Oooo I'm definitely going to go to this. Looks great

Wasn't selected to apply for a fellowship I was soooo hoping to apply to - went to the allotment to try and make myself feel better - a man starts talking to me about voting reform 🤢 - is there no safe space anymore? I just want to make a raised bed in peace and pretend the world isn't falling apart

This is so stressful - Manchester only able to put 3 candidates forward. I need to rethink my career - so far past my PhD but with my career break to have kids I'm so limited with what is available for me to apply. There isn't much hope currently

So hard - worked evenings when the kids had gone to sleep to get this in. All to find it doesn't even count. Outline application was longgggg. Annoying it's only called an 'outline' 🤦🏻‍♀️

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.

My son's notes in bdellovibrio 😆 didn't think he'd been actually listening to me when I was rabbiting on about it

Dreamy dahlias from over the years #allotmentlife

April was great - so much growing in the garden and at the allotment 🌱

Why does antibiotic resistance evolution vary between patients? Come to @officialuom.bsky.social @mermanchester.bsky.social to help us find out! 2.5 year @wellcometrust.bsky.social postdoc position in experimental evolution Closing 15 May. Apply here: www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Earth Day 🌍 Supporting plant health and sustainable systems - both in research and in practice - feels more important than ever #earthday

One week left to apply for a plant health vacation studentship 🌱✨ Based in Manchester, working on predatory bacteria and plant health 🦠🍅 Supervised by me!

MEEHubs26 abstract deadline has been extended to April 26th. Come showcase your awesome Microbiology w. scientists worldwide! meehubs2026.oa-event.com 🦠 What: awesome conference in microbial ecology and evolution, with hubs around the world 🦠 Where: Sunny* Manchester 🦠 When: 3rd-5th August 2026

WINNERS 🏆💜 We couldn’t be prouder of our incredible team for winning University Challenge! This win marks a special milestone. With five victories, we’re the most successful university in the history of the competition, joint with Imperial College London. Well done team 👏🏆

📢 Excited to be offering a Plant Health vacation studentship this summer on plant disease biocontrol and predatory bacteria! Supervised by me at Manchester Uni! @manchester.ac.uk If interested—or know someone who might be—please share and apply! my.rsb.org.uk/services.php... 28th April deadline 🌿🍅🦠

🔊 Looking for a Research Assistant in Bacterial Evolution to join my lab 🦠 🥼Main duties: Research (AMR + microbiome) + lab assistance. ⏲️ Post duration: 30 months 🗓️ Closing date for applications: 20th April 2026 💰 Salary: ~£35k Details and how to apply: tinyurl.com/2a3v66y7 Please share!

📣 Still time to apply to this bioinformatics postdoc position with us! If you have any questions, please DM me here or send me an email. Deadline 3 April.

A hot vimto is £2.50 from the Michael smith cafe 🤣 the uni must be making an absolute killing from a single bottle of squash 💰

All that time sat next to @matthewjshepherd.bsky.social watching him work away at this - absolutely buzzing it's finally out there!! Well done!

New PDRA position with @knightjar.bsky.social @coytelab.bsky.social & me Community assembly processes in soil microbiomes with focus on bioinformatics and computational modelling of data from field and lab experiments www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

New preprint! Ever wondered why only a fraction of genomes encode CRISPR immunity? 🧬 🦠 Turns out CRISPR is rarely beneficial against virulent phages, being most beneficial against those for which resistance mutations are rare! An epic effort by Rosanna Wright www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Last ECR talk of the day from Logan Sauers on IgA transcriptomics #UoM_EEday

This was a brilliant talk, what an amazing career so far - I never knew there were so many different types of placenta!! @evol-molly.bsky.social's work on miRNA and pregnancy outcomes is SO important.

I was absolutely delighted to give a talk at the University of Manchester Ecology and Evolution day yesterday. An incredible collection of talks and posters were presented and we had some great discussions - thank you to @whelanfj.bsky.social and @knightjar.bsky.social for organising!

@bexlowrypalms.bsky.social up next speaking about her work on bdellovibrio #UoM_EEday

I'll believe it when I see it, fortune cookie 😂

It's been a wild week for MERMan! Congratulations Rana, you are incredible ✨✨✨

So proud of @zahraaalbaqsami.bsky.social - you are amazing ✨✨✨✨

Whelan lab cake for the win at the Division of Evolution, Infection and Genomics and MCF Winter Celebration 🥳 #bakeoff #whelanlab

We had two fantastic visiting speakers today MERMan alumnus @rowancallumg.bsky.social spoke about his current work with viral cheating in influenza with @asherleeks.bsky.social And @lavishaparab.bsky.social talked about phage infection trade-offs Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for our snacks!

More amazing posters presented by our researchers @zahraaalbaqsami.bsky.social and Rana at #MicroEvo25!

What a week! Thanks to everyone who attended the UK Phage Therapy workshop and #MicroEvo25 in Liverpool… every talk, poster, question, chat, and round of applause helps to build our microbial evolution community! Thanks to @microbiologysociety.org and @ukri.org for support

So proud of @magdalenakurteu.bsky.social, so much effort goes into everything she does and her presentations always have such amazing hand drawn figures - very well deserved 👏🏼

So excited to be here for @microbiologysociety.org ‘s #microevo25 meeting!

Fantastic talk about the impact of inflammation on Pseudomonas aeruginosa evolution by @taoranfu.bsky.social #MicroEvo25

Come and see @willpjsmith.bsky.social at poster 71 to find out more about microbial warfare! #MicroEvo25

Learn about hot spring microbial communities from @magdalenakurteu.bsky.social at poster 62 🌋 #MicroEvo25

Find out more about DNA repair protein single-molecule tracking from @bexlowrypalms.bsky.social at poster 18🔬 #MicroEvo25

Metagenomic editing of commensal bacteria in vivo using CRISPR-associated transposases www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1... #jcampubs

✨I am thrilled to announce that my #ERCStG project will be funded by @erc.europa.eu. It explores how predatory bacteria interact with bacteria, which they invade and kill 🔬. I am very grateful to the ERC, the panel, reviewers, mentors, collaborators and colleagues! 🙏 #ERCStG => tiny.cc/174s001

Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social

Can Pseudomonas spp. Biocontrols help us to tackle Kiwi Canker? Isabella Frost is finding out! #PPATH2025

Pseudomonas is under attack again, with Rebecca Lowry Palmer harnessing Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus as a Biocontrol Agent Against Pseudomonas syringae in Tomato Plants. #ECPP2025 #PPATH2025

Very excited to be in Nottingham for the @bspp.bsky.social #bspp2025 giving a talk and poster presentation on my work with Bdellovibrio, plants and microbial evolution 🌱

Bacterial #QuorumSensing is often assumed to follow a strict hierarchy. @brownlab.bsky.social &co find that #Pseudomonas aeruginosa instead uses a reciprocal, cooperative system that enhances responsiveness to population density & environmental changes @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3I7DhRG

closing at the end of this week!

👏👏👏 incredible stuff

We are also hiring a 4-year postdoc to study the dynamics and evolution of mobile genetic elements in the C-fixing Icelandic host-spring microbiomes Join our exciting multidisciplinary team funded by @ukri.org BBSRC sLoLa www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

The most divine break in Wales with my wild ones ☀️🌊🐚

Happy share this latest study from the team. Here we look at placental macrophage biology across pregnany and their interaction with Listeria monocytogenes. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Charlie Mo: generic trade off in phage resistance leads to betalactam susceptibility and down-regulation of virulence genes in phage-resistant #MRSA strains #phages2025 🦠 elifesciences.org/articles/102...