Pitt is an absolutely amazing place for microbiology, particularly evolutionary microbiology. And they’re hiring!

🎙️ ALBA-IBRO Diversity Podcast: From Postdoc to PI. Ep.5 - Redefining success: choosing your compass in academia 🔗 youtu.be/wfIu0ahjpuM 🗣️ Hosts @lonelypipette.bsky.social 👥 Rachael Dangarembizi, Michaela Fenckova, @harmitmalik.bsky.social & @srikipedia.bsky.social 🌟 Supported by @ibroorg.bsky.social

www.axios.com/2025/09/20/t... New H-1B visa fee will not apply to existing holders, official says

New lab preprint! We set out to explore interstrain differences in P. aeruginosa cooperation and discovered an interesting variant of the quorum sensing receptor LasR. — by Kiki Bellamoroso, Maxim Kostylev, and Nicole Smalley www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We're hiring! 5 tenure track assistant professors. 2 #microbiology, 2 #Evolution, 1 #biologicalclocks jobs.sciencecareers.org/job/675062/f...

My new favorite T-shirt (Courtesy outgoing postdocs @ching-hochang.bsky.social & @hsiehyp.bsky.social)

We have a position for an Assist Prof in Microbial Genomics in our School of III. Hod Joan Geoghegan will be happy to field questions if you are interested. No specific area of microbial genomics preferred so please do consider it www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOO184/a...

More foundations should do this: "Funding is exclusively available to applicants who have already received federal funding (e.g., from the NIH, CDC, NSF) for their health equity research, but have since had their funding rescinded due to federal administrative actions" www.rwjf.org/en/grants/ac...

The CDC shaped my career and saved countless lives around the world. To see it hollowed out and replaced by ideology is devastating. In my latest essay, I share my own CDC story and why its unraveling matters for all of us. open.substack.com/pub/bktitanj...

Very interesting paper! We actually discussed your paper on our paper where we originally evolved the parasite lines (👇). Tho the experimental settings differed from urs :) journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

New preprint reveals bacteria can't just collect all resistance genes like Pokemon cards. We found mutually exclusive evolutionary pathways to multidrug resistance in E. coli & P. aeruginosa - some resistance mechanisms actively prevent others from coexisting www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

shocking to read over and over the stories of close colleagues who can't run their lab anymore. I know Karen well and it's heartbreaking. Also #PIinthelab! www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Excited to share the latest work by outstanding PhD student @kdc509.bsky.social. This was one of our first forays into experimental evolution and uncovered some cool connections between potassium transport and antimicrobial resistance in S. aureus. Major kudos to Killian!

We are hiring! The Dept of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics is looking for faculty at the Assistant or Associate professor level (tenure track). Please consider joining our vibrant microbiology and immunology community at the University of Pittsburgh School of medicine

Faculty search announcement 2025: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Microbiology at UT Southwestern. We seek candidates working in microbial pathogenesis (some preference may be given to bacterial pathogens). Come join our community! (1/5) www.utsouthwestern.edu/departments/...

I'm excited to announce our new biorxiv preprint, wherein we investigate the evolution of the weirdest genetic locus I've ever seen! Behold the tgr genes of the social amoeba, which mediate self/non-self discrimination during facultative multicellularity 🐅 🧵 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This week we said farewell to the amazing @caitlinkowa.bsky.social as she moves to start her new lab at Dartmouth. So grateful for all her leadership and mentoring the last few years. If you’re interested in all things skin microbes (especially fungi) check out her lab! I can’t recommend enough.

Very proud to have our lab’s first work published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social! In this work, we use functional metagenomics to find phage defenses from human and soil microbiomes! Congrats to first author @luis840alberto.bsky.social ! www.cell.com/cell-host-mi... (1/3)

🌟 Exciting news! We’re launching three fully-funded postdoc positions for "New Horizons for Synthetic Phages” Join us in tackling antimicrobial resistance with cutting-edge synthetic biology + AI bioinformatics. Based at Flinders Uni in vibrant Adelaide. 👇 Read on for details! #Phage

🦠🧍‍♀️From bacterial to human immunity. We report in @science.org the discovery of a human homolog of SIR2 antiphage proteins that participates in the TLR pathway of animal innate immunity. Co-led wt @enzopoirier.bsky.social by D. Bonhomme and @hugovaysset.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Tenure-track faculty search of the UCSF Biochemistry & Biophysics Department is open for applications! We are looking for creative, innovative scientists asking fundamental questions in any area of biology. Join our vibrant, collaborative, and supportive community! aprecruit.ucsf.edu/JPF05702

I am seeking a postdoc for my group at UCLA. We work at the intersection of population genetics x microbiome (garud.eeb.ucla.edu). If interested, please message me!

Fold first, ask later: structure-informed function annotation of Pseudomonas phage proteins Structural predictions to improve #phage genome annotation! @hannelorelongin.bsky.social @gbouras13.bsky.social y.social @susiegriggo.bsky.social @veravannoort.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Are you bravely deciding to do a postdoc in the US? And also interested in some combination of genomics, immunology, and transposons? If so, consider applying to my lab at the BioFrontiers Institute in Boulder, Colorado! jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta... 🧪🧬 #TESky #interferosky

My quote of the day A Video Quote Medical miracles don't happen overnight. You have to invest in them. Our investments are in trouble. (From Francis Collins on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, July 16, 2025)

POSTDOC🚨 With the excellent @anshika22.bsky.social moving to UCI 🥲Anna Zemke and I are again recruiting a postdoc on the HOST-PATHOGEN BIOLOGY of TRACHEOBRONCHITIS. This is a microbiome-device-host immunity problem of broad significance. Contact Dr. Zemke (zemkea at upmc dot edu) if interested! 👇🏻

How may theoretical ecology & evolutionary theory push microbiology forward? At Environmental Microbiology, I am commissioning a series of Perspectives exploring that question. Excited to share them in the 🧵 below The series is open, so do get in touch if you'd like to propose a new contribution!

Mutations generate variation, critical for #evolution, but #MutationBias restricts the choice of mutation type. @deepaagashe.bsky.social &co use #Ecoli strains with different mutation biases to show that changing an old bias should yield more beneficial mutations @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/46LjCRt

Today's reading: Nature should be the model for microbial sciences journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... by @brettbakker.bsky.social @emilyraehyde.bsky.social and @pedroleao.bsky.social Looks ideal for a talk I am working on on model organisms ...

'Particularly at risk is the category of basic research — the blue-sky variety meant to push back the frontiers of human knowledge and sow practical spinoffs and breakthroughs in such everyday fields as health care and artificial intelligence.' www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/s...

DO NOT GIVE UP! Our advocacy is working. A key Senate committee has indicated that it will reject Trump’s proposed cuts to science agencies including NASA and the NSF. Keep speaking up and calling your electeds 🗣️🗣️🗣️

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of the Evolution of Chromosomes and Genomes (ECG) Lab at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Our lab website is now live—come check it out! sites.google.com/view/ecg-lab...

2025 just sucks ya'll. It just sucks. Everything is complicated and has gotten brutally harder for so many people. To those who make life easier for folks, thank you. You will be remembered. To those who deliberately make life more difficult for folks, you will also be remembered.

Exciting news! I am launching the Lab of Polymicrobial Interaction & Evolution at IPMB at Academia Sinica (ipmb.sinica.edu.tw/en)! 🎉Our brand-new website is live: (www.labofpie.org). Check the lab of PIE out!!🥧🎈

@harmitmalik.bsky.social and I had a lot of fun sharing our science with intrepid science spotlight reporter David Sokolov (not on blue sky)! I should hire him as my writing coach. Check out his excellent write-up describing our recent study here: www.fredhutch.org/en/news/spot....

“The idea that taking walks, reading things unrelated to your research, and hanging out with strangers in a campus pub should be considered part of the serious process of thinking, but might well meet with skepticism in practice.” www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

One thing to emphasize strongly is that funding to science is like oxygen to the brain. Temporarily restricting oxygen flow for ten minutes (while you figure your shit out) is going to have the same outcome as shutting oxygen off permanently. We are close to the ten minute mark.

Grateful to the lab for celebrating 25 years and to @hutchbasicsci.bsky.social for being such a great place to do science!

Seeing some reactions to this calling it a strongly worded letter. While true in a literal sense that this is a letter, it’s unprecedented—and an escalation of a growing trend of unrest inside NIH. This took bravery. Each of the signers put their career on the line. We should acknowledge that.

I am in downtown Los Angeles right now and it is completely surreal to hear that Trump is sending Marines here. We are listening to mariachi music. People have dogs. There are teenagers here. It is utterly and completely peaceful. Please tell your friends.

True portraits in courage!

Our new paper out now in Microbiome: Species turnover within #cysticfibrosis lung microbiota is indicative of acute pulmonary exacerbation onset doi.org/10.1186/s401... #CF #microbiomeecology #microbiome

Our new big review on Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Hope you enjoy reading it. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Signed! Join me in this quick and easy action to #StandUpForScience Sign now and amplify!

New Harvard alum group formed to fight back and form alliances with other unis See link about an online organizing event this week www.crimsoncourage.com

In the latest #Yeast research article of the series #FantasticYeasts, Pei-Jie Han, Feng-Yan Bai & team describe a new yeast species isolated from a Chinese forest: Saccharomycopsis yichangensis, that can prey on Saccharomyces cerevisiae and other yeasts 😲 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

“Cutting basic science doesn’t save money.”

For our first post on Bluesky, we're excited to share our recent work published in mBio @asm.org! Led by PhD student @madeofmicrobes.bsky.social, we show that flagellar motility and interactions with the mucus environment influence Pseudomonas antibiotic tolerance. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Canada Excellence Research Chair opportunity to recruit top international scientists to Canada. Come join us in Nova Scotia at Dalhousie University ! Reach out if you have questions. www.dal.ca/research-and... @dalhousie.bsky.social