Congratulations to Sonomi Yamaguchi for her paper at @nature.com. Sonomi discovered Clover defense and explained how nucleotide signals control each step of viral sensing, immune regulation, and viral restriction – named for her beautiful "four-leaf" structures 🍀 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share our new paper led by a wonderful Jing Liu on designing de novo IDRs🧪🖥️

Chemical inhibition of a bacterial immune system Small molecules inhibit type II Thoeris anti-phage systems from diverse bacteria. One compound, IP6C, improves phage-therapy against P. aeruginosa & is effective against Thoeris in polymicrobial communities www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Another amazing work by @ostermanilya.bsky.social! A new NAD⁺-depleting defense system and its phage antagonists, revealing an exciting bacterial–phage arms race. 🛡️⚔️ Congrats Ilya and coauthors!

Our new paper is out in Nature 🎉. We show that m1Ψ in mRNA vaccines doesn’t just quiet immunity, it also directly enhance translation by reshaping ribosome dynamics in a sequence-dependent way 🧬 Full paper : rdcu.be/eY5gx

“Up ’till now, we couldn’t detect it, because we didn’t look at the garbage cans of cells.” Yifat Merbl found a new trick of the immune system, and is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025 go.nature.com/3XZQdgY

Bacterial genomes encode a rich repertoire of antiphage systems, but we still know surprisingly little about when these systems are actually expressed. In this preprint, Lucas Paoli et al, ask what shapes antiphage systems expression in native contexts. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Incredible to learn how far-reaching and diverse Thoeris really is! TIRs play key roles across kingdoms, and this work beautifully highlights their bacterial origins. Congrats @erezyirmiya.bsky.social & Azita! 👏🌟

🧬🛡️How are new immune mechanisms created? We show how Lamassu antiphage system, originated from a DNA-repair complex and evolved into a compact and modular immune machine, wt Dinshaw Patel lab in @pnas.org. 👏 @matthieu-haudiquet.bsky.social, Arpita Chakravarti & all authors! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Our nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole @doudna-lab.bsky.social and everyone at @innovativegenomics.bsky.social

So proud of @nitzantal.bsky.social 👏🏻such an inspiring and brilliant scientist!

An incredible story revealing a novel defense system that senses DNA shredding during phage infection — beautifully solved by @ostermanilya.bsky.social ! 🧬✨

Today in @nature.com , we highlight how a cousin of CRISPR-Cas10, mCpol, establishes an evolutionary trap in anti-phage immune systems. Check out @erinedoherty.bsky.social and my work from @doudna-lab.bsky.social lab here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our story describing the Panoptes bacterial immune defense system is now finally peer-reviewed and published today! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Effector-triggered immunity (ETI) indirectly detects pathogen effector activity on the host cell. Kevin Barthes,Tanita Wein and I examine how prokaryotic and eukaryotic viruses deploy similar effectors that activate ETI, underscoring its central role across the tree of life. tinyurl.com/mr3a3xh2

📢 New preprint alert! We designed synthetic proteins that can block bacterial immune systems, allowing phages + plasmids to overcome natural defenses. This could transform phage therapy + genetic engineering. Here’s what we found 🧵 Preprint🔗: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

📢 Preprint out! Together with @reneechang.bsky.social @kranzuschlab.bsky.social and the amazing @soreklab.bsky.social, we explored viral sponges to map their diversity and function. Discovered huge diversity, including sponges that inhibit Pycsar & Type IV Thoeris! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to share my PhD work in the @kranzuschlab.bsky.social, out now in Molecular Cell @cp-molcell.bsky.social We discover Acb4, a new family of viral sponges that sequesters nucleotide immune signals and defines molecular features that enable ligand specificity. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

The beautiful, ever-expanding universe of viral proteins targeting nucleotide immune signals! Paper by @reneechang.bsky.social in @cp-molcell.bsky.social on a nucleotide sponge www.cell.com/molecular-ce... and preprint by @doudna-lab.bsky.social on viral nucleases www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A beautiful and much-needed review on the role of nucleotides in immunity, congrats Dina!! 💫🧬

Amazing work led by @nitzantal.bsky.social👩🏼‍🔬, identifying new immune inhibitors using structural clues. So excited to see this out! 🧬💫