Interesting!

Now out @natbiotech.nature.com ! Do lncRNAs commonly bind 1000s of genomic sites? Maybe they do, but the dozens of studies that report genomic binding maps of lncRNAs are deeply flawed, with probes binding suprious DNA sites rather than RNA-bound ones.

wow — the preprint host, arxiv, is banning authors for a year if they submit papers with hallucinated citations 🤖

Together, our data support a model in which DruH processes replication-associated forked DNA structures to generate 5′ overhangs that trigger activation of the autoinhibited helicase–nuclease DruE, enabling selective DNA degradation during phage defense.

Happy to share our latest pre-print on the Druantia defense system. We find that Type III Druantia uses a cooperative helicase-nuclease mechanism to sense and degrade replication-associated forked DNA structures. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A🧵

Druantia phage defence system by Haidai and collaborators out as preprint! Always interesting to know more about such interesting (and often difficult) systems. Glad to have played a small role on this and congrats to all the authors

Bridge recombinase enables versatile rewriting of bacterial genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.29.721476v1

1/9 New preprint from the Sternberg Lab in collaboration with the Nishimasu Lab! We uncover how the DRT3 antiphage immune system pairs two reverse transcriptases, one RNA-templated and one protein-templated, to build a double-stranded DNA effector. doi.org/10.64898/202...

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...

New version of Inphared!!! With improved capabilities, such as defence and anti defence annotation in phage genomes, predicted lifestyle annotation, constantly expanding curated phage genome database and other improvements! Check out the preprint with all the numbers.

TIR-like NADases act in bacterial immunity and the RNA vault https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.01.722283v1

Phage terminase recognition by the bacterial immune sensors Avs2 and Upx https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.30.721860v1

Bacterial immune proteins have repeatedly evolved to become parts of eukaryotic immunity. But how? Our new preprint uncovers a recent horizontal transfer event & shows how eukaryotes co-opted a toxic bacterial immune protein 🦠🧪🧵 1/

Site-specific, multi-kilobase insertions and over-writes in mammalian cells, without DSBs, HDR, recombinases, integrases, transposases, or active cell cycling? Using fully or predominantly single-stranded DNA donors? 1/15

Wow!!

Out Now! Nuclease–NTPase antiphage defence systems use conserved molecular features to control bacterial immunity #MicroSky

Out now in Nature Biotechnology! Alejandro González-Delgado and a fantastic team of collaborators worked across nine labs to get retron recombineering up-and-running in fifteen bacterial species. Molecular parts on addgene: www.addgene.org/browse/artic... Happy editing!

Very nice that after discovering the conservation of innate immune systems across the tree of life, the Sorek lab is realizing the possibility of discovering new features of animal innate immunity from bacteria (and plants in this case) Cool 😎 🧪

We’re thrilled to announce that a new pre-print has been out as a stop over on our journey to selective antiphage defense systems against RNA phages! Please check the dieties as new defense gene names and get me some comments to improve the next version of this work. doi.org/10.64898/202...

We found that TIR domains in animal immune proteins, including the human TLR4, are enzymes that cleave NAD+ to produce the signaling molecule cADPR Read our new preprint by talented Bohdana Hurieva: “Conserved catalytic activity of immune TIR domains in animals” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Structures of the QatBC complex from Angela Gao and Doug Wassarman in our group reveal an evolutionary link between QatABCD and Type IV CBASS and a role for protein deazguanylation in diverse anti-phage defense systems www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Happy to share our new work on how phages escape bacterial immunity. We show that a phage homing endonuclease drives segmental amplification of anti-defense genes, pointing to a versatile and rapid mode of adaptation. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #PhageSky #MicroSky

Great summary by @philipcball.bsky.social! Our findings certainly don’t invalidate the central dogma, but rather demonstrate an unexpected (and cool!) structural mechanism by which a sequence-specific DNA is created in a cell. (1/6)

Very proud of this work and all the efforts from my team and collaborators on this! You can now use DGRs for in vivo targeted hypermutagenesis in E. coli. We also included some early proof of concept in Yeast thanks to @seth-shipman.bsky.social !

Excited to share our new findings in @science.org on how the DRT3 bacterial defense system uses a reverse transcriptase that builds DNA repeats without a nucleic acid template. Microbes never cease to amaze! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🔈Paper out! We turned the most fascinating phage host-switch mechanism, diversity-generating retroelements, into a programmable mutagenesis tool, DGRec. You can perform targeted hypermutation of any 50-200bp sequence directly in vivo in E. coli www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thank you Quanta Magazine for highlighting our studies on the bacterial immune system!

A phage-encoded sponge protein suppresses bacterial TIR-Caspase immune signaling | Nature Communications https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-71527-4

The phage nucleus synergizes with an anti-defense protein to resist bacterial immunity: Cell Reports www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Excited to share our new paper out today in @science.org 🎉 We show that HGT via natural competence drives diversification of chromosomal integrons in V. cholerae 🤩 Below a 🧵 on key findings incl. background on natural competence in V. cholerae 1/ #microsky #phagesky www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Congratulations to Karen Maxwell @themaxwelllab.bsky.social on the 2026 Peter Gilgan Canada Gairdner Momentum Award! An amazing selection and leader in the bacterial immunity field! www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0pg...

Such an incredible journey building DISCO 🪩. Love working with this team. DISCO is a co-design model with functional, de novo, new-to-nature enzymes. Huge shoutout to my co-authors for making this a reality! 🚀👇

Our current understanding of the Metis defense system - carved in wood By @naamalila.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Nucleoid-associated proteins sense phage-induced genome damage to elicit abortive infection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.06.716658v1

Excited to see our work out in Science today! Using machine learning to identify prokaryotic immune systems www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

📣Huge preprint 🔔 Today we share something our group has been working toward for a long time, led by @lucasmoriniere.bsky.social We asked can we predict which receptor a phage targets from its genome sequence alone? For most phages, we couldn’t. So Lucas set out to do something I had only dreamed of.

2.39 million antiphage proteins in 32,000 bacterial genomes!! Congratulations Aude & team!

How diverse is bacterial immunity ? We report in @science.org how language models allowed us to predict 2.4M antiphage proteins spanning >23K novel potential systems. 👏 @emordret.bsky.social, @alexhv.bsky.social & al doi.org/10.1126/scie... Explore them here defensefinder.mdmlab.fr/wiki/refseq_...

Nice highlight of both Laub's lab and our work ! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Still so much to discover in the amazing world of bacteria immunity 🧬🦠🛡️

A big advance in the field of bacterial immunity, from the Bernheim and Laub labs

Bacteria have been fighting off viruses using a huge arsenal of molecular weaponry that scientists did not know about — until now. Researchers have identified proteins that could lead to virus-fighting drugs and technologies. go.nature.com/4dqQnXI

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #phage #phagesky

This paper started as an idea @albertomarina.bsky.social had many years ago… which of course means he was right all along 😄. Some of us just needed a few years (and a lot of experiments) to catch up. Grateful (and slightly humbled) to be part of this. Thanks Alberto! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Happy to share the final version of my postdoc work on bacterial CBASS immunity with @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Engineered phages evade the complete defense repertoire of highly phage-resistant MRSA clinical isolates https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.26.714447v1

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/...

Why do intrinsically disordered proteins appear larger than they are in SDS-PAGE? We investigate how sequence properties affect SDS-PAGE mobility using synthetic IDRs. Conclusion: We need to consider both SDS binding and the compaction of protein-SDS complexes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I love this concept -- plasmid to Cryo structure in a day! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The latest AI/ML tools for co-folding proteins around small molecule ligands can produce impressive results. Until you start looking at them closely.

A defense system that protects against RNA viruses by sensing a conserved RNA structure in the viral genome - cool!