I am delighted to share our latest preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202.... Fantastic work from my past and present lab members @flofournes.bsky.social, Sandra Martin and Nicolas Pellaton. Also many thanks to our precious collaborators @gruberlab.bsky.social and to @snsf.ch for funding this research.

Genome replication and cell division control by the methylation-sensitive GcrA regulator in Agrobacterium tumefaciens https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.29.728657v1

New online: Rap1-mediated steric hindrance protects telomeres from MRX sensing

We are implementing a similar policy at @arxiv.bsky.social. If there is incontrovertible evidence of LLM slop in a paper, this means the authors did not take the time to read the LLM output and we can't trust anything else in the paper. Penalty is 1 year ban from arXiv followed by...

Mre11-Rad50 enhances spacer acquisition in a haloarchaeal Type I-B CRISPR-Cas system | bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.08.723854v1?rss=1

We’re hiring! 🇸🇪🔬
 Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Prokaryotic Microbiology (molecular focus) at Stockholm University. Supportive environment + strong molecular research 👉https://su.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID:921526/type:job/where:125/apply:1 Please share!!

Spring beers with @gruberlab.bsky.social @mblokesch.bsky.social @justinecollier.bsky.social

Interested in synthetic biology & microbiomes? 🧬🧫 We are recruiting a PhD student to develop biosensors to study microbe–microbe & microbe–host interactions. In beautiful Lausanne, Switzerland🏔️⛵ @dmf-unil.bsky.social @fbm-unil.bsky.social Apply by 24.05.2026 👇 shorturl.at/6X7M4 Boosts appreciated!

Really cool work from @mblokesch.bsky.social et al Competence-mediated DNA uptake diversifies Vibrio cholerae sedentary chromosomal integrons www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Open postdoc position in my lab on HGT and interbacterial competition. We seek candidates with a PhD in microbiology (or related fields)+ strong 1st-author publications. Curious, highly motivated, and dedicated team players ready to contribute fully are encouraged to apply. Details: tiny.cc/cz01101

Just a quick reminder that the first of these Associate Professorships have a closing date for applications of April the 8th. Get your application in now! Please repost

Last day to register for the SMC meeting 2026!

AlphaFold database has entered the era of complexes. Together with NVIDIA, DeepMind and EBI, we use ColabFold, OpenFold and MMseqs2-GPU to predict ~31 million complexes (homo & hetro-dimers) resulting in 1.8 million high-quality predictions 📄 research.nvidia.com/labs/dbr/ass... 🌐 alphafold.ebi.ac.uk

‼️Exciting news: we are back‼️ This year marks the 20th anniversary of our graduate student symposium, and we are more than excited to be collaborating with students from the EPFL School of Life Sciences🇨🇭 📅 When? 2nd - 3rd of July 2026 📍Where? MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

I have a PhD student and a post-doc position available in my lab to work on plant photobiology. Please use the links below to postulate. Please RT, many thanks career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree... career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...

Preprint alert 🚨Happy to share my first Posdoc manuscript from the Vos lab @voslab.org. We introduce GATO-seq, a high-throughput, fully in vitro technique that maps RNA polymerases at base pair resolution over time. Using it, we found a new pause state of Pol II: sidetracking tinyurl.com/superpause

Explore SMC mechanism and regulation at EMBO Workshop "Threads of life: SMC complexes in #chromosome structure and dynamics" in #Bengaluru, IN, 13–18 Dec 2026. Registration/Abstract submission by 1 Apr/1 May https://meetings.embo.org/event/26-smc-complexes#chromosome#Bengaluru#EMBOThreadsOfLife #genesky #EMBOevents 🧪

Pregnancy loss is common in humans, and chromosomal abnormalities are the leading cause. Using genetic data from ~140,000 IVF embryos, we show that maternal variation in meiosis genes influences recombination and aneuploidy risk. First authors: @saracarioscia.bsky.social & @aabiddanda.github.io

The @dmf-unil.bsky.social is supporting the application of a candidate for the SNSF/ERC Starting Grant (deadline 5th of May). Reach out to me if you are interested. We are collecting CV’s until the 8th of Feb. We can offer a stimulating scientific environment and help with the application/interview.

COW TOOLS COW TOOLS COW TOOLS

Ancestral sequence reconstruction reveals CTP-dependent loading of the bacterial centromere-binding protein ParB as an ancient evolutionary feature Now published: tinyurl.com/4ddhwbb3 Thanks to the Hochberg and Bange labs for the great collaboration!

JOB ALERT: Operations Director (DCI–Lausanne). The DCI, a joint initiative of EPFL, UNIL, UNIGE and UNIBE, is recruiting an Operations Director to lead the cryo-EM facility in Lausanne. 📩 Questions: CEO of the DCI: @chgenoud.bsky.social 🔗 Apply here: careers.epfl.ch/job/Lausanne...

@science.org Chromatin buffers torsional stress during transcription | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Verspätungen 2025 an über 100 europäischen Bahnhöfen: Sogar italienische Züge sind pünktlicher als deutsche... 🙈 Quelle: chuuchuu.com/2025wrapped

Coupled to the general budget cuts by both the canton and federal government to our University (and it's happening at most institutes in Switzerland), this would be really bad. The project funding scheme is really the best thing about Swiss science, so please don't touch this!

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Agrees to Pay $15 Million to Settle Fraud Allegations Related to Scientific Research Grants. The relator [Sholto David] will receive $2,625,000 under today’s settlement. www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/d...

Online Now: The Ppl protein senses 3′-hydroxyl DNA overhangs and NTP depletion to halt phage infection Online now:

New online: DNA topoisomerase I acts as supercoiling sensor for bacterial transcription elongation

Really looking forward to hosting Elisabeth on Monday Dec 1 at @fbm-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social for our BIG seminar: 12.15 in Genopode C (note change of room). Open to everyone.

The hinge bypass gate paper is finally out! doi.org/10.1038/s414... We show how loop-extruding SMC complexes can maintain DNA entrapment while bypassing obstacles on DNA — including transcription machinery & potentially other SMCs. A lucky convergence of 3 projects lead to the initial discovery!

Glad to see this out after a rather interesting review/publication process! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Prashant Singh in the lab of Tina Iverson at Vanderbilt published this image of the bacterial 🦠flagellar motor, a detailed molecular model made possibly by CryoEM 🔬. The similarity to mechanical motors are strong enough we can use terms like stator, rotor, rod & gearing to describe it.

🌍Open call: Junior Group Leader positions! Join a world-class biomedical research institute at the heart of the Vienna BioCenter, where curiosity drives discovery. Lead your own lab, pursue bold ideas, and shape the future of science at the IMP: www.imp.ac.at/career/open-...

What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure. A really informative article, perfect for a weekend coffee read. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This paper was retracted (by the authors) a long time ago: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15178751/ However, I cannot find a retraction notice on the DOI page: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Is this standard practice, or an oversight? @science.org

Very nice Preview by @bramkamplab.bsky.social on the SMC DNA loading paper by our @roisnehamelinf.bsky.social "Weaving the loops of life: DNA loading by loop-extrusion machines in plasmid defense and genome organization" Molecular Cell www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

#microsky #phagesky Mycobacterium #phage review by Graham Hatfull covering the state of the art www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

📢 Open Call! The Max Perutz Labs invite applications for a Full Professorship in Integrative Structure Biology with a focus on in situ structural biology using cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) and related methods. More details ➡️ tinyurl.com/brswbymu

Really cool! But Bluesky has flipped your picture over - it now shows positively supercoiled left-handed DNA :-(.

who would have thought! phage N15 TelN telomerase has more than one job! (and no, it's not 'moonlighting') great work from the gruber lab 👏 #MicroSky + #PhageSky

E. coli bacteriophage N15 suppresses Mre11-Rad50-mediated end degradation of its linear genome via a telomere-resolution-independent function of its telomere resolvase TelN #RefereedPreprint c/o @reviewcommons.org by @gruberlab.bsky.social www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

This was a fun collaboration between Ophélie & the @seegerlab.bsky.social using sybody libraries to target the SMC complex in living bacteria. With a suprising finding: the 14 isolated sybodies bind to the middle of the SMC coiled coil rather than the more conserved ATPase heads.

Single Domain Antibody Inhibitors Target the Coiled Coil Arms of the Bacillus subtilis SMC complex https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.16.682983v1

Online Now: Mechanism of DNA entrapment by a loop-extruding Wadjet SMC motor Online now:

New online: Structure and activation mechanism of a Lamassu phage and plasmid defense system

🚨Our paper is out! 🥳 Hijacking a bacterial ABC transporter for efficient genetic code expansion. Many congrats to everyone involved - a multi-year effort led by @taruniype.bsky.social @maxfottner.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... it all started years ago with a failed experiment 🧵👇 1/9

And also the bacterial telomere protection paper by Maya, Nicolas, & Ania is out: doi.org/10.1038/s443... Great experience with @reviewcommons.org & @embojournal.org Feels just right to have the manuscript reviewed without having to target a specific journal from the start.

Happy that the final version of our Lamassu work @yli18smc.bsky.social is now out: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Thanks again to our awesome collaborators @mblokesch.bsky.social and David and co and Mark Szczelkun and @steven-shaw.bsky.social and the DCI Lausanne @fbm-unil.bsky.social

We are pleased to highlight this article published by @gruberlab.bsky.social. At DCI, F. Roisne Hamelin and collaborators used electron microscopy — and in particular our streptavidin affinity grids — to reveal the mechanism by which Wadjet binds to the plasmid to initiate loop extrusion.