We are looking for a junior group leader in RNA biology to join us in Würzburg at the @helmholtz-hiri.bsky.social ! A generous funding package, a great collaborative environment, and a beautiful city are all included :) Deadline for application is Feb 15; more information below 👇

Just out @natrevimmunol.nature.com RNA-binding proteins and ribonucleoproteins as determinants of immunity www.nature.com/articles/s41... gives our perspective on this growing area of research. Special thanks to the editor Alexandra, for streamlining the manuscript.

🎉 Welcome to HIRI! 🎉 @cciollimattioli.bsky.social will start her new research group “Systems Microbiology of Intracellular Pathogens” at HIRI in February. Together with her team, she will investigate the molecular mechanisms that shape interactions between intracellular pathogens & their host cells.

Great opportunity to join the lab of @patrick-pausch.bsky.social ! www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

#microsky #phagesky #phage defence www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our latest CRISPR ring nuclease paper focusses on Csx15 - which seems to act as of a sponge as well as a canonical phosphodiesterase. Great work led by @haotianchi.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Nature research paper: Construction of complex and diverse DNA sequences using DNA three-way junctions go.nature.com/4qu2ExZ

Think outside the box and address the most pressing challenges in infection research with us!🧑‍🔬 We're offering 10 PhD positions at five HZI sites across Germany. 👉Don’t miss out—apply by February 28, 2026 and contribute to shaping the future of infection research jobs.helmholtz-hzi.de/job/Braunsch...

A novel ISG15 transcript restricts influenza A virus infection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.15.699784v1

Dominant contribution of Asgard archaea to eukaryogenesis. tldr; Best guess, ~ 50% of conserved eukaryotic protein families are from from Asgard archaea! #science #biology #evolution #nature #bioinformatics www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I’m thrilled to share our work on phage triggers of the bacterial immune system in its final form @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is 😮 Structural insights into the assembly and evolution of a complex bacterial flagellar motor #microsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our new paper is out in Nature 🎉. We show that m1Ψ in mRNA vaccines doesn’t just quiet immunity, it also directly enhance translation by reshaping ribosome dynamics in a sequence-dependent way 🧬 Full paper : rdcu.be/eY5gx

📢 We are hiring 📢 1st round of recruiting for our ERC project BacImmune-Decode! @erc.europa.eu We are looking for a postdoc for wet-lab work on regulation of phage defence systems in bacteria using high-throughput microbial genetics. Check it out: lnkd.in/es7AE968 #Hiring #Postdoc #Microbiology

Phold's manuscript is now available @narjournal.bsky.social thanks to @susiegriggo.bsky.social @npbhavya.bsky.social @vijinim.bsky.social @linsalrob.bsky.social @martinsteinegger.bsky.social @milot.bsky.social @eunbelivable.bsky.social & others not on bsky #phagesky academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Save the date, please RT: Looking forward to an exciting International Symposium @spp2330.bsky.social "New concepts in prokaryotic virus-host interactions". October 5-7, 2026; Harnack-Haus Berlin (Germany). @dfg.de @hhu.de @fz-juelich.de

We've got ISSUES. Literally. We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do? arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563 A 🧵 1/n

Happy to share our recent preprint: "DNA-intercalating antiphage molecules trigger abortive infection through mutual destruction and synergize with bacterial immunity" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @spp2330.bsky.social, @mibinet.bsky.social, @dfg.de @hhu.de @fzj.bsky.social

New preprint from the lab is out! 🥳 We systematically profiled all pairwise growth interactions between 36 representative human gut microbiome strains, and delved deeper into the molecular mechanisms behind specific growth interactions. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 👇

Our paper is out! Hiding in plain sight among Cas12a nucleases, Cas12a3 cleaves not its RNA target but the 3′ ends of tRNA. Huge thanks to all who made this possible, especially the Beisel lab, Biao & Dirk for the structure, & @sebastianglatt.bsky.social for all things tRNA. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

#microsky #phagesky #phage defence www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The final form of my 2nd postdoc paper with the Bassler Lab! Turns out our favorite quorum-sensing phage isn’t a one-off, but rather a member of a globally dispersed family of phages that sense a universal autoinducer. #phagesky #microsky journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Our first paper is out today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com! We introduce a prostate organoid model and show that UPEC invades prostate cells via FimH binding to the prostate-specific protein PAPP. A step toward targeted therapies against bacterial prostatitis. 🎉 #UTI #UPEC #Organoids #AMR

Secret life of prophages: template-directed synthesis of DNA superstructures via prophage activation and rolling circle replication in bacterial biofilms bioRxiv by Gabriel Antonio S. Minero et al with @thethormannden.bsky.social, Rikke Louise Meyer www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A prophage-expressed type IV pilus component provides anti-phage defense: Cell Reports https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(25)01531-1?rss=yes

3′UTR-derived small RNA couples acid resistance to metabolic reprogramming of Salmonella within macrophages url: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

1/4 Ever wanted to predict bacterial protein-protein interactions (PPI) on a large scale? We wanted to, but realized there’s no such algorithm that is both rapid and optimized for bacterial protein analysis. This led our ⭐️Chen Agassy⭐️ to develop B-PPI: doi.org/10.64898/202...

🧫 🧪 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...

RIL-seq boosts the study of sRNAs. Here comes its first application to intracellular bacteria. Plus, 10 years after its characterization, we now present an RNA sponge of Salmonella PinT. Congrats to @kooshapour.bsky.social & great collaboration w/ @jorg-vogel-lab.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

@peterfineran.bsky.social and colleagues develop Tn-seq for phages by leveraging anti-CRISPR (Acr) as a positive selectable marker in the presence of CRISPR-Cas counter-selection, and identify essential genes in phage from non model orgs www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Looking for a POSTDOC to work on jumbo phages (those with large genomes and fascinating cell biology), using our latest ASO technology (Gerovac M et al. 2025 Nature) to define RNA export mechanisms as well as to help to advance phage therapy. Here's the job ad.

Do viruses use RNA to rewire bacteria? Yes! In our paper in @cp-molcell.bsky.social RIL-seq reveals interkingdom RNA interactions during λ infection. Phages don’t just encode proteins, they use small RNAs to hijack bacterial replication and fine-tune infection. #RNA #Phage doi.org/10.1016/j.mo...

Phage-encoded small RNA hijacks host replication machinery to support the phage lytic cycle: Molecular Cell www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Born #OnThisDay in 1922, Esther Lederberg was the first to isolate the lambda phage in 1951. She characterised the lysogenic phase, whereby the phage are able to integrate into the bacterial genome, staying dormant. This discovery made them a model tool of study, leading to many more breakthroughs.

Just decline the peer review invitation. What are you people even doing?

Our new paper from my PhD work is online. It shows how bacterial population structure can trick machine learning—sampling matters! Many thanks to @lbarquist.bsky.social for the support and guidance! dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

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...

RNA–RNA interactome approaches provide in vivo evidence for a critical role of the Hfq rim face in sRNA–mRNA pairing url: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Franziska Faber and I are recruiting shared postdocs, PhD students to work on Fusobacterium & new BGCs. www.helmholtz-hiri.de/fileadmin/HI...

🧬🦠🚨 Another new paper alert, this time led by @maureenbug.bsky.social ! In collaboration with the Emerson lab and @titus.idyll.org lab (@taylorreiter.bsky.social), both at UC Davis. Asking the question: what are we missing in short-read metagenome assembly, and why ? doi.org/10.1093/narg...

Happy to share that I’m opening my lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science! We’ll study systems-level regulation of bacterial defense, driven by RNA-protein interactions shaping cell fate. Now recruiting PhD students & postdocs tinyurl.com/4yfa55vd Please reach out and share!

Your societies need you #MicroSky! Editorial from the European Academy of Microbiology Task Force: Society journals matter—supporting science through renewed commitment: academic.oup.com/microlife/ar...

🎥 New series: Paper in a Minute! CMFI researchers explain key findings from recent publications in under 60s. Ep. 1: Ana Rita Brochado @brochadolab.bsky.social on antifolate-triggered CBASS activation in V. cholerae. Watch: youtu.be/q3EErS28oMs?... #ERC #AMR @natmicrobiol.nature.com #scicomm

🚀 We're hiring! We are offering several exciting #PhD & #postdoc positions spanning a range of topics, from jumbo phage biology & phage therapy to programmable RNA therapeutics & Fusobacterium nucleatum research. The application deadline is Jan 11. Learn more: www.helmholtz-hiri.de/en/jobs-tale...

How does a bacterial small RNA evolve new functions? Our new study reveals the stepwise evolutionary journey of UhpU, a 3′UTR-derived sRNA in E. coli and relatives. It evolved from a metabolically-focused regulator to one with expanded targets and biogenesis manner. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We have an open call for a group leader at the Rudolf Virchow Center for Integrative and Translational Bioimaging in Würzburg, Germany. Generous starting package, vibrant and highly interdisciplinary biomedical research environment. www.nature.com/naturecareer... Please spread the word.

Phage-induced lysis may only be the beginning of something else. Great effort by Antonio (first and corresponding author) showing the occurrence of extracellular DNA synthesis and structuring! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Very cool, congrats Erez!!

Online Now: The Ppl protein senses 3′-hydroxyl DNA overhangs and NTP depletion to halt phage infection Online now:

Today, Minister-President Markus Söder awarded @jorg-vogel-lab.bsky.social the Bavarian Maximilian Order. Presented every two years, the award recognizes outstanding accomplishments in science & the arts and is regarded as one of the state’s highest honors. Congrats on the “Bavarian Nobel Prize”! 👏🎉