So happy to share this! Bacteriocins were first discovered over 100 years ago, but what do they actually do? We look at >1000 bacteriocin plasmids and find links to virulence and antimicrobial resistance, and frequent bacteriocin sharing in Enterobacteriaceae. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hello everyone, take a look at my cool bugs from the Microbial Dark Matter phylum Saccharibacteria! These ultrasmall bacteria (in green) track down Actinobacteria hosts (not in green) and grow on the host cell envelope.

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...

Metabolic interplay drives population cycles in a cross-feeding microbial community www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Phage "satellites" that produce capsids but have no genes to produce tails have puzzled scientists for a long time. These are abundant as prophages in bacteria, but it was unclear how they can infect without tails Now, Penadés & co show that they hijack tails from other phages. Incredible!

New preprint bubbling up in our group for a while: "Phase separation and coexistence in spatial coordination games between microbes" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Generalizes findings of phase separation in microbes using T6SSs to a broad range of interaction mechanisms. Li + Steinbach et al.

Does your lab perform killing assays? TL;DR: we’ve identified a problem that can bias the outcome of killing assays, making antagonism look stronger than it really is. Adding a simple extra step can mitigate this bias!  Out now at #MicrobioJ www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour... 1/n

The Royal Society David Attenborough Award and Lecture 2025 is awarded to Dr Roger Highfield for a vast contribution to public engagement, reaching audiences of millions through journalism, broadcast, books and museum-led initiatives. https://royalsociety.org/medals-and-prizes/attenborough-prize/

Check out our latest preprint! We show that the same antibacterial toxin requires different immunity proteins depending whether it’s intra or extracellular

Go Team! Deeply honoured that the MERMan lab reps won an @manchester.ac.uk‬ "FMBH heroes" award - thanks ‪@fbmh-uom.bsky.social‬ and @mermanchester.bsky.social for nominating us ❤️❤️❤️

Only one week to go until the abstract submission deadline for Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics 2025! Make sure to submit by 23:59 BST on 7 July 2025. microb.io/Abstracts #MicroEvo25

#Bacteria use weapons to outcompete rivals, but what happens if they're transferred? @prokaryota.bsky.social @jdpal.bsky.social &co show that HGT of toxin #plasmids is rare but recipients can thrive under relaxed nutrient competition, reshaping bacterial warfare @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/43vC3X7

Delighted to be able to share our new review on R-pyocins produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It covers genetics, regulation, killing mechanisms and therapeutic potential amongst other things. #MicroSky www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Had a fantastic time at @pintofscience.uk last night! Here I am wobbling on a chair trying to turn a #Phage into a #T6SS. Thanks @magdalenakurteu.bsky.social‬ for the pic!

Had the absolute best time at @pintofscience.uk talking about microbial evolution and some of the work I’ve been doing at @mermanchester.bsky.social with @flanagella.bsky.social and @dannagifford.bsky.social 🧫💊🧬

An excellent showing from @mermanchester.bsky.social at #microbio25!

1/46 Hey folks, we have a new paper out on the MuLTEE. Strap in and I’ll tell you the story of how this “little paper on polyploidy” turned into the most data rich paper our lab has produced, largely thanks to the leadership and work ethic of @kaitong25.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Oxford U. Foster and Slack labs are hiring! A chance to work in bleeding edge microbiome science with some really great mentors @mucosalimmunology.bsky.social www.fosterlab.uk/vacancies

Embracing the systems complexity of microbial ecology and evolution: call for papers #mSystems Editorial by a group of editors, senior editors & editor-in-chief @leonorabit.bsky.social @gilbertjacka.bsky.social @ashley17061.bsky.social @markjmandel.bsky.social journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Thrilled to have our recent T6SS resistance work featured in this @pnas.org commentary by Prof. Nick Shikuma. Thanks for the shoutout Nick! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Starting my Bluesky adventure by highlighting a new paper from the lab!

Hi folks, I'm excited to share a whale of a tale (sorry, bad pun), where we engineer snowflake yeast to express sperm whale myoglobin, and explore how oxygen-binding proteins may have helped overcome anatomical limitations to early multicellularity. 🧪 #MEvoSky journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

And now with the working link! journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Join us at 13:00 BST today for the AMR in Focus series: "What's new in therapeutics." The webinar is free, and all are welcome to attend. Register before 11:00 BST to join - https://microb.io/AMR-in-Focus

Distribution of the four type VI secretion systems in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and classification of their core and accessory effectors @naturecomms.bsky.social from Daniel Unterweger www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Amazing work from @mattjago.bsky.social and coauthors - QMS-seq reveals numerous and unexpected routes to #antimicrobialResistance in E. coli. Congrats all, stunning work 🎉🎉🎉

Great to see this work out with bunch of great colleagues!

Chuffed to have been featured in the local news! Thanks @MENnewsdesk for covering our T6SS toxins story🗞️ www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨PhD studentship opportunity! Bacteria protect themselves with a huge arsenal of defences, but does this affect how they gain new traits on plasmids? 🧫🦠💫 Apply for a funded 4y position with me @livuni-ives.bsky.social, @brockhurstlab.bsky.social @jojofoth.bsky.social & @multidefence.bsky.social ⬇️

Joy! Published today in PNAS: multi-toxin T6SS attacks limit resistance evolution in competitors! Big thanks to our wonderful team of collaborators for all their help: @coytelab.bsky.social @knightjar.bsky.social @basler-lab.bsky.social @brockhurstlab.bsky.social 🎉 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨PhD Opportunity - please share!🚨 We’re hiring a PhD student to start Sept 2025: how do bacteria ‘tame’ phage parasites, and turn them into deadly Tailocins? Come join me, @brockhurstlab.bsky.social, Patrick Cai & @raveentank.bsky.social as we study ZOMBIE PHAGES! findaphd.com/phds/project...

Wow

It's a rare Good News Monday! - Manuscript accepted 🗞️ - PhD studentship funded 💷 - 1 week until holidays! 🎄

New in Nature Comms, we show that azole-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus are more likely to evolve resistance to new antifungals due to variants in their DNA mismatch repair system rdcu.be/d3Iyc @natureportfolio.bsky.social #microsky #fungi #amr

Huge congratulations Dr. Rosie! 🥳

Some excellent Xmas #boardgames with @mermanchester.bsky.social tonite. Findings: - it is impossible to express the rules of Wavelength in english - Articulate is the best party game ever Team gold ftw

Is it “winner-takes all” when the simplest living things compete? Check out my fresh publication on phage coexistence in Science and a thread below🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

My Tidyverse local synteny visualizer is up on GitHub: github.com/cxli233/Tidy... GitHub page contains 2 example datasets, as well as step-by-step instruction & explanations on how it works. Details on required input data are discussed in the GitHub page. Let me know if you run into issues.

Highly recommend (long) read for anyone who's been leading a lab 10+ years!

Every two years, ISME celebrates the achievements of scientists who have substantially advanced the field of microbial ecology. If you know of outstanding members of the community worthy of an ISME Society Award, please fill in the nominations ballot by 31 Jan 2025👇🏼 isme-microbes.org/call-for-ism...

Congratulations to Dr Taoran Fu @taoranfu.bsky.social! 🎇🦠🎉

Fantastically informative thread

(1/6) Really jazzed to have this out - my first @wellcometrust fellowship paper! biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Can bacteria evolve resistance to competitors' T6SS weaponry? We find that the answer depends on **how many toxins** competitors are using. A thread:

Exciting chance to join our Wellcome Trust collaborative project understanding AMR evolution in human infections! Genomics, experimental evolution, Pseudomonas. Research Assistant 4-days per week for 2-years, deadline 18.03. www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... #microsky

'Michelle Donelan, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, has today tweeted a full retraction of her false allegations about Prof Kate Song, a member of UKRI's EDI panel' www.bindmans.com/knowledge-hu...

Absolutely nobody asked for this but I reformatted my animal yeetability thread into printable poster & zine files. Introducing, the "Pocket Guide to Responsible & Sustainable Animal YEETING" featuring a revamped rating system. Download links below.

Still Time to apply for a postdoctoral position in Thomas Henry’s Lab in Lyon. Great T6SS project, great PI and also …some structural biology !