🧫 🧪 We’re so excited to share our new preprint, where we tackle the wealth of structural and functional diversity across antiviral STAND NTPases in bacteria. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

[1/3] Is your favorite bacterial isolate hiding a surprise lytic virus with a VERY different lifestyle? Finally I can proudly say that our paper on persistent phages is out in Nature Microbiology. rdcu.be/eWJEp. Well done @peterdoug.bsky.social

A systematic analysis of STAND NTPases and their associated sensor domains in bacterial immunity 🤯 Mind-blowing work !

Bacterial genomes encode a rich repertoire of antiphage systems, but we still know surprisingly little about when these systems are actually expressed. In this preprint, Lucas Paoli et al, ask what shapes antiphage systems expression in native contexts. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

An ERC Consolidator Grant for Lucie ETIENNE @lucievirevolte.bsky.social, Researcher PI at the CIRI (@cnrs-rhoneauvergne.bsky.social, @ensdelyon.bsky.social, @insermaura.bsky.social, UCBL, @hospicescivilslyon.bsky.social , UJM-Saint Etienne)! CONGRATULATIONS!!🎉👏 www.insb.cnrs.fr/fr/personne/...

International Call: recruitment of an Early-Career Team Leader in Virology at CIRI! For further information: ciri.ens-lyon.fr/nous-rejoind...

Yay! Joy & excitement for the #science ahead & for our #team @ciri-lyon.bsky.social, who is getting @erc.europa.eu #Consolidator grant support to work on the FUNctional EVOlution of mammalian innate immunity #FUNEVO ! So thankful to #ERC and #everyone who contributed & provided support along the way

Huge congrats Lucie !!! 🥳💪

✨New preprint! 🧵1/4 Excited to share our work on AI-guided design of minimal RNA-guided nucleases. Amazing work by @petrskopintsev.bsky.social @isabelesain.bsky.social @evandeturk.bsky.social et al! Multi-lab collaboration @banfieldlab.bsky.social @jhdcate.bsky.social @jacobsenucla.bsky.social🧬 🔗👇

Phages are full of genes of unknown function that are likely adaptive in specific conditions. New preprint: Phage TnSeq identifies essential genes rapidly and knocks all non-essentials. We would like to send a pool of phiKZ mutants to anyone wanting it! Reach out tinyurl.com/bdcfrejh

Reportage France Info - La recherche sur les phages et l'équipe Stapath du CIRI mises à l'honneur ! www.franceinfo.fr/replay-radio...

A massive expansion of Thoeris defense systems ! Congrats @erezyirmiya.bsky.social and @soreklab.bsky.social

🚨 We are hiring a group leader in Virology at CIRI ! Join us in the beautiful city of Lyon 🇫🇷 Deadline on March 31st 2026

📢 We have multiple open PhD positions to study bacterial immune systems using cutting-edge cryo-EM, microbiology, and biochemistry in our group! Join us and uncover how bacterial defenses eliminate predators and engineer next-gen biotech tools. 🔥 Apply by Jan 8, 2026 Details: phd.pages.ista.ac.at

Our SPARHA story is out in Nature Communications! doi.org/10.1038/s414... We investigated a new short pAgo-HNH defense system, showing that it assembles into filaments degrading cellular DNA, inducing abortive infection, resolved their structure, and uncovered the activation mechanism 🧵

🚀New preprint from our lab! I am very excited to finally share what has been the main focus of my PhD for the past almost 3 years! It is about viral dark matter and a powerful tool we built to shed light on it. 🧬💡 Continue reading (🧵)

Very happy to share our collaborative project on FAM118 proteins - noncanonical sirtuins that form filaments and process NAD in human and other vertebrate cells.

A mysterious lactamase-nuclease module found in multiple defense systems finally solved ! Congrats @owentuck.bsky.social et al. !

Our nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole @doudna-lab.bsky.social and everyone at @innovativegenomics.bsky.social

Fantastic paper by James Bean and colleagues on phage Bas63 - this has been one of the first phages I ever isolated just for fun as a PhD student (in 2012!). It's #2 on this plate of Rhine river water on an E.coli K-12 lawn.... How it started /// How it's going

Congrats Alexandre, @lucievirevolte.bsky.social et al. 🙌 Glad we could bring a small contribution

#ResultatScientifique 🔎 Certains gènes antiviraux humains partagent des défenses communes avec les bactéries, révélant une convergence évolutive surprenante 🧬 ✍️ Alexandre Legrand et @lucievirevolte.bsky.social 📕 Nature Ecology and Evolution buff.ly/Su0EdiU

🚨New preprint out! We present a foundational genomic resource of human gut microbiome viruses. It delivers high-quality, deeply curated data spanning taxonomy, predicted hosts, structures, and functions, providing a reference for gut virome research. (1/8) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Amazing work from @ostermanilya.bsky.social and @soreklab.bsky.social : phage-triggered genome degradation produces a signaling molecule that activates a cell-killing effector 😮 Time to rename the HAD+TM system we described a few years ago with @dbikard.bsky.social !

Bacteria can sense when a virus starts shredding their genome — by detecting methylated mononucleotides. Here’s the story of how we discovered the Metis defense system 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#phahe #phagesky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

@prczhaoyansong.bsky.social’s deep dive into the dark matter of compost communities is now out 🎉 Genomic islands hijack jumbo phages—whose capsids enable transfer of large tracts of DNA—shedding new light on the scale & scope of phage-mediated gene flow 😎 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

JOB OFFER #PhageSky We have a postdoc position opening in my group to investigate phage-MGE interactions ! We're based in the very nice city of Lyon, France @mmsb-lyon.bsky.social Contact me for more info ! >> Apply on the CNRS webpage emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from? Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Are you interested in studying RNA phages? We are looking for a PhD student and a postdoc to join the lab! For more information and how to apply, see below 👇 Please RT!

Perfect timing in the field for a beautiful review on NAD+ in bacterial immunity by @hugovaysset.bsky.social and @audeber.bsky.social @cp-molcell.bsky.social #MicroSky www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Our latest work reveals that arbitrium phages cross-communicate across species! These tiny viruses “listen” to signals from others, coordinating lysis-lysogeny decisions across species. Original idea from @albertomarina.bsky.social and, as usual, he was right. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Two intensive sampling periods of oyster-associated vibrio and their phage, 4 years apart, and many surprises. Despite being washed by the Atlantic, wide tides, and vibrio (almost?) disappearing most of the year, we can find the exact same virulent phages 4 years later (down to 0 SNP)! preprint👇

#ExpertsCNRS 🔎 Journalistes, en lien avec le #NobelPrize de médecine, le bureau de presse du @cnrs.fr vous propose des scientifiques pouvant vous éclairer sur les travaux des lauréats. Si vous êtes intéressés : 📞📩 cnrs.fr/fr/contacts

Now online at @nature.com we show how the Panoptes defense system protects against viruses that attempt immune evasion - and expands our understanding of the role of oligonucleotides in immunity. Check out this work co-led with @benadler.bsky.social here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Today in @nature.com , we highlight how a cousin of CRISPR-Cas10, mCpol, establishes an evolutionary trap in anti-phage immune systems. Check out @erinedoherty.bsky.social and my work from @doudna-lab.bsky.social lab here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

*New preprint* #phage #phagesky This is a cool effort lead by Fangchao, Arkin lab, to test a new tech to study phage-host interaction mechanism at scale, in a droplet! We benchmarked it by using a set of 2 classical coli phages to identify their receptors, impt for generatin data for AI/ML models

Hiring! 🧬🔬 Ever wondered how bacteria fight off viruses? We’re looking for a PhD student to dive into the molecular basis of newly discovered microbial immune systems, an area of biology where much remains to be uncovered. RT/share to help us find our next team member! www.lumc.nl/en/about-lum...

Wow 🤯

You’ve heard of ubiquitination, meet deazaguanylation: Doug Wassarman in our lab discovered phage defense pathways have co-opted Q nucleobase biosynthetic enzymes to catalyze a new form of protein conjugation chemistry @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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

We discovered a new horizontal gene transfer mechanism: tail-less cf-PICIs hijack free phage tails extracellularly, forming infectious chimeric virions that drive both intra- and inter-species transfer among bacteria. @jonaszpatkowski.bsky.social @tcostalab.bsky.social @jrpenades.bsky.social

So excited our antibiotic potentiation story is out 🤩 Led by the extraordinary @manonlang.bsky.social with @fox-science.bsky.social & @amazeld.bsky.social +amazing collaborators @immunobladder.bsky.social @imaneelmeouche.bsky.social 🦠 We believe it can make a difference in #AMR infections!

A new theme issue of #PhilTransB examines the evolutionary history of bacterial immune systems, their modes of action, and the patterns how different bacterial immune systems are distributed across different ecosystems. Read: buff.ly/Z4qdxY1

How can we understand the earliest events in evolution of eukaryotic immunity? @yao-li.bsky.social reports incredible molecular fossils of complete bacterial-like operons in eukaryotes that illuminate how animal immunity was first acquired from anti-phage defense www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Effector-triggered immunity (ETI) indirectly detects pathogen effector activity on the host cell. Kevin Barthes,Tanita Wein and I examine how prokaryotic and eukaryotic viruses deploy similar effectors that activate ETI, underscoring its central role across the tree of life. tinyurl.com/mr3a3xh2

Super excited to receive the ERC starting grant to explore what phage-bacteria interactions can teach us on host-pathogen conflicts 🤩 I'm immensely grateful to my wonderful team and to present and past mentors 🙏

Im Kampf gegen multiresistente Keime können #Bakteriophagen eine weitere Waffe sein. Für sein Projekt "RIBO-PHAGE" erhält @jenshoer.bsky.social, Nachwuchsgruppenleiter @helmholtz-hiri.bsky.social, nun einen #ERCStG des @erc.europa.eu!🎉 Herzlichen Glückwunsch! www.helmholtz-hzi.de/media-center...