The bacterial #SOSresponse unfolds in a defined temporal order, but how does this arise? @adityakamat.bsky.social @anjbadri.bsky.social &co show that intrinsic #promoter strength, modulated by #SigmaFactor usage, governs timing of SOS gene activation in Caulobacter @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4oAKf0Q

1/Now published! We identify a novel regulatory layer underlying SOS response dynamic. Find a short summary about our findings below. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... #MicroSky

Now published. Thank you very much to our collaborative team, and very supportive editors and reviewers!!! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

‘Chromosomal Topological Domain Formation Modulates Transcription and the Coupling of Neighboring Genes in Escherichia coli‘ by Drs. Nico Yehya, Christopher Bohrer, and collaborators, is now available on bioRxiv. Check it out! doi: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Assembly, architecture and functional roles of microbial surface layers Review article published in @natrevmicro.nature.com with @bupbuse.bsky.social, Andriko von Kügelgen and @vikramalva.bsky.social. S-layers are everywhere! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thrilled to share our multidisiplinary work on how genome-wide DNA bridging by H-NS reshapes the stationary phase bacterial nucleoid and affects the transcriptional landscape. With Xindan Wang and @meyerroc.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

new preprint from our group & Antoine Hocher: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A fantastic collaboration with Antoine, with Jovana Kaljevic' initiated the collaboration and drives the project.

Independent research fellowships leading to tenured positions at the John Innes Centre. Repost = nice. Thank you very much!!!

🚨🚨🚨Calling all Caulophiles and Alpha aficionados - stayed tuned for a virtual CauloCon in early 2026. And HOPEFULLY an in person alpha meeting in 2027!! DM me or @chienlab.bsky.social w questions or to stay in the know.

🚨New paper out! #MicroSky Studying obligate predators like Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus is tricky—essential genes for predation are also essential for survival. We expanded its genetic toolbox: 🧬promoters to fine-tune expression 🧬IPTG-inducible system 🧬CRISPRi for rapid knockdown bit.ly/46GUn2c 1/4

N6-methyladenine modification of DNA enhances RecA-mediated homologous recombination www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨 Imagine a bacterium that refuses to follow the textbook: It grows as tangled filaments, divides unevenly, reshapes its own membranes… and even builds grappling hooks. Meet Litorilinea aerophila — and here’s why it blew our minds.

Biophysics enthusiasts, do consider applying for the seventh session of YBM! Submit your abstracts by 20th August.

#MicroSky Summer read! Predatory bacteria kill and eat other bacteria. Their deadly actions come in many flavors, often via direct physical contact between predator & prey 🧛 How do they do it? Our review 📖 @coralietesseur.bsky.social @ysantin.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

And the story is published now!🍾 www.nature.com/articles/s41... Open access link: rdcu.be/exnOc Many years in the making, great collaboration with @archaellum.bsky.social & @tunglejic.bsky.social Thanks @ukri.org BBSRC & @leverhulme.ac.uk for funding, reviewers & editor!! 🙏 #microsky #archaeasky

Theoretical physics enthusiasts, do consider submitting an abstract for the upcoming sixth YBM! Submit your abstracts here: t.co/W1qGraRpAc

In @elife.bsky.social: Bacteriophage infection drives loss of β-lactam resistance in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

Happy to see our collaborative work on the contractile injection system (CIS) in Streptomyces published. We show that the membrane protein CisA gives Streptomyces CIS a licence to kill. @pilhoferlab.bsky.social & Bastien Casu, @joesallmen.bsky.social #MicroSky elifesciences.org/articles/104...

The fifth session of YBM is coming up next week. Join us for two exciting talks on Monday (7th July) at 11am (EDT). Mark your calendars🗓️: tinyurl.com/29b7yk47 Meeting link: shorturl.at/0ng5A

Finally published! Many thanks to the reviewers and editor whose comments & suggestions improved this work significantly more than the first preprint version!!! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The excitement continues! Check out my latest preprint examining how phages have adapted to lyse different bacterial envelopes. I found a lysis gene (lysZ) that is conserved in phages that infect corynebacteria mycobacteria, and other actinos. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I'm pleased to announce that I will be starting my lab as an Assistant Professor at UMass Chan Medical School in August! My group will study phages that infect corynebacteria and mycobacteria to understand bacterial cell envelope assembly and phage gene function. Website and more info to come soon!

#PhDone! 🎓 Congratulations Dr Shivangi Verma! 🎊 @shivangiv10.bsky.social from Prof Vatsala Thirumalai's lab successfully defended her thesis! 🧵👇Check out the thread to learn more about her work on understanding how neuronal networks are sculpted in the cerebellum during development 🧠 (1/5)

Very happy to share that a large part of my thesis work is out today: B. subtilis uses the second messenger c-di-AMP to modulate its turgor pressure in response to the state of its cell envelope. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Some positive news in troubled times: New preprint by Vincent de Bakker, Xue Liu @jonbakerlab.bsky.social Infection-mimicking conditions+transcriptomics/proteomics/'essentialomics'/lipidomics shows many cool things! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Join us at the BPS Thematic Meeting on Spatial Organizations of Biological Functions in beautiful Bangalore, India! The early registration deadline is July 21st, 2025. www.biophysics.org/meetings-eve...

How does your favorite species elongate? 🧵 "Phenotypic plasticity in bacterial elongation among closely related species". Happy to see this paper in print @natcomms.nature.com. Nice work by @mariedelaby.bsky.social, Liu Yang et al. See original 🧵, different colours, same data and conclusions.

Starting in 15 minutes...

🚨 Very excited to finally say… 🚨 The story of Noodlococcus - the contaminant that started ContamClub - is available to read 📖🍜🦠 Check it out ➡️ doi.org/10.1101/2025... 1/15 🧵

🚀 Satyam and Guanming’s “Emergent Universal Long Range Structure in Random-Organizing Systems” shows noise correlations create long-range structure, from 🧩 hyperuniform materials to 🤖 ML, and that SGD’s flat minima bias is universal. 👇 arxiv.org/abs/2505.22933 #SoftMatter #ML

I’m excited that the work by Diego Ramirez and Lei Yin is out, where they gained several key insights into what provides the force underlying bacterial cell division doi.org/10.1101/2025.... To divide, cells must first bend the membrane inward, a process that’s energetically expensive

Deadline to apply is just around the corner!

Same genome, different shape, different outcome. SOS-independent phenotypic differences shape survival in E. coli. Very happy to share our preprint!

1/ Excited to share our latest work on gene transfer agents (GTAs) in Caulobacter crescentus, led by Emma Banks in collaboration with Pavol Bardy and Mai Nguyen from York!!! See a brief thread below. shorturl.at/o6S1w

Huge thanks to all the incredible speakers who have shared their research at the Young Biophysicists Meeting so far! Here's a glimpse. See you in the next session!

Our paper on the E. coli Min system in vivo with @physicsoflifelmu.bsky.social & Judy Kim (UCSD) has been published in Nature Physics today. Tight integration of experiment and theory, and physiology and biophysics. Incredible perseverance of our young students. rdcu.be/ekIpO

Mark your calendars!! 🗓️ The third Young Biophysicists Meeting will be held on the coming Monday (May 5th) from 11am - 12pm EST. We have four exciting talks lined up for you, see you all soon! Find out more : shorturl.at/4oKNe

Happy to share Asha Joseph and Inchara Adhikashreni's latest work from the lab, describing replisome speed variation in Caulobacter! www.cell.com/current-biol...

Mark your calendars!! 🗓️ The second Young Biophysicists Meeting will be held on the coming Monday (April 7th) from 11am - 12pm EST. We have three exciting talks lined up for you, see you all soon! Find out more : shorturl.at/4oKNe

📢Excited to share our new paper in Nature Physics @naturephysics.bsky.social: Cooperative hydrodynamics accompany multicellular-like colonial organization in the unicellular Stentor! How do single-celled organisms benefit from teamwork? Let’s dive in! #Multicellularity nature.com/articles/s41...?

Excited to share our new preprint on an RNA sponge counteracting sibling sRNAs in Caulobacter! Laura Vogt and @mvelascogomariz.bsky.social used RILseq, RNA biochemistry and great commitment to work out this story! www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6...

The alemdro tree doesn't just survive lightning strikes--it appears to use the electricity to fry parasites and kill competitors. Fascinating story by @erikstokstad.bsky.social for @science.org!

Mark your calendars!! 🗓️ The first Young Biophysicists Meeting will be held on the coming Monday (March 3rd) from 11am - 12pm EST. We have four exciting talks lined up for you, see you all soon! Find out more : shorturl.at/4oKNe

We discovered the first alternative genetic code in Archaea! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

DdiA, an XRE family transcriptional regulator, regulates a LexA-independent DNA damage response in Myxococcus xanthus https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.19.639066v1

New insights into chromosome segregation in archaeal Sulfolobus. Great work from Barilla lab et al, with contribution from Ngat Tran & Parul Pal in our lab.

Important paper from the Weber-Ban lab about the mechanism of activation of PafBC in the mycobacterial DNA damage response. Single-stranded DNA binding to the transcription factor PafBC triggers the mycobacterial DNA damage response | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

When does a DNA polymerase degrade DNA? Read Akshaya’s work from the lab to find out more!

Happy to announce that our paper on systematically discovering peptides to inhibit protein-protein interactions in living cells is out now @pnas.org: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/.... @MITBiology @hhmi.bsky.social See thread on the updated preprint for details: x.com/bioSavinov/s...

Cool “Behind the paper” article on our recent KorB-KorA sliding clamp-locking clamp story. I remember Chris Thomas and Lewis Bingle (Birmingham) taught me about these proteins when I was an undergrad, and I kept remembering they said the mechanism was not clear!!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...