2026 World Cup: Empty rooms & Fifa cancellations - US hotels fear washout share.google/VJwznJjgR1Va...

Excited to have secured a @sulsa.bsky.social Early Career Development Award that will allow me to bring several of my interests together. I'll be investigating how enterococci interact with colorectal cancer using the excellent organoid models and facilities we have here at @cruk-si.bsky.social!

Amazing speed from the teams in Uganda and the DRC - impressive! Three genomes released so far - a few quick takes: 1️⃣ New genomes ~equidistant from 2007 and 2012 outbreaks. 2️⃣ Represents new spillover from reservoir. 3️⃣ Limited diversity, so too early to speculate on timing. Great work ⭐!

The current talk around 'rejoin' in the UK feels like another form of British exceptionalism. I think 'rejoin' will not happen over the next 20 years or so, because it will be too difficult (culturally, politically) for the UK. /1

🌱 Antibiotic resistance in the environment: From mechanisms to monitoring Explore how AMR develops, spreads, and can be monitored using genomic tools 🎤 Johan Bengtsson-Palme 🎓 ECR speaker: Romain Derelle 📅 Fri 22 May @ 12pm 🔗 Register: www.targetamr.org.uk/hdrevents/an...

I think the best way to enjoy this list, which contains lots of predictable choices (made as it was by committee), is to find a book you like, click to see who voted for it, and then look at the voters' other top 10 choices. You might find something else you like that you haven't read.

Who looks at these flags on roundabouts and lampposts and feels pride? Far right thugs and racists. And who looks at them with fear and loathing? Everyone else. National flags are being used as Nazi bunting by Reform and the far right. Let’s call this what it is. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

That was a great meeting, I am a very happy, but slightly tired, man. Check @amh10.bsky.social's timeline for a great summary of #TARGetAMR26

The Trump era is the world’s most bizarre headline generator. Remember when things were normal?

EBI and NCBI now both accept antibiotic susceptibility data for genomes #TARGetAMR26

While everyone is watching hantavirus I'm actually much more eager to learn more about the Ebola outbreak in DRC's Ituri Province that Africa CDC has confirmed. Early information makes it sound very large for an outbreak that has just been reported: "about 246 suspected cases and 65 deaths"

BBSRC Early Independence Fellowships had an Outline stage this year to try help with amount of peer review. Turns out they received 586 applications, a 110% increase on 2025, and only typically fund 15 a year. They are cancelling this stage and going straight to full app with an institutional sift.

The @twistbioscience.com stand #TARGetAMR26 is being mobbed for their socks

We are kicking off day 2 of #TARGetAMR26 with a social sciences perspective on genomics and AMR by @jgarciaiglesias.bsky.social

If you have a BBSRC Early Independence Fellowship outline in, check your inbox. Please give professional services teams a few days to design demand management processes as we're finding out the same time as you. The outlines per institute data provided is super interesting; 15 awards available 👀👀👀👀

🌟Great start to #TARGetAMR26! 🎙️Today we heard an inspiring keynote, insightful talks and fantastic discussions on AMR genomics Plus our Co-Directors @wvschaik.bsky.social @ksbakes.bsky.social unveiled: 🚀Launch of our Flexible Funding Initiative 📚Debut of the TARGetAMR comic ⌛️We can't wait for Day 2!

Today we are launching the @target-amr.bsky.social flexible funding initiative to pump prime new research across disciplines in the broad field of AMR genomics. Introduction by @ksbakes.bsky.social at #TARGetAMR26 Flexible Funding – TargetAMR share.google/bWYYdQUo8azy...

This review of the University of Birmingham from 2021-22 academic year says "We contribute £4.4 billion every year to the UK economy - more than the West Midland's car manufacturing industry (£3.562B)" UoB supports nearly 20,000 jobs - around 1 in 50 jobs in Birmingham.

Super-excited to be organising the first in-person meeting of the @target-amr.bsky.social network today and tomorrow. We will be launching an initiative for pump-priming and an amazing comic by Eddie Ross on AMR Genomics

Cranfield University to merge with King's College London www.aol.com/articles/uni...

Many talented colleagues and excellent speakers at the @target-amr.bsky.social conference tomorrow @wvschaik.bsky.social #TARGetAMR26. I'll post some thoughts here, flying the flag for @ukhsa.bsky.social and @imibirmingham.bsky.social www.targetamr.org.uk/hdrevents/ta...

E. coli ST131 is becoming carbapenem resistant. I suspect as CTX-M moves onto the chromosome and the F plasmid is lost facilitating acquisition of carbapenemase plasmids. No good can come of this

This is an incredibly relevant preprint. Your favourite pipeline and/or AMR gene database cannot be considered authoritative, but neither can others.

Interesting Pasteurized Akkermansia muciniphila MucT for weight loss maintenance: a controlled randomized trial 'MucT led to lower body weight regain versus placebo at the end of the weight maintenance period (1.2 ± 0.7 kg vs placebo: 3.2 ± 0.4 kg, P = 0.012)' www.nature.com/articles/s41...

RTÉ’s boycott of this year’s Eurovision goes beyond simply not sending a contestant to Vienna, as the broadcaster will not be showing any of this week’s shows. Instead, RTÉ2 will broadcast the classic Father Ted episode A Song for Europe during the usual Eurovision timeslot.

Campus @unibirmingham.bsky.social looking particularly good this evening

I think I have received one of those emails too last week, with a reminder sent this weekend. It was oddly phrased, but I replied anyway because public outreach is important for the job we do. I am now thinking it may have been a bot. I have not received a reply yet, will update if/when I do.

Okay. This is today's version 2. Hopefully, the typos are corrected and additions made. I greatly appreciate the feedback - I put it out in a rush. Sorry about that. I moved some text to a sidebar to allow a little breathing room.

The fact that there IS a international hantavirus society and that we now need them demonstrates the importance of supporting research on all kinds of things technocrats think is a waste of money - you never know when you’ll need it

Birmingham, one of the most diverse cities in Europe

Goedemorgen!

First genome sequence from Andes hantavirus strain from ongoing ship outbreak posted on Virological: virological.org/t/complete-s... courtesy Swiss National Reference Centre for Emerging Viral Infections, Geneva University Hospitals, University of Zurich

Local elections in England, parliamentary elections in Wales and Scotland today. The big winner will most likely be Vladimir Putin.

If this is true (I doubt, but possible) it is a catastrophe for science funding process. Last nail in the coffin level. Why? Because funding will remain at 10%. Nobody's going to pull a load of new cash out of the hat. So. At first - grants that use an online tool will have an advantage over ../

I DO NOT WANT TO 'CHAT WITH MY FILES'

Very excited to share our new paper out in Nature. Congrats to Xiaoqian (Annie) Yu and all the coauthors. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Interesting 'How much are LLMs changing the language of academic papers after ChatGPT?' link.springer.com/article/10.1... Using >2.4 million publications, delve (+ 1,500%), underscore (+ 1,000%), and intricate (+ 700%) had the largest increases. Growth was much higher in STEM fields.

I've spent yesterday and today talking to researchers across the globe trying to understand the hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius. My story in @science.org is here (and some threaded thoughts coming): www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪 #IDsky

Adulthood is just cycling between "If I don't say yes to every opportunity, no new opportunities will ever be offered to me" and "Oh no, I have said yes to too many things" over and over until you die.

Interesting paper Contact dependent suppression of Clostridioides difficile sporulation by enterococci requires the endocarditis and biofilm associated pilus www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Some of these still trip me up

Though not without their flaws, Universities they have *already* done more to drive economic development and innovation than pretty much any other human institution, and that's in addition to creating informed citizens and otherwise enriching the human experience. The evidence for this is...

#ECDC is monitoring a suspected #hantavirus outbreak linked to a cruise ship in the Atlantic. Risk to the population in Europe - VERY LOW. A cluster of severe respiratory illness has been reported among passengers, including three deaths and one severe case. The ship is currently off Cabo Verde.

Interesting paper 'Integrated conjugative elements drive the formation of pandemic clones of Escherichia coli with hybrid chromosomes' academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

And one woman collapsed in Jo’burg airport trying to get home to The Netherlands…! 😱 Three more hospitalised in SA. Luckily, we know how to handle haemorrhagic fevers here - and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome isolation to, given COVID experience.

Suspected hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship in the Atlantic kills 3 people apnews.com/article/hant...

Our lab is proud to present our latest work harnessing Bridge Recombinase for genome-scale editing in diverse bacteria, microbiome editing, and programmable horizontal gene transfer.