📢 Postdoc position: Biochemistry & Bacterial cell biology in our group at Marburg University, Germany, funded by the ERC Advanced Grant "C-SWITCH" 🔗More information at shorturl.at/OlvlL 📅Deadline: Nov 30, 2025 Please repost. #Postdoc

🚨 Publication alert! We are stoked to report the structural basis for activity of a novel class of antimicrobials targeting Gram positive priority pathogens in @natcomms.nature.com. There is something for everyone on this paper, and I will highlight a few things below 👇 1/9 doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Any conversation with @markowenmartin.bsky.social is a fun conversation. Really enjoyed sharing our science and my messy whiteboard! Come for a discussion of the environment and antibiotic resistance, stay for a (somewhat tortured) comparison of biology education to learning a foreign language. 💜

Finally out, such an awesome piece of work, very proud of this one: www.cell.com/cell-systems... #MicroSky

The Peters lab is looking for a new team member! The role transposons play in evolution, basic mechanisms regulating transposition, and applying transposons as tools for genome modification with a special focus on guide RNA-directed transposition. cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/CornellCaree...

Amazing work by @hueihsuantsai.bsky.social and colleagues from @nikogeldner.bsky.social, Feng Zhou @tonnigrubeandersen.bsky.social labs in Science Localized glutamine leakage drives the spatial structure of root microbial colonization www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #chemotaxis #MicroSky

Despite These Times...my department is hiring! I really like my department, we have a good mix of disciplines and organisms and we're really low-drama. We also get pizza at faculty meeting. So if you're a computational and structural biologist, join us! 🧪 jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/260...

This is a truly remarkable finding: 17 years after introduction of the HPV vaccine, there was a decreased prevalence of HPV infection (and therefore decreased cancer risk) in both vaccinated AND unvaccinated individuals. Cancer prevention through herd immunity!!!

Let me add one of my favorites: the simple test for toxoplasmosis that's saved so many babies I knew about the test b/c of my pregnancy & then I happened to rent the house across the street from the man who discovered it & created the modern treatment protocol med.stanford.edu/news/all-new...

I am super excited to announce that we have a tenure-track faculty position in biophysics open in the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon! 🧪 Interfolio link: apply.interfolio.com/174360 PLEASE, share widely across the blue skies! Let me briefly explain what we're looking for: 1/10

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

New in JB: Ma, Wang & Li review the role of DNA methylation in regulating pathogenesis, drug resistance, biofilm formation, adhesion, and motility and more! journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... @asm.org #JBacteriology

It is Fat Bear Week in Alaska. The popular competition lets anyone vote on which of the animals is most prepared for winter. nyti.ms/3IBbucx

Longstanding collaboration with Scott Manalis where we have developed technology to measure single cell growth rates of bacteria in native seawater with some very surprising results. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very nice writeup on someone I've admired and learned from for many years. I didn't know he had passed until catching up on This Week in Microbiology driving to campus this morning. His 1958 paper on Salmonella growth rates basically founded the formal study of microbial physiology, which...

For those interested in further reading, the studies establishing the triplet nature of the genetic code were also reviewed by both Benzer and Crick in two 1962 Scientific American articles -- both worth a read! www.jstor.org/stable/24937... www.jstor.org/stable/24936...

The 2025 agar art contest is open and accepting submissions until Oct. 26! The theme is “Microbes Make the World Go Round.” Submit your artwork and showcase the vital role microbes play in our daily lives. All are welcome to apply! See contest details: asm.org/events/asm-a...

The last publication (he says!) from Rich Losick, my PhD advisor. Historical in nature it focuses on a seminal paper in molecular biology, the study revealing the genetic code to be triplet in nature. Come for the science, appreciate the clear prose! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Immunization with peptides can elicit antigen-specific T cell responses, but they're not widely used because they are poorly immunogenic and are rapidly cleared. Domenico D'Atri solves this by using our "SSHEL" platform (synthetic bacterial spores) . journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

We are hiring! Please share the news. Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Bacterial Pathogenesis See link below for details. We are a vibrantly growing department with friendly colleagues and supportive environment. Bonus: year-round sunshine in Tampa, FL 🌤🌴 Job Ad: tinyurl.com/USF-Microbio...

So great to see Lucy Shapiro — a scientific hero of mine both for her pioneering work and for her incredible communication skills —honored today www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/h...

Really enjoying reading this primer on single particle tracking #microscopy by @svanteeffelen.bsky.social and colleagues www.nature.com/articles/s43... (pdf on Sven's website)

This DIVA is SERVING

Delighted to share our recently published work! Ever wondered how Klebsiella (and others) deals with capsule production’s costs ? The paper: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... Thread👇

Really interesting work from our neighbor Clare Smith @dukemedschool.bsky.social starting from CC mice and linking Ctsz to TB infection outcome as well as functional variation in human populations (UW, Case Western, Uganda) and expression in human granulomas (@charliejpyle.bsky.social)

Cross-regulation of (p)ppGpp and c-di-GMP pathways controls a cell-cycle transition www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Unraveling proteomic chaos by independent component analysis - ClpX proficiency promotes the iron and oxygen limitation responses of Staphylococcus aureus and affects the intracellular bacterial behavior https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.04.674172v1

Dissecting microbial communities with single-cell transcriptome analysis www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1... #jcampubs

The GRFP lives!! (due end of October) www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Manu Prakash practices “recreational biology,” a scientific approach that explores life in the same playful way that puzzles probe math. “Basic science is not at the service of something, but the groundwork that is our entire society’s foundation.” www.quantamagazine.org/how-paradoxi...

Being asked about crazy inflated numbers by antivaccine groups regarding how vaccines kids get. ANS: we went from vaccinating vs 8 diseases when I was a resident in the 1980s, to 16 diseases today. But of those 16, 11 diseases are combined into just two shots. Breakdowns below:

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪 From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...

“Real science evolves with evidence.” www.wsj.com/opinion/robe...

Harvard wins lawsuit regarding withheld grant funding [Gift Link] wapo.st/47tdz4A

As national medical, scientific, public health and patient organizations, we call for the resignation of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to ensure the health of the American people. Read our statement: asm.org/press-releas...

I am recruiting a Ph.D. student in microbial ecology, evolution, and systems biology for fall 2026. Please share! Details: qevomicrolab.org/Documents/Gr... Apply by October 1 here: forms.gle/38pPS1Ky84HB...

What was antibiotic resistance like before we ever used antibiotics? How did we change what antibiotic resistance genes looked like over 100 years? Our paper looking at resistance genes from a century of NCTC historical isolates now out in mGen: www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

A show of bipartisan support for NIH. Basically flat except for ARPA-H. The President’s budget proposal basically ignored (as it should have been).

The 2024 rankings of bacterial threats

Happy (and relieved?) to see the NYT do Margaret Rossiter justice with this fine obituary. If you have ever heard the term Matilda effect, thank Dr. Rossiter! www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/s...

New preprint reveals bacteria can't just collect all resistance genes like Pokemon cards. We found mutually exclusive evolutionary pathways to multidrug resistance in E. coli & P. aeruginosa - some resistance mechanisms actively prevent others from coexisting www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Not only are students more stressed, but if getting an “A” is more important than learning something valuable, developing as a critical thinker and communicator, & becoming intellectually & personally resilient, then what exactly is the point of higher education? www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Really appreciated how @sethf.bsky.social described using AI in the evolution class that we co- teach: “ it’s like paying for a gym membership and then using a forklift to raise and lower your weights.”

Spread the word - we at @stanford-chemh.bsky.social are searching to fill a new junior faculty at the interface of molecular and computational science. See link below!

Microcolony-seq reveals inherited phenotypic diversity directly from infected human samples, revealing that bacteria can retain long-term genetic and nongenetic memory from the host environment @cellcellpress.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

My MCDB dept is accepting applications for a faculty position at the Assistant Professor level! Applications Due by October 15, 2025 We welcome applications from all areas of physiology and neuroscience, spanning molecular, cellular, systems, and organismal levels. lsa.umich.edu/mcdb/news-ev...

Come be my boss! We’re looking for a passionate and supportive leader for our Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Research in MMI spans diverse models and systems of host-pathogen interactions. Come join us in the beautiful Pacific NW! facultycareers-ohsu.icims.com/jobs/35624/c...

I am still so impressed with how quickly @pubs.acs.org goes from proof to online publication - this one was a tour de force by Lauren Ames - awesome #WomenInStem #Tuberculosis 🦠🧪

I think we all could use a pygmy sea horse break 🌊🐴