Are restriction/modification modules only used for host defense? @selmamhm.bsky.social shows an alternative use. "Restriction-modification systems are required for Neisseria gonorrhoeae pilin antigenic variation" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2602688123 #Microd #Microsky. #Microbiology

Last (?) preprint as a postdoc in the Merrikh lab! Awesome collaborative effort with graduate student Oyku! I hope people give it a read!

Mfd interacts with RNA polymerase to modulate flagellum-dependent motility, chemotaxis, and population heterogeneity in the stationary phase of Bacillus subtilis in J Bacteriol journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Our paper unpacking "fitness" is out doi.org/10.1093/gene.... How to define fitness depends on what question you ask. Selection acts on organismal vital rates, longer-term outcomes make sense for genetic lineages, models link them. "Invasion fitness" = speed, but sometimes probability matters more.

When is an antiphage mechanism an evolved defence adaptation? This question has been on my mind for so long, because despite the field’s rapid progress there is currently no widely agreed framework in place to answer it. So @brownlab.bsky.social and I wrote this, and I'm happy to share the preprint!

I am happy to share that my first-author preprint is now on bioRxiv! My project delves into how S. epidermidis anti-mobile genetic element defense systems evolve to enable novel genetic acquisition. Huge thanks to the lab @molabuw.bsky.social, @angeljhv.bsky.social and @goldmandoran.bsky.social!

The 3rd Hablemos de Ciencia Symposium was a success! I started this event to create a venue for researchers to communicate science in Spanish and fight monolingualism in science. This year, we had the amazing Dr. Filipa Godoy Vitorino from University of Puerto Rico as our keynote speaker!

Join us this Wednesday at MDTP Student Seminar to hear from Angel Hernandez Viera from the Mo Lab!

I am pleased to share my lab’s latest publication - Acinetobacter species lack canonical DNA repair pathway activation mechanisms, and we discovered a conserved transcriptional activator that fills this role: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Just published! at @narjournal.bsky.social . A new example of how gene order in bacterial genomes impacts cell physiology. Inthis episode we messed up with RNA polymerase genes! academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller? Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase. 1/n

Does this create an Achilles’ heel, and can you drug it? Turns out: yes. Congrats to Barbara, Vanisha, Liz, and the rest of the team. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Recombinational repair is the major pathway required to reload the bacterial replicative helicase following introduction of single-strand DNA breaks. A great way to end the year! Big thank you to co-authors from the @heathmurraylab.bsky.social

As many of you are aware, we are publishing a series of articles highlighting geographical diversity (or the lack thereof). The next commentary in this series by Filipa Godoy-Vitorino looks at the microbiome research landscape in the Caribbean and ways to improve it: www.cell.com/trends/micro...

How does linguistic bias reinforce privilege in science? #AppEnvMicro Editor in Chief @microgem.bsky.social offers insights and discusses how reviewers can identify it to support a more equitable review process. Read the article: asm.social/2Hp #COPE #PublicationIntegrity

In honor of #HispanicHeritageMonth, ASM celebrates and spotlights the vital contributions of Hispanic and Latine microbiologists, whose work continues to shape and advance the field of microbiology every day! Explore our focus page: asm.social/2AU

Delighted to be part of this collaboration with the Raman Lab at @uwmadison.bsky.social: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I need to draw more trees

What if fighting bacteria with viruses could make them sensitive to antibiotics again? A new eLife Digest explains research showing how #MRSA trades one kind of resistance for another. 🔗

Recognizing the importance of language accessibility in science and scientific communication, I have translated this work into Spanish. You can find the Spanish translation in Supplementary file 3!

I'm excited to announced that the version of record of this article is out in @elife.bsky.social. With the other first coauthor My Tran, we found that phage resistance cause reduced beta-lactam resistance and reduced virulence phenotypes in diverse MRSA strains. elifesciences.org/articles/102...

***Please share widely*** @santiaaurora.bsky.social and I are guest curating Pablo Delano's new exhibit, "cuestiones caribeñas/caribbean matters: assemblage and sculpture by pablo delano" at the Chazen Museum at @uwmadison.bsky.social. chazen.wisc.edu/pablo-delano...

The 2nd Hablemos de Ciencia Symposium was a success! This event was started last year to create a venue for UW-Madison researchers to communicate science in Spanish. Science is done for and by speakers of different languages. The language(s) that we use to communicate science should reflect that!