Decoding extremophiles: insights from bioinformatics, machine learning, and data-driven approaches #microbiology #extremophiles #bioinformatics #MicroSky doi.org/10.1093/bib/...

With Eugene Koonin, we wrote a rather comprehensive review on the origin, evolution and organization of the #virosphere. We describe all 10 viral realms and the logic behind them, and so much more. Check it out! comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/ar...

DefensePredictor: A machine learning model to discover prokaryotic immune systems #microbiology #prokaryotes #CRISPR #MicroSky @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🧬 Last call to join us in Cambridge for #EMBOMBoA26 (July 6th-10th)! We are just one week away from the registration and abstract submission deadline for the EMBO Workshop on the Molecular Biology of Archaea!

2nd call for postdoc positions in the lab. Get in touch for more information or simply apply here: mbg.au.dk/en/news-and-...

Poster abstracts and early bird registrations for the 31st Annual Meeting of the RNA Society are due by March 31st! RNA 2026 website: rnasociety.org/conferences/ #RNA26

This is a moment to pause—with deep gratitude and a touch of humility—to share some exciting news: I’ve been elected as a Fellow of the European Academy of Microbiology (EAM). fems-microbiology.org/european-aca... [some words of thanks and thoughts in the comments]

We are excited to be recruiting into 3 Associate Professorship's in @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social. Come join us as a colleague and benefit from our vibrant and multidisciplinary environment. Reach out to me if you have any questions. Please repost! (tinyurl.com/48deybuu) (tinyurl.com/4pdvjaft).

We are excited to share our new preprint: iCLIP3 — an improved protocol for transcriptome-wide mapping of protein–RNA interactions at single-nucleotide resolution.

If you love RNA and RNA machineries as much as we do at @uniregensburg.bsky.social we encourage young scientists who want to start their own lab to apply.

Agreed 😅!

A new preprint from the @archaeon-alex.bsky.social and Joey Davis (MIT) labs! We solved the structure of the ribosome from the archaeon Haloferax volcanii and discovered a new highly conserved ribosome hibernation factor that we named AHA (AMPKγ–HPF from Archaea) 🧵⬇️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

If you are looking for “more”, apply for this outstanding PhD program which offers you ample opportunities to develop as a scientist and leader connecting to peers, leaders in the RNA field in Germany, Europe and around the world. Learn the science but also about translation into applications.

In terms of key literature, I use this protist symbiosis review paper all the time! www.cell.com/current-biol... and for rRNA database, PR2 and SILVA

We are happy to share our newest preprint on a novel strain of Ca. Lokiarchaeum ossiferum, that contains an active provirus, capable of excision and independent replication! We propose a novel virus family: Fylgjaviridae. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper from my group in @science.org : "A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesise itself and its complementary strand" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Outstanding work by @edogia.bsky.social

With these authors you know it’s a must-read

Archaea , archaea everywhere ☺️!

Always a pleasure to work with the @archaellum.bsky.social lab - diving into the regulation of cell motility & shape in Haloferax this time. On our side, @felixgrunberger.bsky.social was the RNAseq guru again. Shoutout also to Anita Marchfelder (giving a posttranscriptional twist to the story).

Come and join us in beautiful Regensburg - we also have a job opening in Plant Biology

FoldMason is out now in @science.org. It generates accurate multiple structure alignments for thousands of protein structures in seconds. Great work by Cameron L. M. Gilchrist and @milot.bsky.social. 📄 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🌐 search.foldseek.com/foldmason 💾 github.com/steineggerla...

Excited to share our latest preprint: "SWARM: A Single-Molecule Workflow for High-Precision Profiling of RNA Modifications" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Led by Stefan Prodic #RNA #Epitranscriptomics #Nanopore 1/6

Just out @natrevimmunol.nature.com RNA-binding proteins and ribonucleoproteins as determinants of immunity www.nature.com/articles/s41... gives our perspective on this growing area of research. Special thanks to the editor Alexandra, for streamlining the manuscript.

Important point by @evgenii-protasov.bsky.social ! Same applies for the recent taxonomic changes in the archaeal domain of life.

SAVE THE DATE! The next instalment of the long-running Bacterial and Archaeal Cell Division Conference will take place at www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels..., Italy from the 20th to 23rd of April 2027. Organisers: me, @s-lab.bsky.social, @awehenkel.bsky.social. More info soon. #MicroSky

I am a big admirer of Joan Steitz and her amazing work! Admirable scientist indeed!

Let’s get this started and on an RNA high 😅

Such a thoughtful and thought-provoking article. Excellent Sunday read. Especially today. Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/25/o...

new paper from the Lai lab! Renfu Shang performs careful mechanistic dissection of miRNA cluster assistance and reveals many insights and surprises to this enigmatic regulatory strategy that gives suboptimal miRNAs a boost. if you love Northerns, you'll ♥️ this! 🧬 genesdev.cshlp.org/content/earl...

Our latest CRISPR ring nuclease paper focusses on Csx15 - which seems to act as of a sponge as well as a canonical phosphodiesterase. Great work led by @haotianchi.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🌟 2026 Nucleic Acids Research Database issue 🧬 182 papers, 84 new databases, plus Breakthrough Articles on JoGo (global long‑read haplotypes) and So3D (3D spatial genomics). Browse the issue and Editorial: academic.oup.com/nar/issue/54... academic.oup.com/nar/article/... @danielrigden.bsky.social

#ECR save the dates! 🗓️ In der Reihe #PROSPECTS informiert unser Team #Karriereförderung auch 2026 regelmäßig über die Fördermöglichkeiten bei der DFG. Hier haben wir die Infotalks für die erste Jahreshälfte. Teilnahme ohne vorherige Registrierung möglich, Link erscheint hier. 👉 sohub.io/bvv0

I am very pleased to share that our database of prokaryotic and viral histones, ProHistoneDB, is now available online at prohistonedb.org. Please also see the accompanying article in J Mol Biol: doi.org/10.1016/j.jm...

Dominant contribution of Asgard archaea to eukaryogenesis www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Pleased to announce that I've joined the editorial board of the Biochemical Journal portlandpress.com/biochemj as an associate editor. I'd love to receive manuscripts focussed on CRISPR, anti-viral defence, archaean biochemistry and nucleic acid processing enzymes. @biochemsoc.bsky.social

Guided tour through the small protein landscape of Methanosarcina mazei using proteomics and biochemical approaches #microbiology #methanogens #methane @femsjournals.bsky.social @femsmicro.org doi.org/10.1093/fems...

The @zeitlingerlab.bsky.social is pleased to announce @sergio-gma91.bsky.social’s preprint “High-resolution binding data of TFIID and cofactors show promoter-specific differences in vivo” (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...). TLDR; TFIID behaves differently depending on promoter type. More below:

🚨We are looking for a coordinator located at @uni-wuerzburg.de for our new excellence cluster NUCLEATE - Cluster of Nucleic Acid Sciences and Technologies 👇 www.uni-wuerzburg.de/fileadmin/03... Deadline: Jan 31 st, 2026

Deep-learning dive into the antimicrobial potential of Archaea

Amazing work showing how TDMD plays out on the molecular level! Congrats!!

Slightly overdue article highlight! In PNAS, we use smFRET to reveal how polypeptide release factor 2 (RF2) undergoes a cascade of structural changes to catalyze polypeptide release during translation termination and ArfA-mediated ribosome rescue. 🧵⬇️ doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

A new year brings new opportunities: we are looking to fill a permanent professorship position with a Microbiologist preferably with expertise on archaeal biology, RNA biology or imaging techniques to unravel cell biology in prokaryotes! Please share and/or apply :)! www.nature.com/naturecareer...

A (belated!) highlight from an excellent collaboration with @dunhamlab.bsky.social and #HouLabTJU. In this Nat Commun paper, we combine smFRET and cryo-EM to show how the tRNA modification m¹G37 stabilizes the reading frame—and what happens when it’s missing.

The Human Archaeome: Commensals, Opportunists, or Emerging Pathogens? #microbiology #archaea #GutMicrobiota #MicroSky #ArchaeaSky www.mdpi.com/2076-0817/14...

jede*r kann etwas tun

Troubleshooting common errors in assemblies of long-read metagenomes www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Marine archaea and their functional networks in oceanic biogeochemical cycling link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The final edition of our “New Microbes Discovered in 2025” series is here. After exploring new viruses, bacteria, and fungi, this last #FEMSmicroBlog highlights the archaea identified in 2025: buff.ly/pJpA0Ax #NewMicrobes

Thanks to all who provide these illustrations for free - it helps so much for teaching etc! It’s like a Christmas present again and again ☺️