I'm looking for an enthusiastic student to join my team as a PhD candidate on archaeal genome evolution 🦠💻 Work in beautiful Utrecht, at @binfutrecht.bsky.social, an international group full of caring, amazing scientists, and with frequent cake breaks! www.uu.nl/en/organisat... Please share! 🙏

New preprint! Cell division has to happen at the right place but how Archaea pick that place is unknown. We now identified a three-protein system, Dip, that positions the divisome at midcell in H. volcanii and is broadly conserved across Archaea. A thread 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our paper examining the evolution of halophily in DPANN is out now in MBE! academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

Grab a coffee and enjoy reading up on CO metabolism in methanotrophs! Freshwater ANME (own work): www.nature.com/articles/s41... Marine ANME (@Orphan lab): www.nature.com/articles/s41... Big thanks to our collaborators at QUT! @sjmcilroy.bsky.social (Heyu/Andy/Gene!) @cuwelte.bsky.social

Preprint out! Anaerobic methanotrophs are key methane oxidizers, but their activity/adaptation under acidic conditions remains unclear. We show that a freshwater ANME adapts to pH stress via shifts in lipid composition and remains metabolically active down to pH 5.65. Expanding the niche of ANME.

Immensely rewarding part of this work was working with Indigenous language experts and elders in the naming of our species of Asgard….’marumarumayae’ derived from the Malgana language from the people of Gathaagudu (#Shark Bay)

📢 New paper 🚨 ☘️🌿🌱🐄💨🦠🔬🧫🧬 #sulfoquinovose #microbiome #microsky #microbiomesky academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

We have just published a short note on archaeal phylogeny: complex mixture models support a deep placement of Methanonatronarchaeia within Euryarchaea and indicate that three recently described groups (Halorutilales, Afararchaeaceae, and Ordosarchaeia) are actually the same. shorturl.at/5GMpU

Are you a long-time fan of Archaea, an extremophile-phile, or are you simply curious? Either way, we have good news. We’re delighted to announce the 2026 EMBO Workshop on Archaea, 6–10 July. Sign up: meetings.embo.org/event/26-arc... We look forward to seeing you in Cambridge, UK. Please repost!

Ever since publishing our observations of the predatory behaviour of Ca. Nha. antarcticus people have asked me why it would want to kill its host. My perspective discussing the ecological factors that I believe led to this behaviour is out now in mSystems: doi.org/10.1128/msystems.01475-25

#Archaea, #DPANN, #phylogenetic_reconciliation New preprint online! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Exultant to have been awarded a Vidi grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO)! Can't wait to get started! Stay tuned for two upcoming (PhD student & postdoc) positions to study archaeal genome evolution. Also huge congrats to my colleague @dorotakawa.bsky.social! www.uu.nl/en/news/21-v...

Lunch today halfway around the world in Hangzhou and met a new asst professor who was very thankful for this resource. Please help out folks like them and other early career scientists with examples of job apps. Submit yours! github.com/RILAB/statem...

The ecological and phylogenetic partitioning of coastal and offshore SAR11 is underpinned by a handful of distinct metabolic traits under high selective pressure - academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

WE ARE BACK!!! Archaea Power Hour will return this coming WEDNESDAY, Oct. 22nd at 10AM EST/4PM CET. Check your email for the Zoom link (coming soon) or register here: forms.gle/6QvCjHH2H4pxro…. Take a look at the exciting talks we have planned to kick off our fall seminar series:

Live cell imaging of Ca. Nha. antarcticus and Hrr. lacusprofundi using agarose pads. Protocol now live! www.archaea.bio/protocols/li...

There's a PhD position now available with me in Bath, on the evolution of symbiosis. www.findaphd.com/phds/project.... The supervisory team also includes @anja1.bsky.social @phil-donoghue.bsky.social and others. NB, this is open both to UK-based students *and* to international students :)

New article on equitable reuse of public sequencing data, published in @natmicrobiol.nature.com! Led by the Data reuse core team @lhug.bsky.social @environmicrobio.bsky.social Cristina Moraru, @geomicrosoares.bsky.social, @folker.bsky.social and with Anke Heyer and The Data Reuse Consotrium!

Our article on equitable reuse of public sequencing data is out! Led by @alexjprobst.bsky.social, @lhug.bsky.social, Cristina Moraru, @geomicrosoares.bsky.social, @folker.bsky.social and myself -, co-authored by Anke Heyder, and developed in consultation with 167 scientists. tinyurl.com/n6yeanmk

Great new trait of #Methanoperedens archaea: Carbon monoxide metabolism in freshwater anaerobic #methanotrophic archaea #aom #anme Egas @cuwelte.bsky.social et al #microbiology @ribesresearch.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social

🦠➡️🧬 Community context matters! In the second part of my PhD, we show how microbial complexity drives phage–bacteria ecology & evolution. Check out the preprint 👇🏼

Huang, @tweethinking.bsky.social, Sepang et al. use phylogenetic analyses to reveal that the Njordarchaeales and Panguiarchaeales constitute the new class Njordarchaeia within Asgard archaea. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf201 #evobio #molbio #archaea

The JEDI marker - a new approach for measuring #biodiversity that captures all domains of life and is applicable across biological and ecological scales. It's time to change the way we perceive biodiversity - www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🧵 Our study on the elusive titration control mechanism of the replication initiator DnaA in Escherichia coli is now out on @natcomms.nature.com‬! @stephkoe.bsky.social @hohlbeinlab.bsky.social‬ @nicoc-micsynmet.bsky.social @ettema.bsky.social‬ @mib-wur.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s414...

academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-... Happy to share this one. We investigated the #phylogenetic placement and #genome_evolution of Pangui/Njordarchaea-unique #Asgardarchaea that might have undergone genome reduction...

Who would have thought I would ever publish an article about a bacterium? But here it is, but of course only because Litorilinea aerophilum actually has an archaellum! Here is what we learned about its cell structure and other surface appendages: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New preprint up now! Interested in the evolution of halophily within DPANN archaea we decided to investigate the sister phylum to the Nanohaloarchaeota, GTDB phylum EX4484-52, for which we propose the name Caliditerrarchaeota www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

If you are a postdoc working on any topic related to environmental microbiology and are looking for exposure, the Thermal Biology Institute (tbi.montana.edu) has slots open for virtual talks via zoom this fall. Email me if you are interested! Seminars are most Mondays, 3-4 pm Mountain Time.

Check out the new paper of my former lab about novel haloviruses infecting Haloquadratum walsbyi, the "square queen archaeon" of hypersaline systems 👑🟪 academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

New vacancy in my team! PhD student position on microbial genome evolution, focusing on the evolutionary principles underlying bacterial genome architecture. Please repost and share with talented MSc students in #evobio, bioinformatics or related :) www.uu.nl/en/organisat... #MEvoSky #MicroSky

Exciting news! I'm looking for a computational biologist to join my lab at Wageningen University & Research! It's a 3-year postdoc position on Holomycota genome architecture and evolution. Spread the word! www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p...

Asgardarchaea & Alphaproteobacteria: key players for the assembly eukaryotic central carbon metabolism! Our new study reveals their gene contributions to glycolysis & TCA cycle, supporting synthrophic scenarios of eukaryogenesis. rdcu.be/eb0aK

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A new collaborative paper with Anja Spang, Wen-Cong Huang, @chrisrinke.bsky.social @ettema.bsky.social @ssolo.bsky.social Zheng-Shuang Hua Maraike Probst and Lenard Szantho. We investigated the phylogenetic position and metabolic evolution of Panguiarchaeum.

Are you interested in studying archaea with their diverse symbionts? We look forward hearing from you: workingat.nioz.nl/o/postdoc-po...

Hello Bluesky! Follow us for updates on our Microbiology research here @w-u-r.bsky.social

Archaea aficionados around the world, APH is now on BlueSky! Follow us for virtual conference announcements and more 🦠

Let’s have fun at the GRC Archaea … you will find that the Archaeophile crowd is the most collaborative and welcoming community ever ☺️🦠

In case you missed it the GRC and GRS for Archaea 2025 are both open for applications! Join us in Switzerland for the latest iteration of this awesome conference! #archaeasky