#NatMicroPicks Antibiotics in the long run ⌛💊🦠 Antibiotic use shows lasting associations with reduced gut microbial diversity for up to 8 years, indicating long-term impacts on the adult gut microbiome. #MicroSky #MicrobiomeSky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share this preprint that describes my latest work on using GPUs to accelerate processing of RNA-seq data. The title says it all: "RNA-seq analysis in seconds using GPUs" now on biorxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... and github github.com/pachterlab/k... Figure 1 shows they key result

I think it was a mistake to put right-wing hot-take podcasters in charge of the FDA, NIH, CDC, and CMS—the so-called “MAGA podcaster to policy pipeline”

Immune cells from the gut drive development of Parkinson’s disease in the brain www.nature.com/articles/d41...

📣 New paper alert! This is a story of molecular tricks that let spirochetes (spiral-shaped bacteria) drill through tissue. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Structural basis for curvature generation and functional specialization in spirochete flagella #MicroSky

More #PhDOpportunities! This time, developing physiologically relevant models to study dental #erosion. The project combines fluid flow simulation, surface metrology and imaging to understand how #enamel responds to dynamic acid and mechanical challenges. 🦷🌊🧪 Based at @unisouthampton.bsky.social!

Delighted to collaborate on this exciting #PhDOpportunity exploring links between the oral #microbiome and #brain health. This project will investigate how periodontal microbial metabolites influence the #bloodbrainbarrier and neurovascular biology. @drsimonmcarthur.bsky.social 🧠🧪

Excited to advertise a new #PhDOpportunity in my lab at @qmul.bsky.social exploring how oral microbial communities regulate dietary #nitrate metabolism and shape #nitricoxide biology. We’ll combine stable #isotope tracing and #metaomics to nitrate flux in oral #biofilms.🧪 Get in touch if interested!

🦠🧪 #PhDOpportunity Can we weaken dental plaque without killing beneficial microbes? This PhD explores non-biocidal strategies to disrupt oral #biofilm structure, investigating how targeted interventions can destabilise plaque while preserving #microbiome balance. 📍 @glasgowcaledonian.bsky.social

🔬 Using laboratory and saliva-derived #biofilm models, this project examines how biofilm disruption affects community organisation, stability, and regrowth dynamics compared with conventional #antimicrobials. 🔗 Apply via ATOHR Project led by Dr. Will Johnston

🔬 Using ex vivo biofilm models and multi-omics, this project investigates how repeated low-level challenges influence microbial structure, stress tolerance, and cross-kingdom dynamics in the oral ecosystem. 🔗 Apply via #ATOHR [2/2]

🧪 #PhDOpportunity How do microbial communities adapt to everyday challenges? This PhD explores bacterial–fungal interactions in oral biofilms and how environmental stress shapes microbial community behaviour and resilience. 📍 @glasgowcaledonian.bsky.social At Prof. Gordon Ramage's group [1/2]

AI has huge promise for genomics -- but it has consistently failed at microbiome-based prediction. My new post on why simple models keep winning, where deep learning actually earns its place, and where the field is headed blekhman.substack.com/p/ai-keeps-f...

this is what they said it would be like under socialism

@qmul.bsky.social @bartscharity.bsky.social Doctoral Training Programme - five fully funded 4 year PhD Studentships in Biomedical Research. Closing date for applications: Monday March 16th 2026 Please share - more info here: www.findaphd.com/phds/program...

Motion to stop referring to it as Next Generation Sequencing. That's like saying The Matrix is a recent movie

I mean, what are you supposed to do with people like this? It’s like saying that you wish your kids could get in some good old-fashioned car crashes without all those seatbelts and air bags.

Major advance in T. pallidum reserach: "First human cell-based cultivation system for the syphilis spirochete Treponema pallidum" link.springer.com/article/10.1... #MicroSky

Fully Funded PhD Studentship Opportunity (4 years) at Queen Mary, University of London Why is gum disease a risk factor for dementia? Come and help us find out! 🗓 Application deadline: 15th May 2026 Apply here: tinyurl.com/4xvdzpjs Please share! #Microbiome #Dementia #neuroskyence 🧪 1/3

Come work with Ben Berks FRS in Oxford 2 x PDRA posts: Molecular Analysis of Bacterial Outer Membrane Protein Biogenesis 2 complementary projects investigating bacterial outer membrane protein biogenesis. Building on our recent work (Nature (2015) 647: 479-487) my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Ethics.

Interesting how this scandal involves for real some false claims made about Covid origin: - doing abroad with US funds research not allowed in the US - skipping the evaluation process and having approval straight at the director office As if false accusations were indeed admissions of intent

"AGI is just around the corner, which will revolutionize everything. We just need to scale". There you go - that's a $1 trillion plan, $1 billion being peanuts 😉.

I’m genuinely, unironically impressed at the idea of having a $1b plan to do… anything. A $1m plan is trivial. A $30m plan takes real work. But a priced-out plan with reasonable timelines and expenses that comes to the order of a billion? That’s not easy

Culturing microbiome therapeutics with big data Emerging datasets from large human cohorts are dissecting the underlying mechanisms of microbiome–host interactions and accelerating progress in targeted microbiome therapeutics go.nature.com/4akDuef

Outstanding thread

Enjoy reading our "behind the paper" story: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

It's funny, my PhD advisor Dr. Goodrich-Blair would also tell stories about those exact lectures. Must have made an incredible impression! I'll do some reading and find out if anything looks like what we see in our episymbionts. I do think we're just about ready to dive into CPR regulation pathways.

I'm not biophysicist, but the 50 or so pN of energy of a twitch must com from somewhere? As a biochemist, even the mention of a pfk homolog switches my train of thought back to the days of listening to Fredrick Neidhart talk about the "magic spot" pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

We would be delighted to receive your applications 🙏🏻

Hey everyone, please welcome Gordon Ramage @gramage74.bsky.social back to #Bluesky and follow! #fungi #microsky #biofilmsky 🧪

New profile alert! The latest microbial profile in Microbiology, the low down on the recently renamed Candidozyma auris. @microbiologysociety.org @leighannsherry.bsky.social www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

That being said, pilin expression and pili-dependent twitching is induced by host exposure. We have quantified piliation of unattached cells (~7 per cell) via CryoEM, however the host cells are so much more electron dense that we could not quantify from an attached cell. 2/2 doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Hello Steve! I wish I had a better answer for you, we are looking, but we do not know yet how Saccharibacteria are regulating their natural competence. We know they have 2 distinct pili (thick and thin) and a T4SS. The thin pili isn't needed for competence, but the thick pili of T4SS could be? 1/2

Excited for the launch of this #IDLA! 20 PhDs are available in total over the next 3 years! Please look through the project list and get in touch if anything I'm involved in is of interest! 🧪 #spatial #metallomics #nitrate #metabolism #oral-brain-axis #DTP #industry atohr.org/projects

Bit late to the party...WGS based oral microbiome GWAS makes Nature! Some very cool bacterial functional associations are discussed in the paper. Check it out! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪

Excited for the launch of this #IDLA! 20 PhDs are available in total over the next 3 years! Please look through the project list and get in touch if anything I'm involved in is of interest! 🧪 #spatial #metallomics #nitrate #metabolism #oral-brain-axis #DTP #industry atohr.org/projects

🚀 We’re launching a new Industrial Doctoral Landscape Award funded by BBSRC in partnership with Haleon. 🎓 Recruiting now for our first PhD cohort (Oct 2026) - to do doctoral research at the interface of academia & industry, tackling real-world challenges aligned with BBSRC priorities.

One of the most beautiful documents ever created: the leaflet that everyone received when Britain's NHS was launched (1948) "Everyone—rich or poor, man, woman or child—can use it... There are no charges, except for a few special items...it will relieve your money worries in time of illness”

Ultrasmall episymbiont Nanosynbacter lyticus employs multiple ATP-generating metabolic pathways during horizontal transmission #microsky 🧪 academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

This is a very interesting development www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Characterization of the tumor microbiome of brain metastases and glioblastoma reveals tumor-type-specific and location-specific microbial signatures www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Eeek!! www.bbc.com/news/article...

Finally read the paper and it's worth the buzz. mRNA vaccines saved 20 million lives in a global pandemic and the technology is opening up new avenues for the treatment of deadly cancers. This is really one of the most impactful scientific developments of our time. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#NewResearch Despite being a virulence factor, candidalysin toxin is essential for Candida albicans to penetrate the oral epithelium to establish non-infectious colonisation. @lableibundgut.bsky.social @frois-martins.bsky.social @leibniz-hki.de #MicroSky 🍄 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Interesting paper on bacteriophage genomics and bioinformatics 'Phage quest: a beginner’s guide to explore viral diversity in the prokaryotic world' by @sebwielgoss.bsky.social and colleagues academic.oup.com/bib/article/...

🦠 In a totally not petrifying story, a team in USA 'resurrected' and grew some 40k year old bacteria encased in Alaskan permafrost. Hey, its gonna melt soon anyway, best find out what will happen doi.org/10.1029/2025...

Permafrost, harbors more organic carbon than is currently in the atmosphere as CO2. As the Arctic warms and permafrost thaws, ancient microbes can reactivate, allowing the degradation of organic carbon that has accumulated in permafrost over millenia, resulting in the release of greenhouse gases

I think people adjacent to science (but who now find themselves deciding the fate of US science somehow) undervalue humility, valuing braggadocios hubris instead. Yes it’s true that some scientific discoveries are complete paradigm changers, and we celebrate these. 1/