Happy Winter Solstice. The light is coming! This is the Holly King who is now at the peak of his powers. Fortunately his ascension is complete so we can look forward to the emergence of the Oak King and moving into the light. From my reduction linocut ‘The Holly King versus The Oak King’.

You might have missed out on our lab Christmas party this year, but you can still try your hand at our "common lab chemicals" quiz. Apparently me handing out a sheet of chemical drawings is 'not fun', so this year we also had cryptic clues...

Of course I like all the papers that we publish, but this is actually a very cool story, a great example of 'bush mechanics' in mycobacteria. A new role for lipoproteins LpqZ and FecB in orchestrating mycobacterial cell envelope biogenesis | mBio journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

A great opportunity to join Team #T7SS!

If you or someone you know is looking for a post-doctoral position working on mycobacterial envelope biology, please get in touch. I am recruiting here at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada.

CryoET of microbes inside an animal organ? Yes it’s possible! Check out our new preprint showing how we did it! What an amazing collaboration with amazing scientists who made this possible!

My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books. Lots more here: www.theguardian.com/books/series/tom-gauld-s-cultural-cartoons

#OpenCloning is a an Open Source alternative to SnapGene/Benchling that supports automation and integration with other software ✅ Free 🔓 Open Source 🧬 More cloning methods than SnapGene 🤖 Can be automated with python 👨‍🔬 Built by a researcher — for researchers! 👉 Check it out at opencloning.org

🌟 WeINSPIREBio is hosting its first event! On Dec 4, we’re running a webinar: Structures of Success: Career Journeys of Women in Structural Biology If you work in SB, drug discovery, or just like hearing career stories from brilliant people, join us! And please share 🙏🏼 lnkd.in/ewjD5WPt #cryoEM

It was really great to meet up with some fellow @smlea.bsky.social lab alumni last night. It was a great coincidence that Katharina and I were over from Germany at the same time!

Our latest T7SS study is now out in Science Advances! We solved the cryoEM structure of the T7SSb core unit (T7bCU) composed of YukB, YukC, and YukD from Bacillus subtilis, revealing how these components assemble within the secretion machinery. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

It seems Eurostar are not willing to be outdone by Deutsche Bahn. Although they did rebook me got free, which was nice.

THREAD. A collection of photographs of excellent horses and ponies I have met on walks. You will find the captions to each photo in the alt text.

🚀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 (🧵)

Walter de Staplecat, Simpkin IV, Teabag, Balthasar and Benny D Cat take the stage as we meet the college cats of Oxford. And, of course, Magdalen’s Ozymandias. Read on for our photo special. (Includes a cat map.) oxfordclarion.uk/college-cats...

Why would Mycobacterium shed its surface right after entering a host cell? Host phagocytes rapidly strip its outer layer, releasing components that alert neighbors and trigger defense responses Our preprint is out, curious to hear your take! 👀 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Is it milk? A handy guide to measuring like a Brit.

Archaeologists have unearthed a Bronze Age metropolis in the heart of the Eurasian steppe: an early form of city as complex as those of contemporary, more traditionally 'urban' civilisations, showing how steppe polities were just as sophisticated. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

Oh my

🔬 Experience Research Life at Cambridge! Applications are now open for the 2026 Experience Postgrad Life Sciences Programme. Gain hands-on lab experience with an 8-week summer placement, in partnership with @corpuscambridge.bsky.social! 🔗 www.exppg.lifesci.cam.ac.uk #SummerPlacement #Cambridge

An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our first lab paper is out! We identify and solve the first structure of the SND3 translocon involved in fungal membrane protein insertion. Congratulations @tzujingyang.bsky.social, and our colleagues @saumyakm.bsky.social, @hummerlab.bsky.social and Julian Langer. Read more ⬇️ and ➡️ rdcu.be/eNgIO

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

The latest work from the Marlovits group in collaboration with the Sartori group. Victor used Elastic Strain Analysis to complement Jiři's original Staring at the Structures for Ages Analysis and understand the chemo-mechanical coupling of the RuvAB AAA+ ATPase

The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast' 10/10 response, no notes

Looking for a PhD? 🚀 MIBTP projects are out lots to explore! 🔬 #Bacteria • #AMR • #Interdisciplinary • FUN! My projects explore how Gram-negative bacteria build and maintain their three-layered cell envelope, using cryo-EM, fluorescence microscopy and biochemistry. warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fa...

Finally, just about 2 years after finishing the postdoc the last part of my work is finally online! We determined the structure of HSV-1 Origin Binding Protein, the viral initiator of DNA replication, by cryo-EM 🧪🧬🧶🧵 #cryoEM #structuralbiology

Our colleagues Vinith Kishore and Valentin Debarnot from the @ivandokmanic.bsky.social lab have come up with an amazing deep learning tool for denoising and filling the missing wedge in #cryoET data. I'm pleased to introduce Icecream🍧

As it is International Wombat Day, I must share this by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (ostensibly) concerning his pet wombat: OH how the family affections combat Within this heart, and each hour flings a bomb at My burning soul! Neither from owl nor from bat Can peace be gained until I clasp my wombat.

🚨Our paper is out! 🥳 Hijacking a bacterial ABC transporter for efficient genetic code expansion. Many congrats to everyone involved - a multi-year effort led by @taruniype.bsky.social @maxfottner.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... it all started years ago with a failed experiment 🧵👇 1/9

Been playing down at the beach

Open position to work on Type IX secretion (#T9SS) in our lab, in collaboration withe the group of Eric Reynolds at the Dental School of the University of Melbourne. Please spread the word, and forward to anyone potentially interested ! Apply here: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/Docto...

🧐Checkout our preprint revealing the stepwise firing💥 mechanism of a Contractile Injection System @xujwet.bsky.social&@chipericson.bsky.social trapped the complex by structure-guided engineering🧪 in multiple intermediate states and imaged them by multimodal #cryoEM❄️🔬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Explaining to my wife that I cannot simply “read the books I’ve already bought and haven’t read” like some kind of peasant.

Become my colleague @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social ! 2 Associate Professorships in the areas of - prokaryotic/eukaryotic microbiology - metabolism my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Assistant/Associate Professor in Structural Biology, Biophysics or Biological Imaging www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/open-positio... #biozentrum #University #Basel #Professor #Structural #Biology #Biophysics #Biological #Imaging

Phenomenal. In my 10 year update of A Brief History, I make the point that in the first edition, not one disease had been successfully treated using gene therapy. Today that number is at least 7.

PPE51 is one of the best candidates to form a MOM transport channel. However, our data indicate that it is not that simple. PPE51 mutations in Mmarinum (4 close homologs) indeed reduce the growth on glycerol & glucose, but also highly increase permeability.. and no, we do not fully understand this

Structure and substrate recognition by the Twin-arginine translocation (Tat) pathway core complex https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.18.677151v1

An Infusiast

Many of the most complex and useful functions in biology emerge at the scale of whole genomes. Today, we share our preprint “Generative design of novel bacteriophages with genome language models”, where we validate the first, functional AI-generated genomes 🧵

Is anyone in #MicroSky aware of the rapamycin dimerisation working in (myco)bacteria? Or some other inducible dimerisation? I'd like to give this a go but I'm wary of fusing a 24-mer to my protein of interest

Pretty pleased with my 3d-printed Jeol 1400. But does anyone in #TeamTomo or #cryoEM have a 3D model or technical drawings of a Krios/Aquilos/Arctis I could have a go at printing?

This looks super cool, and could be the solution to a problem I've been having for a while. Congrats all!

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

This was a brilliant course last year; I highly recommend it to anyone looking to improve their CryoFIB and CryoET skills!

1/3 Electricity from air! In the top journal Nano Energy today, we report the first fuel cell that makes power from air alone. We achieved this by using the enzyme Huc to oxidize ambient hydrogen. This results in a continuous low-level power from air and higher outputs with industrial waste gases.

Congratulations @emfurlong.bsky.social !

That means it's 10 years since I did my summer project at @diamondlightsource.bsky.social. How time flies!

📣 New paper alert! Just out in Cell Reports! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40644298/ Thrilled to share that we have discovered a brand-new anti-phage defense system! Bacteria have evolved various defense strategies (CRISPR etc) to counter phage attacks. We found a new one - fascinating and dramatic ⚔️🦠❄️🔬