It really shouldn’t need saying that brilliant students are found across the demographic spectrum. The capacity of parents to pay for a child’s education has very little bearing on whether or not their child will be hard-working, full of curiosity, passionate and quirky, all of which would be

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THE UNIVERSE PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Congratulations to @microbesity.bsky.social on the publication of his new study on Dysosmobacter welbionis, and thanks to Patrice for letting me play a small part in it. Nice start to the new year. :) #microbiomesky

Synthesis-driven reverse metabolomics reveals 3-hydroxy N-acyl amides as gut microbial molecules https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.07.698252v1

Happy New Year – new role! 🎉 We’re looking for a PostDoc to join us in @halllab.bsky.social @unibirmingham.bsky.social. Full-time, fixed-term to March 2028. Note tight closing date: 11 Jan 2026. CV + cover letter (submit via portal). Further details 👇 edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

It has been a long road, but our paper on Klebsiella plasmids is finally out in Lancet Microbe. Thanks to all co authors but especially Marjorie Gibbon and Natacha Couto www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Now published in Nature Biotechnology: go.nature.com/44P7nSm If you missed it, the TL;DR is in my April thread below

🎉🎉🎉 New preprint to start the new year 🎉🎉🎉 Patients recovering from bowel surgery may have stomas formed to divert the flow of faeces to the opening on the skin, away from healing intestinal tissue. The visible sign of this process is an ileostomy or colostomy bag. /1 #surgerysky #medsky

The University of Vienna awards at least 20 four-year and full-time (40h/week) postdoctoral positions to outstanding female scientists in natural sciences, life sciences, and economics.

📢 MicrobesNG POPUP is coming to Nottingham! It's a FREE #MicrobialGenomics & #Microbiome symposium on 5th June 🦠🧬 We're accepting abstracts now! Focus on #ECRs Please RT Submit by 9th Feb 👉 www.surveymonkey.com/r/POPUP_NOTT... @bugsinyourguts.bsky.social & Microbiome-Net #MNGPopUp #MicroSky

🧬 Free @microbesng.bsky.social PopUp ECR symposium 🧬 UK-based MRes or PhD student, research assistant or postdoc working on microbial genomics or metagenomics? Present your work and/or chair a session, plus excellent keynote speakers: @halllab.bsky.social and @alexmsalmeida.bsky.social. #MNGPopUp

Are you interested in #metaproteomics? We have a senior scientist position in my lab focused on metaproteomics, and xenobiotic- #microbiome -host interactions. Check it out. jobs.quadram.ac.uk/Details.asp?...

I have a postdoc position in metagenomic exploration available in my group. Candidates with documented experience in phylo & metagenomics and preferably with petabase-scale data mining and GLM workflows are encouraged to apply. Come join us! 🧬🦠💻 Please repost Apply here: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p...

Proud to announce SimPhyNI, a new tool for bacterial GWAS with higher precision and scalability than existing tools. Try it out and let us know what you think!!

First grant rejection of the year, and I'm not even back at work yet. Yay!

It’s a dark night when you look at the news and are forced to admit that you no longer believe in the power of the FIFA peace prize

Three million people live in Caracas, five million in the metro area. It's one of the densest cities in South America. Remember this in the morning when they try to spin this as anything other than a cold-blooded attack on a major civilian center.

I know many of you know Joe James (of Binning Singletons) Joe and his family had a terrible tragedy occur on Christmas. If you can give, this is a good family to help out gofund.me/5cbfe22fe

For those of you wanting to start a new project in the new year but afraid you're gonna suck, heed the words of the ancient texts:

Happy new year to you and yours.

New year, new PhD? 🧑‍🎓 If you’re fed up of leftovers, and out of ideas for festive fun, here’s a quick reminder to apply to these posts! 🧫 🧬 #PhD #Microbiology #Genomics

Here’s to 2026

Repeat after me: GENE 👏 EXPRESSION 👏 PROFILING 👏 DOES 👏 NOT 👏 A 👏 VIRTUAL 👏 CELL 👏 MAKE 👏

Hey folks, am looking for examples of circularised/full plasmid sequences from "unusual " bacterial species, sequenced since 2020 (as independent validation for a plasmid identification tool that was trained on refseq2020+plsdb). Any tips? #microsky

Systematic profiling of growth interactions in human gut microbiome species https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.19.693361v1

🚨Only 2 weeks left to apply! ✨Join the HIS team! ✨ We’re recruiting a Researcher in Evidence Synthesis to drive guideline development, rapid reviews and knowledge mobilisation in IPC. Deadline: 5 Jan 2026. Details: https://ow.ly/o0zV50Xz0g1 #ResearchJobs #Hiring

We would be very happy to host a #bioinformatics #postdoc within this call! If you have expertise in #gutmicrobiota, #metagenomics, #machinelearning and/or #multiomics approaches, please get in touch to discuss potential 🧬& 🖥️ projects. Please share! @MicroSky www.scilifelab.se/data-driven/...

Manchester Institute of Biotechnology is looking for a new Professor. There are a few priority areas including microbial engineering (broadly defined, from pathways to cells to microbiomes). Closing 12 Jan. Join us in the best city in the UK 😜 www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

The experiment would not be allowed in Denmark or the US, where vaccination-at-birth is already the standard of care. Withholding vaccination at birth lacks equipoise, given the high risk of lifelong chronic infection when acquired early in life. As noted yesterday, it clearly violates Helsinki.

🚨 Postdoctoral Opportunity for Female Scientists🚨 The University of Vienna is awarding at least 20 fully funded 4 year postdoctoral positions to outstanding female scientists Interested? Get in touch via direct message careers.univie.ac.at/en/postdoc/e... #MicroSky 🧪 #PostDoc @univie.ac.at

Now published 🔥 Feeding your gut microbes with complex carbohydrates can help preventing colorectal cancer by reducing the production of secondary bile acids. Perhaps NiMe diet @jenswalter15.bsky.social? THX team & Sören Ocvirk ⭐ Thx www.sfb.tum.de/1371/microbi.... Article 👉 doi.org/10.1136/gutj...

In case anyone needed any more reasons NOT to engage with Frontiers 🤪

If you missed the 2025 @isbscience.org Virtual Microbiome Symposium (theme: how microbial metabolites influence the brain, the immune system, & metabolism), the videos of the talks and the panel discussion are now available here: youtube.com/playlist?lis... Thanks to all who helped make it happen!

Our preprint on predicting drug resistance in bacteria is now out in @plosbiology.org. We show ignoring phylogenetic structure in genome collections leads to overly optimistic evaluations of machine learning methods for AMR prediction. Work from @yanyingyu.bsky.social with @nwheeler443.bsky.social.

✨Join the HIS team! ✨ We’re recruiting a Researcher in Evidence Synthesis to drive guideline development, rapid reviews and knowledge mobilisation in IPC. Deadline: 5 Jan 2026. Details: https://ow.ly/o0zV50Xz0g1 #ResearchJobs #GuidelinesDevelopment #Hiring

In partnership with the University of Manchester, we've secured a prestigious Doctoral Focal Award from UK Research and Innovation for a new PhD programme aimed at shaping the future of bioengineering in the UK 📅 Applications will open on 6 February 2026 🔗 bit.ly/3MyLwIy #TeamLivUni #EPSRC #NERC

I wrote a piece on LLMs, citation metrics, and the institution of science. It's been up for a couple of days, but it is officially "out" now.

I've spent all day struggling to write a single page of a popular science article. I bang away at a word processor; give up; start diagramming on paper. Take some notes; draft a few sentences in pen; return to the computer...and very slowly I figure out what I was trying to say in the first place.

Had to take obligatory AI training. The answers to most of the course questions essentially summarised all the reasons why generative AI is rubbish. I dread to think how much cash-strapped institutions have invested in the Emperor's new clothes.

(1/7) Really pleased to have this published in @natcomms.nature.com We looked at all public genomes encoding blaIMP (carbapenem #AMR ) 🦠🧫🧬💊. We show 5 IMP variants achieved global endemicity while 2 are regionally endemic. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #MicroSky #microbiology #IDSky #EpiSky 🧪

Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH. And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you. A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n

We are recruiting for a number of PhDs in the HPRU in Public Health Genomics, based at @unibirmingham.bsky.social, in collaboration with UKHSA. 🦠🧬 Apply below to work on cutting-edge science and public health priorities! (NB deadline of 9th January / UK only due to funding restrictions) (1/7)

By analysing 336 KpSC genomes from human, animal, and environmental sources, we reveal strong population compartmentalisation. Environmental sublineages (farms) are highly diverse and persistent, while human-associated strains (clinical and WWTP) show fast turnover and multidrug resistance profiles.

About time!

🎉 Save your seat! 📅 The TARGetAMR Annual Conference 2026 is happening on 14–15 May 2026 at The Studio, Birmingham ✨ Theme: Building the Future of AMR Genomics 🦠 Join experts & researchers tackling antimicrobial resistance 👉 Register now: www.targetamr.org.uk/hdrevents/ta...

Ditto, ditto, ditto! We are thrilled this is now available in @plosbiology.org 🎉🎉🎉 Our analysis of metabolic diversity in #klebsiella pneumoniae, showing clone specific metabolism. 🦠 Fantastic work by @bananabenana.bsky.social, summarised beautifully below. 🤩

This is VERY cool! 🧪

Work on respiratory immunology or microbes? Interested in big data, omics or the latest in vitro models?... Treat your lab to a christmas present of AIR 2026 registration! Feb 11th-13th, registration closing soon: coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/air-20...

Very much looking forward to 2 days of great talks at #MMEG2025, and to catching up with @resp-micro.bsky.social and @jamesemcdonald.bsky.social.

The cultural impact of Rob Reiner cannot be understated. Legend isn't big enough a word. It goes to 11. You can't handle the truth. As you wish. I'll have what she's having. I'm your number one fan. You guys wanna see a dead body? The very idea of a bucket list. The West Wing. All from his movies.