Data duplication reported in influential Nature paper on gut microbiome-brain axis pubpeer.com/publications...

@ewarman.bsky.social has followed up on her discovery of bidirectional promoters in bacteria by defining their basic rules for regulation and links to gene expression noise... academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

PhD projects in microbial engineering now up, including one with @whelanfj.bsky.social @willpjsmith.bsky.social and me! 🦠 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Well done Italy.

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

meetings.embo.org/event/26-mic... Announcing the 2026 EMBO course in Computational and Experimental Microbiomics, to be held at Bath. The course brings together experiments and bioinformatics to study host-microbe interactions and co-evolution. Register now, or at least by 11 May, if interested :)

More on the UKRI/STFC funding squeeze. Significant quote: “It is clear that no UK university will want to open lecturer positions in curiosity-driven research if such lecturers would not be able to attract much national funding." KCL's Lucien Heurtier. www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Have I ever mentioned how surreal it is to be an Editor-in-Chief of a journal called Vaccine right now? www.science.org/content/arti... It’s pretty wild, at least by typical academic journal editorial office standards.

Been on multiple search committees For me (personally so YMMV)…I basically dismiss everything that’s labeled *submitted* unless there’s a preprint I can read

The more relevant news is that 39% approve

The siege of Sarajevo was one of the most depressing and shocking events of the 1990s. To find out that people went on 'sniper safari' can only be comprehended by admitting that humans can be exceptionally evil. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Update from MRC re funding

'A senior leader at the UK Medical Research Council has confirmed that it expects to fund fewer grants through its applicant-led schemes than in previous years.' www.researchprofessional.com/news-article...

Pedro Sánchez, prime minister of Spain, shows what pragmatic and ideological leadership looks like www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/o...

Calling all microbial genomics early-career researchers in the Midlands, great event in Nottingham (5 June)

'to treat peer review as a throughput problem is to misunderstand what is at stake. Review is not simply a production stage in the research pipeline; it is one of the few remaining spaces where the scientific community talks to itself.' 1/3

Now published: our work using phylodynamics from surveillance data to quantify and experimentally validate the fitness impact of antibiotic resistance determinants & how this changes with patterns of antibiotic use: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A correction for the ages (from The Guardian's review of 'Melania'):

'Ian Chapman ‘very sorry’ for not engaging on [UKRI] funding changes [...] For BBSRC (...) he said the opportunities will re-start “in a matter of weeks”. On MRC, he said he expects the pause “to run to early summer”.' www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

Ian Chapman: no move away from applicant-led funding at UKRI. BBSRC funding pause is a temporary - 'a matter of a few weeks' before they move to an always-open system (as at e.g. EPSRC, AHRC). MRC pause will extend to early summer, and then will open again.

Excellent line-up for microbiology/microbiome speakers in Birmingham this week. Yesterday we hosted @cibiocm.bsky.social, presenting his stunning work on the human microbiome, and today's @imibirmingham.bsky.social Harry Smith lecture by Nicole Dubilier

Only 2 more days to apply for this post as Research Fellow in the Health Protection Research Unit - Public Health Genomics at the University of Birmingham. Come and join us to exciting, cutting-edge genomics and metagenomics work to deliver public health benefits www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQE112/r...

First day back @liverpooluni.bsky.social as Co-I on a Wellcome Discovery Award 🦠🏫 (in an exciting new office!) Grateful to have worked with @wvschaik.bsky.social @halllab.bsky.social & @pathogenomenick.bsky.social on public health genomics at @unibirmingham.bsky.social - papers to come! ✍️

Bacteriophages mobilize bacterial defense systems via lateral transduction #phage #virus #microecoevo www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I am sorry. We all knew the three buckets were coming. We are all prepared for a shift in priority. But this message does nothing for all the UK scientists dependent on project grant funding. It doesn’t actually give any information www.ukri.org/news/open-le...

'You may be aware of recent pauses to some programmes. For our curiosity-driven research [CDR] (...) headroom in funding will increase (...) and you can expect to see new opportunities opening later this year (...) Levels of funding for [CDR] will remain stable (...) are reflective of recent years'

Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning. Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.

Academics vying for a spot in Epstein‘s world. There are so many. I feel the need to make a thread, so I don’t keep confusing them. 1/

The world needs more desi pubs. One of the things I miss most about Birmingham.

‘We create social cohesion’: the rise of the West Midlands’ Desi pubs www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

A lower relative incidence of short-term deaths following COVID-19 vaccination support that COVID-19 vaccination is not associated with the observed excess mortality. (5/5)

Scientists are concerned that curiosity-driven research is set to be further cut back after three research councils confirmed they have paused funding opportunities. @jgro-the.bsky.social reports #academicsky #researchfunding https://ow.ly/lpvO50Y67ku

So it’s a real documentary after all…?

Wow. Journals like this should be immediately removed from the Clarivate database.

APC & @teagasc.bksy.social are recruiting a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to analyse gut microbiome datasets and the impact of birth mode and antibiotic exposure. Bioinformatics experience required. #microbiome #jobfairy #researchjobs #metagenomics Full Details: bit.ly/4qQgRWr

Do you think since UKRI are pausing funding they wouldn't mind if I paused filling out ResearchFish?

but retrospectively applying cuts is absolutely disgusting behaviour from the MRC. Hundreds of us have spent months preparing, reviewing and scoring grants only for all of that work to be chucked in the bin. A whole cohort of postdocs will need to leave academic research - incredibly sad

Appalling news for the biosciences in the UK. I have three grants under review at the moment so the last week since I heard these rumours have been a definite career low point. Shifting priorities (read political interference) are bad enough www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

More cheery news from UKRI 'MRC instructs grant review boards to slash funding rates' www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

It’s also time we discussed the scandal that is the current student loan scheme/company and the financial damage it’s is doing to our graduates

'It’s time we had a proper debate about funding university education Changes to student loans have, in effect, privatised undergraduate teaching in England' www.ft.com/content/6143...

We have an open position for a bioinformatics/theoretical microbial ecology PhD student to study viral strategies in the global Microverse! Join us at the @microverse.bsky.social at @uni-jena.de, please apply through this link: jobs.uni-jena.de/jobposting/9...

Microbiology is seeking Editors to help ensure the publication of high-quality research and to foster engagement across the microbiology community. Expertise in biotechnology, regulation, sensing, signalling or AMR is especially welcome. 🗓️ Apply by 16 February: https://microb.io/4qKdgJ6

Windows Vista. Argh.

BREAKING: UK physics research and science facilities face ‘substantial’ cuts Science and Technology Facilities Council seeks £162m cost savings, with existing projects facing axe Scoop by @francesjones.bsky.social www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

I did my PhD on the stress response of Bacillus cereus with Tjakko and I believe this may be the last paper from his group (he is alright, retired in 2025). #MicroSky www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

🎉 New paper out! Taking a closer look at Enterococcus thailandicus, a species long considered of low clinical relevance. doi.org/10.1016/j.nm...

By end of Feb @bsky.app will be the 2nd largest social media source for research sharing in our database - Google+ managed 945,000 mentions of research during its life - Facebook pages (not people's profiles) have shared papers 6.6m times - Reddit = 600k Bluesky is currently at 6m and climbing

🚨 Hiring Alert! 🚨My lab at Institut Pasteur is recruiting several Postdocs! We have exciting open projects in: 🦠 Synthetic Biology and🛡️ Bacterial Immunity. Come do great science with us in the middle of Paris! 🇫🇷🥐 research.pasteur.fr/en/job/postd...