We invite contributions to a special issue on "Chromatin Structure and Function in Bacteria and Archaea," edited by Ilaria Baglivo and me. See: www.mdpi.com/si/264656

I am very pleased to share our newest work on the face-to-face histone HTkC, which plays an important role in chromatin organization next to canonical histones HTkA and HTkB www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Let’s wrap things up: Open and closed hypernucleosomes in Asgard archaea

New article online: Modulation of archaeal hypernucleosome structure and stability by Mg2+ In this work, we dissect the effects of Mg2+ on hypernucleosomes formed by the canonical histones from M. fervidus (HMfA and HMfB) and T. kodakarensis (HTkA and HTkB). www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Soon available in my group: 1 PhD position to investigate prokaryotic histones. See our recent work that highlights the existence and diversity of prokaryotic histones (e.g. Schwab et al., TIBS, 2025; Schwab et al., Nat Comm, 2024; Hu et al., Nucl Acids Res, 2024). Please DM for informal enquiries.

Lab’s first paper is out!! We show the first structures of #Asgard #chromatin by #cryo-EM 🧬❄️ Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

That’s a wrap for The Biology and Physics of Prokaryotic Chromosomes VII 2025. A big thank you to all those who attended 🧪 #BioPhyChrom2025 #BiochemEvents

Tomorrow is the start of Biology and Physics of Prokaryotic Chromosomes VII. Great speakers and participants. Excellent support by the Biochem. Society. @biochemsoc.bsky.social @danielabarilla.bsky.social @vslioy.bsky.social @graingerlab.bsky.social @damelab.bsky.social #BioPhyChrom2025

Time flies .. it is today 25 years ago that we published our studies that revealed that bacterial H-NS is a DNA bridging protein: academic.oup.com/nar/article/... @narjournal.bsky.social

One week to go for The Biology & Physics of Chromosomes VII, but there is still time to register! Join us! 🧬🧬🧬 @biophychrom.bsky.social @biochemsoc.bsky.social @vslioy.bsky.social @graingerlab.bsky.social @damelab.bsky.social

Please re-post: If you know (or are!) somebody who might fancy doing a PhD (Oct 2026 start) in my group @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social, working on chromatin evolution in prokaryotes (or other things we're interested in), please have a look at www.bioch.ox.ac.uk/supervisors-...

Talk slots full but we can take late breaking poster abstracts until August 7th. Hope to see you in York to hear about your chromosome story 🧬🦠🧫 www.eventsforce.net/biochemsoc/f... @vslioy.bsky.social @damelab.bsky.social @graingerlab.bsky.social @biochemsoc.bsky.social @biophychrom.bsky.social

Just few days left to register for this chromosome biology fête! 🧬🧬🧬 ⏳📆 16 July www.eventsforce.net/biochemsoc/f... @vslioy.bsky.social @damelab.bsky.social @graingerlab.bsky.social @biochemsoc.bsky.social @biophychrom.bsky.social

I am pleased to share our new review on the role of bacterial nucleoid-aasociated proteins in mediating responses to changes in environment. Important: some NAPs can directly ‘sense’ physico-chemical changes. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @pingzhuangge.bsky.social

York calling! 📣 🧬🧬🧬 Join us at www.biochemistry.org/events-and-t... ⏳⏰ Early bird deadline approaching soon, 16 July! Do not miss out! Half of the talks selected from abstracts. @damelab.bsky.social @vslioy.bsky.social @graingerlab.bsky.social @biochemsoc.bsky.social @biophychrom.bsky.social

A must-read for histone afficionados: our new review on 'Histone-mediated chromatin organization in prokaryotes and viruses' www.cell.com/trends/bioch... @samuelschwab.bsky.social @vikramalva.bsky.social

Chromosome Enthusiasts, join us at The Biology & Physics of Prokaryotic Chromosomes 🧬! Friendly community, fantastic speakers line-up, grant writing session for ECRs. Early-bird deadline approaching soon. @damelab.bsky.social @vslioy.bsky.social @graingerlab.bsky.social @biophychrom.bsky.social

We’ve uncovered Asgard chromatin structures formed by a Hodarchaeal histone : closed hypernucleosome conserved in archaea and an open form resembling the H3-H4 eukaryotic octasome. Fantastic work by @harshranawat.bsky.social! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #Chromatin #Asgard #Archaea #cryoEM

Join us in York for the Biology & Physics of Prokaryotic Chromosomes! 🧬 #Microsky #Archaeasky www.biochemistry.org/events-and-t... @biochemsoc.bsky.social @damelab.bsky.social @graingerlab.bsky.social @vslioy.bsky.social

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

Excited to share our new preprint on HLp—a bacterial histone from Leptospira perolatii that forms stable tetramers and wraps ~60 bp of DNA: "DNA Wrapping by a Tetrameric Bacterial Histone" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social

Chromatin aficionados take note: Second of two special issues on Prokaryotic Chromosome Organization now published! (6 review/perspective articles and 2 research articles) Guest edited by @damelab.bsky.social #MicroSky #Chromatin onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/13652958...

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...

Can I tempt some young minds to consider Old York for a PhD? Some days left to apply. Open to applicants WORLDWIDE 🌎.

Returning from a great visit to the Dodonova lab at EMBL to discuss archaeal histones and hypernucleosomes. Nice also to see a tribute to the hypernucleosome on EMBL premises !#Archaeasky

First of two special issues on Prokaryotic Chromosome Organization now published! Guest edited by @damelab.bsky.social #MicroSky #Chromatin onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/13652958...

Really great to see the Reviews, Perspectives and Research articles of these special issues published. Many thanks to all contributors, and for the support of the field for the BioPhyChrom meeting series. Registration is open for the upcoming incarnation of the meeting in York, UK, Sept. 16-19 2025.

In @molecularmicro.bsky.social: two special issues on Prokaryotic Chromosome Organization. Many excellent contributions, including a vision article: 'Future directions of the Prokaryotic Chromosome Field', outcome of BioPhyChrom 2023 @biophychrom.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Celebrating the 450th birthday of Leiden University today. I am visiting elementary school De Lichtwijzer for ‘Meet the professor’. Nice!

Registration is now open for The Biology and Physics of Prokaryotic Chromosomes meeting in York, UK. 16-19 September 2025

Still time to apply for this PhD project with the awesome 🙌 @steve-quinn-lab.bsky.social, @georgerheath.bsky.social and me. By the way, York is a beautiful 🤩 historic city! Please repost, grazie 😊 🌷.

We will be soon advertising for a new postdoc position - contact us if you are interested (bioinformatics/ML/biophysics of nucleosome positioning in cancer)

For information on upcoming BioPhyChrom conferences and any other information we deem relevant for the community please start following @biophychrom.bsky.social

Soon possible to register for BioPhyChrom VII in September 2025 www.biochemistry.org/events-and-t...

We are excited to announce the first Salamanca Biophysics Summer Course organized by Carlos Bustamante and Eva Nogales. See the flyer below and consider applying!

Very pleased to have contributed to this multi-lab study into the structure and function of Ros/MucR family proteins. Strikingly, these proteins form circular oligomers and function as H-NS-like proteins. The study was led by Ilaria Baglivo, University of Campania. academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

A great day for our lab and for prokaryotic chromatin at the Dutch Chromatin meeting: Pingzhuang won the 1st prize for his poster and Samuel gave an excellent talk on prokaryotic histone diversity!

Now online our Problems & Paradigms article in BioEssays: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

MRC- funded PhD project at the interface between biology & physics to investigate the segregation of an antibiotic resistant plasmid. Interdisciplinary training with super supportive supervisors. In the beautiful historic city of York. Please re-post, thanks! #microsky 🦠🧫🧪 📆17 December

Our department is recruiting a tenure-track Assistant Professor on microbial interactions linked to the NCCR Microbiomes nccr-microbiomes.ch Don't miss this opportunity to join a friendly, dynamic department in a city with hard-to-beat quality of life. Apply tinyurl.com/4k2mevax by Jan 31!

Want to do a #PhD focusing on discovery, cultivation and characterization of novel prokaryotes? Come and join my group in the Laboratory of Microbiology at Wageningen University! Apply here: wur.nl/en/vacancy/p... #cultivation #microscopy #archaea #PhDposition Please share & repost

Nice to read about our recent work in the Leiden University News: Caught in living cells: how bacteria regulate their genes to defend themselves www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2023...

Fatema Zahra’s studies on the interplay between H-NS-mediated local chromatin structure and activity of the osmoregulated proVWX operon are now online in Nature Communications: nature.com/articles/s41...

First post here: Now online our studies on the role of the Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus bacterial histone in chromatin organization biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Great collaboration with Vikram Alva and Birte Hernandez, spearheaded by Yimin Hu and Samuel Schwab.