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One ancestor with diverging lineages in a state of emergency. #4thUKMGEWorkshop #MicroSky #PhDLife #2ndYearPhD #MolMicro #Plasmids #IS26 @mcvickermicro.bsky.social @mgeworkshop.bsky.social

Super excited for my second year of #MGEWorkshop #MGE #Plasmids #InsertionSequences #GenomicChaos

The pQBR mercury resistance plasmids: a model set of sympatric environmental mobile genetic elements https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.27.714766v1

My friends kid has a habit of asking me random #sciencequestions Today’s was “What do you know about Unified Field Theory?” and when I reminded him that scientist doesn’t mean all science, he gave me such a withering look I don’t think I’ll ever recover.

My cab driver turned his podcast over to radio once I’d settled in, but I requested he change it back; I enjoy passively learning things anyway, but when they’re discussing microorganisms and melting glaciers, I definitely want to hear that over a cacophony of random music on my way to work

Blink and you’ll miss it with IS26… #transposase #insertionsequence #mges #IS26

Being a second year #PhD with an eldest daughter going to offer holder open days at opposite ends of the country, trying to guide but not be overbearing and having random revision questions tossed at me sure is a wild ride #UniOfLiverpool #UniofSouthampton

Yasssssss

When I became a #mother, my Grandmother told me that “The nights feel endless, but the days are short“ and I didn’t appreciate what she meant until today, at the Uni of Southampton #OpenDay. It’s almost the end of #coparenting our eldest; I think it’s safe to say I #brokethecycle

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

Heading back to Southampton in a few weeks, only this time, it’s with my eldest daughter for the Open Day - looking forward to seeing the campus from a different perspective to the #MGEworkshop !

Back on my Elvanse mood #ADHD #ADHDinWomen #WomeninSTEM and my #PhD won’t know what’s hit it

Daily reminder as I go into the second year of my PhD

Going back into the lab after 2 weeks off got me like

There are approx 30 seconds per day during which I am brilliant; they are not consecutive and I have no control over them, but here I am, heading towards the end of my first year of #PhD because of [taps sign] #ADHD #garyjohnbishop #STEM #MolMicro

My childminder is on holiday for 2 weeks, so I’m (trying) to WFH… But damn, I’m starting to regret my jokes about Schrodingers PCR at the start of my PhD.

Starting the long journey home from #mgeworkshop - really interesting work happening in labs across the country, told in various formats by a great bunch. Thank you again to @fnobrega.bsky.social 🥳 It’s been awesome!

The 3rd UK MGE Workshop is nearly upon us! 🧬 For those travelling to Southampton today, join us for a drink at Dancing Man Brewery (SO14 2AR) from 5pm. Registration for the workshop opens at 9am on Monday 16th. We look forward to meeting you all then! #MGE #MGEWorkshop #Southampton

Almost ready for #MGEworkshop - my first time presenting, not just at an event but 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 as I'm barely 9 months into my #PhD But I'm reminding myself of the words of my favourite fictional scientist #WalterBishop #Fringe #ADHD #WomeninSTEM #MolMicro

Last year I was white-knuckling my way through final exams after losing my step-father and trying to co-ordinate the small crowd who attended my graduation. Today, I'm working on my first presentation for #MGEworkshop2025 #PhD #nontraditionalstudents

🚨🧬 ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE - 23rd MAY 🧬🚨 🧑‍💻 Get that abstract in - we'd love to hear about your amazing work in genome science this summer 🌞 www.genomescience.org.uk

One of the best book series I’ve ever read, and now a Skasgard is playing the lead in the TV show #marthawells #womeninscifi

Spending Sunday like I have every weekend since I started my #PhD, wondering what my autostereogram-ception of a strain has in store for me this week #molmicro #MGEs #forbiddenspaghetti #ecoli #EAEC

<in Palpatine> Do it

Everyone in the past was neurotypical, which is how we got things like this single-author, eight-volume encyclopedia of ferns

🧬 Thrilled to announce that I'll be speaking at the 3rd Annual MGE Workshop. If molecular mayhem is your jam, join me and explore "From Stability to Chaos: The Role of MGEs in an Enteroaggregative Escherichia coli Outbreak” #MGEWorkshop2025 #MGE #UKScience #PhDLife #MolMicro #FirstYearPhD

Anyone else? #ADHD

At a close friends last night, mentioned I couldn't attend this. I got a tut and an eye roll as she jotted down in her diary that my youngest would be having a school night sleepover at hers. #SciMom #FirstYearPhD #WomeninSTEM #MGEs

Congratulations to PhD students Rachel and Lottie, and MRes student Martyna on their publication with @mcvickermicro.bsky.social! #microsky www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Where it started in 2016 with a small #OpenUni Bio module to see if my brain still worked, followed by #AccessScience at #WestNotts in 2017, Microbiology at #NTU in 2019 and where I’m at now #FirstYearPhD #ThirdAuthor #MolMicro #transposons #EAEC

Really cool to have given a talk at #microbio25, I can cross it off the list! If anyone want to chat about looking into the urobiome as a reservoir of AMR and replicating AMR acquisition in a 3D bladder model, give me a shout!! #microsky #utisky

Final year of undergrad followed by straight into a #PhD… Bloodied and bruised but grinning like a lunatic because I’m having the time of my life 🧬🦠 Life doesn’t always give you a clear path, but I’ve always been a hack at the thorny bushes with my bare hands type anyway #ADHD #SPN

Note I'm always aware I'm going on a wild tangent in a thread but I think people enjoy it more than neutering my thought process so I do it anyway

#MITOpenCourseWare #OCW is an incredible resource if you want to (unofficially) Learn A Thing outside of your specialty. Or if you’re my type of #ADHD and couldn’t absorb enough knowledge to satiate you in a hundred lifetimes. Also, dude is amazing. ocw.mit.edu/courses/8-04...

#ADHDbonusthoughts #supernaturalhasamemeforeverything Death is still up there for best character entry ever.

I ain’t even sorry 🙃 #ADHD #benchmates

Annual #waroftheworlds watch; still one of my favourite early #SciFi books and one of the best overall. There’s no trope of humanity miraculously overpowering a far more advanced species. Just teeny tiny unnamed pathogens taking them down. Genius.

Doing a #PhD when you have #ADHD is wild. I’ll be flying along, then I’m all “Hey, who turned out the lights?” (In the style of the #DrWho Library episode… #IYKYK) then it’s “Oh, wait, it’s just my meds wearing off. IF YOU LIKE PINA COLADAS, oh no, stuck with the weirdo till my next dose”

Smallest human peered over my shoulder at the weekend when I was checking my first batch of #MicrobesNG sequences, so ofc I walked it all the way back for her, whilst asking what her thoughts were. She immediately grasped #toxinantitoxin and asked if the different types interact. #MolMicro #STEM

We're excited to be attending the 1st full East Midlands AMR Network conference TODAY!! Drop by our stand to enter the prize draw for petri dish themed coasters 🧫😍 We've also brought our famous BUZZ wire game, with prizes for the 3 fastest times ⚡🏆 #EastMidsAMR #MicroSky #AMR #WAAW

When the #blorbos aren’t behaving and neither is your #ADHD

The UKHSA ESPAUR report is out today. It's a massive report on the use of antimicrobials in England and the epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance. Bonus data: also includes preliminary results of the #hcai point prevalence survey. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Will find out if my first clones have worked or not in approx 30 mins or so #cloning #molecularmicro #iexpectnothing #firstyearphd #teamplasmid

“Authenticity is the kryptonite to this thing that psychologists might call imposter syndrome” From Unfuck Nation with Gary John Bishop: Imposter Syndrome???, 2 Apr 2024 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/u... This material may be protected by copyright.

The less I say about politics the better, so have some Captain Mal #firefly #browncoat #shiny

Soz for being loquacious, I guess.

Join us at the Microbiology Society Annual Conference in Liverpool next year! We have organised a session on sex, HGT and symbiosis across eukaryote microbes to explore genetic recombination in these organisms. #MicroSky #ProtistsOnSky microbiologysociety.org/event/annual...

And when it suddenly powers down, you forget everything you did prior. It’s fun 🙃 But sometimes you surprise yourself and find work you thought you hadn’t done.