It’s official: we’ve been awarded a UKRI Engineering Biology Focal Award to train the next generation of microbial bioengineer PhDs. An exciting collaboration between @officialuom.bsky.social @liverpooluni.bsky.social Projects will be advertised in February 2026! www.ukri.org/news/ukri-do...

We did a genome. Not just any genome. A Eukaryote! Telomeres, centromeres, introns! What the hell?! With megabrains @guyleonard.bsky.social Tom Richards, Fiona Savory at Oxford. A fun collaboration! Keep em peeled for more algal preprints coming soon!

Congratulations to Dr Rana Alruthaya, who successfully defended her PhD today on AMR diversity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from non-CF bronchiectasis patients. She's the 10th PhD student from MERMan. Well done Rana! @dannagifford.bsky.social @brockhurstlab.bsky.social @knightjar.bsky.social

Congratulations to PhD student Zahraa Albaqsami @zahraaalbaqsami.bsky.social for successfully defending her PhD today! Zahraa's thesis looked at thermal adaptation and mutation in the archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarious. Thanks to examiners @rokkrasovec.bsky.social and Thorsten Allers!

Whelan lab cake for the win at the Division of Evolution, Infection and Genomics and MCF Winter Celebration 🥳 #bakeoff #whelanlab

The last seminar of the year was another set of exciting talks from visitor @alekseiagapov.bsky.social and merfolk @sophiesomerville.bsky.social ! Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for the 🍪! Have a happy and safe holiday! 🤶🏻 🎅🏻 🎄

Was so fun! Got so much feedback and tips for troubleshooting. Always a pleasure meeting MerMAN folx, I come back feeling appreciated 😊

Snacks + great science = our favourite combo 😄 🍪 Great to see such exciting science getting shared, thanks for having us involved 🙌

We had two fantastic visiting speakers today MERMan alumnus @rowancallumg.bsky.social spoke about his current work with viral cheating in influenza with @asherleeks.bsky.social And @lavishaparab.bsky.social talked about phage infection trade-offs Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for our snacks!

And that’s a wrap for #MicroEvo25! Thank you to @microbiologysociety.org for organising such a fantastic event & to everyone in attendance for sharing such exciting science! Let’s do it again soon?

Massive congratulations to our own @magdalenakurteu.bsky.social for winning the poster prize at #MicroEvo25!! Her poster describes coalescence dynamics in hot spring microbial communities, and featured wonderful photos from Icelandic field work

Another fantastic poster presented by @knhanga.bsky.social at #MicroEvo25

More amazing posters presented by our researchers @zahraaalbaqsami.bsky.social and Rana at #MicroEvo25!

Incredibly insightful talk this afternoon by @matthewjshepherd.bsky.social speaking about within-patient ciprofloxacin resistance in P. aeruginosa #MicroEvo25

Starting day two of #MicroEvo25 strong with our first MERMan speaker of the day! An amazing talk by @mattjago.bsky.social about mutational bias in E. coli 🧬

Had the best day at #MicroEvo25 yesterday! Excited for day two and to be chatting more about hot spring microbial community coalescence 🌋 find me at poster 62 (likely with a coffee in hand)

Come chat to Dan at poster 22 to learn about endosymbiosis evolution #MicroEvo25

If you’re interested in antibiotic resistance evolution in Pseudomonas, come to @flanagella.bsky.social’s poster (number 11) 💊 #MicroEvo25

Learn about hot spring microbial communities from @magdalenakurteu.bsky.social at poster 62 🌋 #MicroEvo25

Find out more about DNA repair protein single-molecule tracking from @bexlowrypalms.bsky.social at poster 18🔬 #MicroEvo25

Come and see @willpjsmith.bsky.social at poster 71 to find out more about microbial warfare! #MicroEvo25

Fantastic talk about the impact of inflammation on Pseudomonas aeruginosa evolution by @taoranfu.bsky.social #MicroEvo25

Will we be seeing you at @microbiologysociety.org Understanding and Predicting Microbial Evolutionary Dynamics today and tomorrow? 🧫🧬 #MicroEvo25 Keep an eye out for our talks and posters and come say hi 👋

Another great week at our seminar series! This session, we explored "Within-patient evolution of ciprofloxacin resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa from @matthewjshepherd.bsky.social Big thank you to @microbesng.bsky.social for once again keeping us fuelled with delicious refreshments 🙌🍪

Absolutely delighted to have been awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship! I will be moving to the University of Manchester @mermanchester.bsky.social to research early endosymbiont evolution #microsky #symbiosky

In this week’s seminar we learned about the evolution of intrinsic terminators from @stepadenisov.bsky.social 🧬 Made even more fun by snacks kindly sponsored by @microbesng.bsky.social 🍪

This week @willpjsmith.bsky.social taught us all about microbial competition & Logan Sauers ( @coytelab.bsky.social ) shared recent gut microbiome work. Thanks @microbesng.bsky.social for the refreshments!

Retrospective post: @fgyapong.bsky.social recently gave his MERMan seminar on his work on the stickleback skin microbiome. Not pictured: yummy treats sponsored by @microbesng.bsky.social

New pre-print: Plasmid dependent phage effectively eliminate AMR bacteria and block plasmid transmission in the chicken gut microbiome Fun collaboration with Tao He lab (JAAS) and @brockhurstlab.bsky.social lab (Manchester) #phagesky#microsky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Three Bicentenary research fellowships on offer at @officialuom.bsky.social @fbmh-uom.bsky.social for exceptional ECRs with <3y postdoc experience 3yrs salary + £30k pa research expenses Do you have a great idea & want to join @mermanchester.bsky.social? www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/research/sup...

Recent paper from the lab studying predictors of phage cocktail efficacy against complex clinical Pseudomonas populations royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.... Led by Rosanna Wright with extraordinary MSc (PhD) student Maisie Czernuska

This weeks seminars from PhD students Maisie Czernuszka and Victor Carneiro da Cunha Martirelli! Special thank you to @microbesng.bsky.social for sponsoring refreshments!

Great MERMan seminar today from NSERC PhD visiting researcher @simonjeanneau.bsky.social from @usherbrooke.bsky.social ! Also our first seminar with refreshments sponsored by @microbesng.bsky.social , many thanks for the productive chats over nibbles! 🍪 🧪

Two great talks today from MERMan PhD students @mattjago.bsky.social (mutation spectrum) and @amarquiegui98.bsky.social (bioremediation by microbial communities)

MERMan seminars are back! Last week, @zahraaalbaqsami.bsky.social presented her #Thermophiles2025 talk which generated a lot of buzz & Qs from the group!

PhD opportunity, please share: We are looking for a prospective PhD student to start in October 2026 who is excited about bacteria (Klebsiella pneumoniae), how they interact, and how they exchange DNA. All details can be found on the funder website 👉 gw4biomed.ac.uk/developing-c...

I am recruiting a Ph.D. student in microbial ecology, evolution, and systems biology for fall 2026. Please share! Details: qevomicrolab.org/Documents/Gr... Apply by October 1 here: forms.gle/38pPS1Ky84HB...

Today we are delighted to welcome Professor Samra Turajlić (@turajliclab.bsky.social) as our new Institute Director! Her work - spanning basic, translational & cancer research - has advanced our understanding of cancer biology & treatment Read more here: www.cruk.manchester.ac.uk/news/profess...

Analyse and tell stories with 40+ petabytes of environmental data on the NERC Digital Solutions Hub 📝 📩 Sign up to our mailing list to be one of the first to test the Hub and see for yourself how incremental the DSH is in transforming geospatial: digital-solutions.uk/index.php/si...

Does your lab perform killing assays? TL;DR: we’ve identified a problem that can bias the outcome of killing assays, making antagonism look stronger than it really is. Adding a simple extra step can mitigate this bias!  Out now at #MicrobioJ www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour... 1/n

Antimutator E. coli due to altered nucleotide sanitation systems. Congratulations to recent MERMan graduate Rowan Green on his second PhD paper!

Last week, MERMan went on our annual countryside hike! Fresh air and good science colleagues, what more could one ask for? Maybe the ruins of an old cotton mill... Thanks to @mattjago.bsky.social for organising.

Fresh from peer review a new and improved version of @taoranfu.bsky.social’s paper out today in @asm.org mSystems journals.asm.org/eprint/8NWNW...

Thrilled to see this out! #microsky #mevosky

There’s still time to submit your abstract for Microbiology Society Annual Meeting in Ireland 2025. Submit your abstract now, before 1 August 2025 - microb.io/IrelandMeeti... #MicrobioIrish25

Thrilled to announce I've been awarded a @wellcometrust.bsky.social Career Development Award at @fbmh-uom.bsky.social , University of Manchester! My research will investigate the remarkable adaptability of Aspergillus fumigatus, a deadly fungal pathogen, to help combat drug resistance.

Go Team! Deeply honoured that the MERMan lab reps won an @manchester.ac.uk‬ "FMBH heroes" award - thanks ‪@fbmh-uom.bsky.social‬ and @mermanchester.bsky.social for nominating us ❤️❤️❤️

This week postdoc Dr. Dolan Evans from the Tank group is presenting on organ-on-a-chip for women's health @raveentank.bsky.social

PhD candidate Deniz Ozbilek speaking today about in silico epistasis modelling in bacterial RNA polymerase

This week, PhD student Deepanshi Karwall is telling us about her project with Unilever on microbial-based cleaning products 🧹🧼