Excited to see this online! The structure of the CAST type I holo-complex. Congrats to all involved! By the labs of @martinjinek.bsky.social & @sternberglab.bsky.social.

Structural basis of RNA-guided DNA integration by type I CRISPR-associated transposases www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.18.725949v1 #cryoem

We are hiring! 🔬🧫 Join our lab at the Uni Southampton as a Research Technician working on bacteria-phage interactions to develop therapies for hard-to-treat infections. 2-year post Deadline: 27 May 2026 Position start date: 1 July 2026 or shortly after Apply: jobs.soton.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Out today - structure of the human HIRA histone chaperone complex bound to nucleosomes. Ever wondered how nucleosomes are assembled in the wake of transcription? It takes a 'hulk of a protein complex'. Work by the amazing Wei Tian weetian558.bsky.social. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵

Try this new online training game from Leandro F. Estrozi designed for newcomers in structural biology, with a focus on cryo-EM and cryo-ET map interpretation: rico.ibs.fr/helixplo...

We’re hiring in the Weber Lab at the University of Iowa! We study how intracellular pathogens (Chlamydia trachomatis and Orientia tsutsugamushi) manipulate host cells through secreted effector proteins. Two great opportunities for future scientists and research professionals.

Very excited to share our preprint on the discovery of the new metabolite GABA-trehalose and its biosynthetic enzyme in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A thread. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Very happy to share our Druantia III–Zorya II synergy story, now on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2026.05.12.724681v1 It appears alongside several Druantia III papers from excellent colleagues, each telling a different part of the story. (links below)

Happy to share our latest pre-print on the Druantia defense system. We find that Type III Druantia uses a cooperative helicase-nuclease mechanism to sense and degrade replication-associated forked DNA structures. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A🧵

Excited to share our work uncovering SNOR, a ribosome-associated factor that promotes translation restart after dormancy published in Nature!! This was, as usual, a wonderful collaborative effort between our group and the Mattei Lab @simonemattei.bsky.social @embl.org www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We found that TIR domains in animal immune proteins, including the human TLR4, are enzymes that cleave NAD+ to produce the signaling molecule cADPR Read our new preprint by talented Bohdana Hurieva: “Conserved catalytic activity of immune TIR domains in animals” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

1/9 New preprint from the Sternberg Lab in collaboration with the Nishimasu Lab! We uncover how the DRT3 antiphage immune system pairs two reverse transcriptases, one RNA-templated and one protein-templated, to build a double-stranded DNA effector. doi.org/10.64898/202...

With Eugene Koonin, we wrote a rather comprehensive review on the origin, evolution and organization of the #virosphere. We describe all 10 viral realms and the logic behind them, and so much more. Check it out! comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/ar...

We’re hiring! Join the Weber Lab at the University of Iowa to study Chlamydia effector biology, centrosome regulation, vesicular trafficking, and innate immunity. Please share!

That's a wrap on three days of incredible science at #SISB2026! Special thanks to @rockefeller.edu for hosting us on their beautiful campus, to our speakers and poster presenters, and most of all to this community that never fails to inspire. Can't wait for #SISB2027 🫶

TIR-like NADases act in bacterial immunity and the RNA vault https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.01.722283v1

I’m thrilled to share an update to our work on bacterial NACHT domain containing proteins! In our last preprint, we reported that bNACHT11 is activated by multiple phage proteins. We’ve now expanded this work with structural insight and investigation of programmed cell death following activation.

#microsky #phagesky #phage defence academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

A Streamlined and High-Osmolarity Bacillus subtilis Cell-Free Platform for Rapid Characterization of Genetic Regulatory Elements pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

We're super excited to share MissAlignment: a new ML-based approach to reference-free tilt series alignment, spearheaded by @martenchaillet.bsky.social. We think it's going to make your cryo-ET life a lot better. Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Code: github.com/warpem/miss-... 🧶 Thread:

Bacterial immune proteins have repeatedly evolved to become parts of eukaryotic immunity. But how? Our new preprint uncovers a recent horizontal transfer event & shows how eukaryotes co-opted a toxic bacterial immune protein 🦠🧪🧵 1/

Altering gene syntax, defined by the relative order and orientation of neighboring genes, changed DNA supercoiling and affected both the level and variability of gene expression @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our lab is proud to present our latest work harnessing Bridge Recombinase for genome-scale editing in diverse bacteria, microbiome editing, and programmable horizontal gene transfer.

ASM's Mechanism Discovery Unit, focused on advancing research into the basic principles of microbial life, has launched! The unit is led by Glen McGugan, Ph.D., & Alison Criss, Ph.D., & guided by a Scientific Advisory Council of 14 experts. Read more: asm.org/press-releas...

New work from Sashi Weerawarana on how TFAM compacts mitochondrial DNA 🧬 TFAM oligomerizes on DNA to form compact, homogeneous higher-order complexes (see beautiful mass photometry data below), that still retain dynamic behavior. Congratulations Sashi and Wei. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Excited to share our discovery of a new programmable RNA-guided DNA-targeting system hiding inside bacteriophages that predates CRISPR. We call it VIPR (Viral Interference Programmable Repeat), and it uses an entirely new logic to find its targets. Thread + link below.

Congratulations to @aragucci.bsky.social and @sadieantine.bsky.social for their nuclease-NTPase work now online in final form at @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🎉Excited to share our new preprint! TIR domains from diverse animals, including human TLR4, are catalytically active and produce cyclic ADP-ribose (cADPR). This enzymatic activity is widespread in animals and conserved across the tree of life. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Structures of the QatBC complex from Angela Gao and Doug Wassarman in our group reveal an evolutionary link between QatABCD and Type IV CBASS and a role for protein deazguanylation in diverse anti-phage defense systems www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Bacteriophages are in a constant arms race with bacteria 🦠 The Phage ORFeome pooled library from the Aaron Whiteley lab contains phage proteins that activate antiphage defense systems — a tool to dissect the mechanisms of bacterial immunity. Aaron Whiteley

ComEC structure is out!! 😍 Congratulations to the authors! That’s not an easy one. We have been trying for years to get that structure… We failed and gave up.

Those amazing #phages 🦠 figured out 5mC chemistry before we did: 📄 Out today in @MolecularCell we describe a 5mC-selective #deaminase family in environmental phage genomes with broad applications for #5base #sequencing #epigenetics #DNAmethylation #genomics #NGS 🧬🧪 www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Congratulations to Karen Maxwell @themaxwelllab.bsky.social on the 2026 Peter Gilgan Canada Gairdner Momentum Award! An amazing selection and leader in the bacterial immunity field! www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0pg...

I am so excited to share our new findings with you! We provide the structural evidence for a direct protein-to-DNA information pathway, showing how a bacterial enzyme 'reads' its own structure to 'write' DNA. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited to share our new findings in @science.org on how the DRT3 bacterial defense system uses a reverse transcriptase that builds DNA repeats without a nucleic acid template. Microbes never cease to amaze! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Delighted to share our latest work on gene transfer agents (GTAs). We found a lysis control hub which allows GTAs to escape their bacterial host cells and transfer DNA 🧬 between bacteria. Thanks to @tunglejic.bsky.social, all co-authors, and our amazing collaborators! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I'm happy to share a review that our lab put together on innate immune responses to Rickettsia. One interesting tidbit - different Rickettsia species have distinct interactions with xenophagy, where some species co-opt ubiquitylation, while others avoid it! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🔈Paper out! We turned the most fascinating phage host-switch mechanism, diversity-generating retroelements, into a programmable mutagenesis tool, DGRec. You can perform targeted hypermutation of any 50-200bp sequence directly in vivo in E. coli www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Finally published at long last (at least in the pre-view version). Explore the wild and woolly world of archaeal histones! Interactive archaeal histone graph incluced rdcu.be/fdFjv. Congratulations to first author Shawn Laursen

Thank you to @vcallier.bsky.social and Quanta Magazine for highlighting our lab along with the incredible research from @soreklab.bsky.social @audeber.bsky.social @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social @benmorehouse.bsky.social @teralevin.bsky.social @algao.bsky.social Eugene Koonin, L. Aravind and others!

The next International Conference on Gram-Positive Bacteria will take place between 29 June – 2 July 2027 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. #subtiwiki

Excited to share our new paper out today in @science.org 🎉 We show that HGT via natural competence drives diversification of chromosomal integrons in V. cholerae 🤩 Below a 🧵 on key findings incl. background on natural competence in V. cholerae 1/ #microsky #phagesky www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited to share the last installation of my PhD work. Worked with an all-star team on this one who really made this all come together beautifully. @ranidreamer.bsky.social @amardeeep.bsky.social @benadler.bsky.social and many others. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Postdoc position available in St Andrews for a structural biologist: www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

PostDoc position available! (links in post below) Feel free to share!

Pls share: A postdoctoral researcher position is available in the Scharf lab in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech to study motility and chemotaxis in the symbiotic soil bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti. jobs.apply.vt.edu/jobs/postdoc...

‼️Please share‼️ Nemudryi lab is looking for postdocs to join our team and study: 🦠 Bacterial phage defense mechanisms 🧬 RNA repair & CRISPR-based RNA editing Excited about RNA, host-virus interactions & mechanistic biology? Let's talk! Apply: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

My lab at Pitt is looking for a Research Scientist to help us make phage therapy for patients with antibiotic-resistant infections. Please share and apply! cfopitt.taleo.net/careersectio...