being most beneficial against those for which resistance mutations are rare! An epic effort by Rosanna Wright www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Chromosome architecture affects virulence and competitiveness in Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58 | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Acinetobacter exhibits cyrcadian rhythms! These bugs can predict the light cycles and adjust the expression of genes accordingy. Amazing collaboration with Alejandra Mussi's team from Rosario, Argentina, my city!! rdcu.be/eIQzL

We're hiring! We are looking for a Publishing Operations Editor to join our friendly team! You’ll support the strategic growth of our journal portfolio by managing the peer review process and overseeing production services. Applications close 15 September: microb.io/jobs

Coming back from a great time visiting Karolinska Institutet and lovely Stockholm 🇸🇪

Very happy to see this one out: doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf192 Here, we assessed the contribution of natural transformation to the acquisition of novel genes. See preprint thread. @molbioevol.bsky.social #microsky #evobio

This work is finally published! 🥳🧬 Plasmids are associated with very variable fitness costs in their different bacterial hosts. But, what is the contribution of each of the plasmid-genes in these host-specific effects? Study led by @jorgesastred.bsky.social, @sanmillan.bsky.social and myself! 1/14

Today, our UPOBioinfo group presents the defensome of Acinetobacter baumannii. Do you know about its concerning Global Clone 2? Well, part of its success could be due to the replacement of restriction-modification systems by Ssp antiviral systems.

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

Super excited to share our paper online 🚨today🚨 in Cell Host & Microbe‬! Xiaomei Ren @xiaomeiren.bsky.social and Mason Clark @rmasonclark.bsky.social‬ co-led discovery of ecological factors for Acinetobacter baumannii carriage in the gut, a reservoir for pathogen spread. 🎉 tinyurl.com/443kfefk

Happy to finally share this! Read here about the best strategy the the persistence of low-copy plasmids. @mariosanter.bsky.social @iwangtoknow.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s414...

On our way to Niagara Falls for the Acinetobacter Conference 2025 after a fantastic stay-over in lovely Toronto with @lharkova.bsky.social. We will miss the pancakes with maple syrup 🥞

🚨🚨New paper out in @natcomms.nature.com!! Come for the first large-scale analysis of plasmid copy number across species, stay for one of the most intriguing results of my lab: universal scaling laws in plasmid biology! 📈🧬 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper published in our computational biology group for the study of phages, of which we are especially proud: "Bacteriophages in Pseudomonas aeruginosa evade the CRISPR-Cas I-F system by depletion of PAM sequences".

It’s been fantastic to talk about my adventures with Acinetobacter plasmids at the @mgeworkshop.bsky.social. Such a lovely meeting with lots of great science and cool people. See you next year!

🎉 So proud of our PhD student, Ryuichi ONO, who submitted his first first-author paper from his undergrad research @utokyoofficial.bsky.social about plasmid survival tactics influencing ARG spread! Now just wait to see what he’s been cooking up in our lab 🤩 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Glad to contribute to @uk.theconversation.com explaining our latest paper on plastic-eating pathogens 🦠 In case you missed it: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

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

🔎 From antibiotic resistance to boredom research, the #YERUNResearchMobilityAward helped two early-career researchers take big steps forward. Meet Ruben de Dios Barranco & Muireann O'Dea in the latest YRMA Voices👇 yerun.eu/2025/05/yrma...

🧪 Finally out after peer review, our work showing that "Mobile #Integrons carry Phage Defense Systems" is now published in Science 🎉 Short 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

My first adventure with P. aeruginosa finally saw the light! It was really fun to work on this exciting project and definitely worth the effort!

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

Our set of new prokaryote-optimized fluorescent proteins is now published ! #microbiology #microsky #microscopy 🧫🦠🔬 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Interesting paper Genomic epidemiology and phylodynamics of Acinetobacter baumannii bloodstream isolates in China 'A. baumannii is evolving from a low-virulence, multidrug-resistant pathogen to a more virulent one' www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Este artículo de @aberron.bsky.social en @eldiario.es con un perfil del investigador irrepetible que es George Church, dinamizador de la genética moderna, iconoclasta, responsable de experimentos que otros tildan de imposibles y visionario, merece una lectura atenta. www.eldiario.es/sociedad/geo...

New paper: long-term trends in antibiotic resistance show signs of stabilisation (thread). journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

How Bacteria Outsmart Plants—Then Flee the Scene! #MicroSky #PlantScience #Pseudomonas Our new research in Nature Microbiology uncovers the sophisticated teamwork of Pseudomonas syringae, a notorious plant pathogen. 🔗 rdcu.be/egczU

3rd UK MGE Workshop – June 16-17, Southampton Low-cost, science-focused, and full of fresh faces! Tea, biscuits, dinner, and… karaoke! Call for talks– No abstract needed! Just send your title by the end of April. Spread the word! #MGE #UKscience

Bye bye Liverpool! It’s been a lovely #Microbio25 Conference! So much awesome research presented and so many awesome people gathered!

#Saccharin disrupts bacterial cell envelope stability and interferes with #DNAreplication dynamics By R. de Dios, R. McCarthy & colleagues at Brunel University doi.org/10.1038/s443... see also: www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

As promised, a follow-up. Our story telling how saccharin alters the cell envelop permeability and DNA replication dynamics has just seen the light! Its mechanism of action re-sensitises CRAB to carbapenems, and we show its effectiveness in a hydrogel vehicle. Thanks to all co-authors!

I will be presenting a poster today at #Microbio25 on the antibacterial effects of the artificial sweetener saccharin… which happens to have been published this very morning in @embopress.org Molecular Medicine! Further details to follow! www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Prize Medal 2025 winner, Professor Richard Lenski, presents their lecture on "Dynamics and Repeatability in a Long-Term Experiment with Bacteria" at #Microbio25. It begins at 18:30 BST. Read more about their work: microb.io/PrizeWinner2...