New preprint with my HFSP collaborators. Network structures for bacterial and plasmid interactions determine community structure and evolvability: doi.org/10.32942/X21...

It was great fun writing this review with @gemccallum.bsky.social , even if our conclusions are rather scary. Lots of important pathogen evolution must be occurring outside of the infection context...

🚨 Reminder! You have just over two weeks to submit an abstract, if you want to present at the @microbiologysociety.org meeting "Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics" in Liverpool in November! #microsky 🦠🧫🔬

New preprint ex @bolinabug.bsky.social (+ @daisukekageyama.bsky.social & @scottishwormboy.bsky.social) on the pronounced secondary expansion of Spiroplasma and Rickettsia genomes in lacewings doi.org/10.1101/2025... #symbiosky 1/2

Happy to finally have this out! It has been a fun side-project that we’ve been slowly working on for a while 🍜 I think it has turned out as a nice story, and demonstrates some important issues with historic taxonomic classifications in genome databases. All from investigating a contaminant! ⤵️

🚨 Very excited to finally say… 🚨 The story of Noodlococcus - the contaminant that started ContamClub - is available to read 📖🍜🦠 Check it out ➡️ doi.org/10.1101/2025... 1/15 🧵

Congratulations to Vicki for successfully defending her thesis yesterday!

PhD viva passed!!! 🥳 🍻 Thank you to Liam Shaw and Stephen Cornell for assessing and for a very enjoyable discussion! Thank you to @jpjhall.bsky.social, Ellie Harrison and Calvin Dytham for being an amazing supervisory team throughout my PhD 😁

🧪 Finally out after peer review, our work showing that "Mobile #Integrons carry Phage Defense Systems" is now published in Science 🎉 Short 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our updated lab website is live! We’ve kicked off a new project and a new look with it. Take a look and let us know what you think! 👉 plasmidlab.es

‼️Update! Abstract submission is now open for the 2025 Liverpool UK @microbiologysociety.org meeting on "Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics”! Deadline July 7th #microsky 🧪🧫🦠 microbiologysociety.org/event/societ...

Do restriction-modification systems shape plasmid sequence composition? A group of plasmid-aficionados, led by Liam Shaw, started to explore this during the 2023 @embo.org Workshop on Plasmids in Trieste. Happy to have contributed to this work and be part of such a great team!

Every time I have a conversation about AI in a journal publishing context and I mention indirect prompt injection, I'm met with blank expressions. People really need to read up on this. cetas.turing.ac.uk/publications...

Prize Medal 2025 winner, Professor Richard Lenski, presents their lecture on "Dynamics and Repeatability in a Long-Term Experiment with Bacteria" at #Microbio25. It begins at 18:30 BST. Read more about their work: microb.io/PrizeWinner2...

Preprint below has been a long time coming, here just in time for #microbio25 ! (if the train wifi lets me) With @andrewmatthews.bsky.social #MicroSky 🧵

Thanks again for making Annual Conference 2025 such a success! Want to join us in 2026? Submit an article to our journals by June 30th for a chance to win your registration, whilst supporting us as a not-for-profit. Find out more here: microb.io/3o6DvhI

Congratulations to lab member @vickiorr.bsky.social for her #Microbio25 prize-winning poster on the evolutionary ecology of transposon-plasmid interactions! ✨💫🎉

To all enjoying #MicroBio25 remember: all @microbiologysociety.org events rely on our journals - every paper pays 4x travel grants! Make 2025 when you submit a paper to a MicroSoc journal www.microbiologyresearch.org $0 OA for Publish+Read institutions www.microbiologyresearch.org/publish-and-...

Presenting a poster at #Microbio25 today/tomorrow. Come for a chat about defence hotspots in Pseudomonas phage!

Electrochemical Disinfection Promotes Community-Wide Permissiveness toward the Conjugative Antibiotic Resistance Plasmid pKJK5 by Li, @metlabau.bsky.social, et al. in ES&T Engineering (@pubs.acs.org) pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... #AMR #microsky

This is good news, and relevant to a comic about wastewater management that @rikworth.bsky.social @jpjordan.bsky.social and I made with @bangoruniversity.bsky.social @elliejameson.bsky.social last year. You can read the whole thing on the One Health project website: www.bangor.ac.uk/one-health

Legitmately thrilled to share our latest work, in which @fernpizza.bsky.social solved an experimental challenge in plasmid biology as old as the field: measuring how plasmids compete and evolve within individual cells!

Btw this is an actual movie, shot with a Canon DSLR in a photo studio incubator, of fluorescence-expressing plasmids competing and segregating inside cells

I'm delighted to announce that the 2025 @microbiologysociety.org meeting on "Understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics" will be held in Liverpool 26-27 November 2025! Abstract submission will open soon... #microsky 🧪🧫🦠 microbiologysociety.org/event/societ...

🚨 #PhD opportunity! 🚨 Come and work with @evaheinz7.bsky.social and me at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow) on an exciting project investigating the roles that #bacteriophages play in the evolution and virulence of #enterococci. 🧫🧬 Details here: www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/...

BBSRC fellowships are open: 3yrs of funding, ECRs worldwide are eligible (including the US 👀). Deadline 7th May. If you've a some postdoc experience (but no prior independent fellowships) and fancy coming to my Dept/ Institute in @liverpooluni.bsky.social, drop me a message.

And this is the result, at 300mm with about 15' integrated exposure. No telescope, no start tracker, just a tripod. Say hello to M42!

Now's the best time yet to buy a copy of my new book Graphic Novel Builder! For the whole of February, 10% of all sales of my book will go to BookTrust and Scottish Book Trust! You just need to use the affiliate link below to buy from @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social! uk.bookshop.org/p/books/grap...

Join our lively interactive community of evolutionary biologists in Northern Germany! 7 PhD positions on TransEvo topics, incl 1 PhD position in the Schulenburg lab. @transevo.bsky.social

We have an open position PhD position in a project aiming to develop novel methodologies for phylogenomic reconstruction of plasmid evolution. See details and how to apply in the Ad. Candidates who will review the relevant literature (see Ad) have a higher chance to write a successful application.

Join us at our Disabled and Neurodivergent Members Social for an opportunity to meet with fellow members during #Microbio25. The event is on Monday 31 March 20:00 GMT. Secure your ticket on our website: https://microb.io/Microbio25

It’s Race Equality Week and we want to shine a light on a very important drop-in session the Black Microbiologists Association will be hosting during #Microbio25 on 31 March. Find out more via our programme and join them on the day: https://microb.io/Microbio25 #REW25 #BlackInMicro

Hayao Miyazaki's short guide to watercolor painting -- we put this translation together a couple of years ago

Powerful and important infographics by @firefoxx66.bsky.social about the ongoing destruction of our public health and scientific infrastructure, one of the nation’s greatest assets. Read. Share. Take action.

Hey folks, microbial evolution (and I interpret this super broadly- bacteria, archaea, viruses, theory, Alife, field, lab, biophys, etc) now has a feed thanks to @atinygreencell.bsky.social. I hope this will be my ye olde Science Twitter v2. Come join us! 🧪 #MEvoSky Link: bsky.app/profile/did:...

First post of the year to mark my return from maternity leave :) Excited to share the first open PhD position in my group. Deadline end of February. Please spread the word. www.findaphd.com/phds/projectdetails.aspx?PJID=181239

Just over a week left to apply!

Can anyone recommend papers where authors look at pairwise interactions between bacteria within a community context? i.e. interaction strength between strain A and strain B when co-cultured with several/many other strains. Thanks!

🚨 PhD opportunity 🚨 The Whelan lab & @brockhurstlab.bsky.social are seeking a PhD student interested in investigating the ecol & evol of pathogens in cystic fibrosis exacerbations. This PhD is funded as part of @pulse-cf.bsky.social w @alexhorsley.bsky.social et al. More info & link to apply below.

🧵Just published in @plosbiology.org - one of the most unusual papers that I've ever handled as editor (with help from guest ed @tatsuya-amano.bsky.social). @mallorymrice.bsky.social &co explore the consequences of problematic terminology that has grown up around ecology & evolutionary biology...

Out now: enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Fun collaboration with @biotechdixon.bsky.social and great work by PhD Alejandro! I guess we really do biotech now?!

🚨PhD studentship opportunity! Bacteria protect themselves with a huge arsenal of defences, but does this affect how they gain new traits on plasmids? 🧫🦠💫 Apply for a funded 4y position with me @livuni-ives.bsky.social, @brockhurstlab.bsky.social @jojofoth.bsky.social & @multidefence.bsky.social ⬇️

It’s official: The Microbiology Society is on Bluesky!

It's a new year, and I'd love to line up some more #scicomm comics work! I've been making science comics in collaboration with scientists for 15 years. If you have some research you'd love to turn into a short comic, please get in touch! www.edwardross.co.uk/science-comics

Sharing three fully funded PhD opportunities to join my lab at Queen’s to work on topics spanning bacterial pathogens, antibiotic resistance, microbial interactions, & mobile genetic elements 🦠. Closing dates in January and February, and open to international candidates 🌍 Projects detailed below ⬇️

Very excited to present our latest work as my first post on Bluesky. Thanks to all co-authors for their valuable contributions! A truly mammoth effort with many different fields of expertise coming together. Looking forward to working with all of you in future as well. #Microsky

🚨Spoiler alert! It's a weird, ancillary copy of metG — normally a central part of protein translation — spread around by a curious phage-plasmid. Another case of plasmids manipulating core bacterial activity in unexpected & impactful ways. Kate's thread has more on this amazing story 🤩 #Microsky

So, that’s a wrap from us - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Bakery and friends! This was such a genuine team effort both in house and with an amazing set of collaborators (not to mention two babies along the way!) And thanks so much to BBSRC for the funding! 13/n

And it turns out that other tRNA ligase bearing mobile genetic elements (especially metG) are found in a range of other bacterial species! (Any Ralstonia fans out there?) 7/n

Certain sublineages of antimicrobial resistant bacteria dominate the surveillance landscape, but what causes them to become resistant? Check out our latest work in Shigella to find out and/or read the thread below www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.27.24316207v2 1/n