As mentioned, here is the preprint by Jensen and @viollierpat.bsky.social on the in situ structure of the Tad pilus. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... Nice work and great to see that we are seeing the same thing! Our preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #microsky

Great collaboration with @brunlabcaulo.bsky.social for resolving the Tad pilus machine structure by cryo-ET. Beautiful work by graduate students James Iarocci and Ryu Williston in our lab. Preprint:https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.05.686773v1

More useful with the link #microsky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Great collaboration with @guo-lab.bsky.social to determine an in situ architectural model of the Tad pilus machine. Be on the lookout soon for a preprint on the same topic by Grant Jensen and @viollierpat.bsky.social. #microsky

Forgot to post the recently published version of this paper on the role of a minor pilin-like protein in surface sensing journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Light reading to distract me from the news. Yet it is strangely familiar.

Why do we always submit grant proposals at the last minute? This never ceases to amaze me.

Please repost: PhD position with my lab and @weisslab.bsky.social in a great collaboration on bacterial adhesion #microsky. See drive.google.com/file/d/1GJD4...

As I was saying, happy to be back home! Cheers!

Congratulations Marie! Immensely proud! Looking forward to seeing where you take your project on evolution of bacterial elongation.

Sabbatical is over! I really enjoyed my time in Marseille for 10 months @lcbofficiel.bsky.social but very happy to be back in Montreal and with my lab. Also, the view from my office 😀

Excited to see our automated HT growth/microscopy screening platform coming together. Pictured: the intermediate version to screen 5-10,000/day unattended. Diagrammed is the full platform due next summer after renovations @ 20,000/day and integrated with our colony picker.

Exciting news! My work with Liu Yang in the @brunlabcaulo.bsky.social, “Phenotypic plasticity in cell elongation among closely related bacterial species”, has been selected as an Editors’ Highlight in @natcomms.nature.com under Microbiology and infectious diseases! Check it out here:

How does your favorite species elongate? 🧵 "Phenotypic plasticity in bacterial elongation among closely related species". Happy to see this paper in print @natcomms.nature.com. Nice work by @mariedelaby.bsky.social, Liu Yang et al. See original 🧵, different colours, same data and conclusions.

Excited to be in Grenoble surrounded by mountains to give a seminar today at the IBS where I was on sabbatical 10 years ago.

I got hit by some rather sudden and extreme financial hardship so if anyone is in need of remote wetlab contract research, strictly BSL1, do let me know. Currently scrambling for gigs. Plant, Bacterial, Archaeal Non-model Bioeng Custom Lab Hardware Turn Key Genetic Design Please repost for reach 💚

Indeed, please also check the paper on the same topic by @lowlab.bsky.social published a few months ago in the same journal.

Great to see @ianyyen.bsky.social's first paper in print! He deserves major congratulations for driving a stimulating collaboration: he determined structures of the Tad pilus ATPase CpaF from Caulobacter and proposes how CpaF employs a rotary mechanism of catalysis to drive pilus assembly #microsky

This is why the new threat against university funding in Canada is concerning, clearly a fraction of the population here do not understand either how things work and universities contribute.

New paper from the Vecchiarelli Lab! 🧵 pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... In collaboration with Lu-Ning Liu lab. Congratulations to first author Claudia Mak! @claudiamak.bsky.social P.S. Claudia is looking for postdocs in protein biochemistry! Pls ReSkeet

>1900 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering & Medicine issued a statement supporting science for the benefit of all citizens, and ... 1/2 docs.google.com/document/d/1...

1/ On April 5, there are nationwide protests happening literally everywhere in the US. Find more details here: handsoff2025.com

I am walking 800km of the Camino de Santiago to raise funds for cardiovascular research—the world’s largest killer! ❤️‍🩹 This journey is not just a personal adventure, but a mission to make a real difference in fighting heart disease. Check out the link to learn more www.justgiving.com/campaign/cam...

Funding curves for K and F mechanisms (Warning: the new F mechanism "curve" is a lot)

Terrific set of perspectives and opinions by several researchers, including me, on how to process and respond to attacks on US science specifically, and science writ large.

💐 To NIH and NSF program officers, and anyone else trying to keep those institutions alive: Thank you for trying to do an impossible job in an impossible time. I’m sorry for all of us that this is the world we’re living in. 1/n

The latest discovery from the lab and great colleagues at McMaster and U Illinois, Chicago. Lariocidin, a new lasso peptide antibiotic that inhibits the ribosome. rdcu.be/efdha

New antibiotic that kills drug-resistant bacteria discovered in technician’s garden www.nature.com/articles/d41...

we really hope that the organizers of meetings/conferences in the US will quickly come back to offering hybrid meetings as we had during the pandemic to allow attendance of non-US researchers.

Some friends who have permanent residency in the US just told us they now have an emergency plan. I assume this is probably necessary for anyone who was not born in the US. Probably also for people born there but with the wrong allegiance… Scary!

Sad to have to cancel my participation as a speaker at the Bacterial Cell Biology Gordon Conference, but the current situation in the US does not give one much of a choice.

I guess I am not going to the US for a while! They might find some slightly critical comments on my devices…

Please repost: Postdoc position in antibiotic discovery in a large multidisciplinary project combining high-throughput approaches, microscopy, AI, and hit-to-lead optimization at @umontreal.ca and @mila-quebec.bsky.social. Apply to [email protected]. See lnkd.in/dVVk4N3s. #microsky

My talking points in recent interviews, please use as you see fit: 1.Every $1 in NIH funding returns ~$2.50 to the economy. 2.Every $1B in cuts from NIH extramural = 7500 lost employees, just in science. 3.These don't include priceless improvements in health. 1/x

Read this.

NIH indirects case update: Hearing ongoing now, and I'll try to live tweet some notable exchanges. Prior to more detailed arguments, Judge Kelley starts off with a few point questions to both sides: (I'm paraphrasing here)

What he said!

Fixed it. #microsky

1/10 🧵 Injecting some science in your feed: Happy to share another chapter in our investigation of bacterial surface sensing. We describe the role of CpaL, a minor pilin-like protein, a key player in surface sensing and adhesion in Caulobacter crescentus. #microsky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

@baym.lol has an excellent point. Will try to do things this afternoon.

Just reposting this because it quickly got buried by everything happening in the US.

An initiative led by brave graduate students and leaders to fight for science!

Gotta love autocorrect! “CryoEM” although CryingEM might be appropriate currently.

Congrats Erin @goleylab.bsky.social

Crying-EM Faculty position! Montreal is indeed a fantastic place to live and work. Even more so now by comparison…

🚨 Call for a POSTDOC in machine learning for drug discovery at @umontreal.ca 💊 This is a large collaboration with @brunlabcaulo.bsky.social @audurand.bsky.social @dom-beaini.bsky.social Anne Marinier @mila-quebec.bsky.social IRIC All details here: brunlab.com/jobs/open-po... Please repost 💜

Please repost: Postdoc position in AI for drug discovery in a large collaboration with Dominique Beaini, Audrey Durand, Alex Hernández-García, Anne Marinier at Université de Montréal and Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA). www.linkedin.com/posts/yves-b...