Strep GBI 2026 is open. Join ECRs and experts to highlight cutting-edge research focused on crucial aspects of Streptococcal biology. Registration/abstracts 👉 pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham... ⏳ Deadline Feb 13 📌 Durham 🗓️ March 30/31 2026. 🌐 strepgbi.wixsite.com/strep-gbi.

Lots of PhD opportunities for UK + international students involving my lab. Topics relate to metals & microbiology. First up: TonB-dependent receptors in commensal Neisseria in my lab at Durham, with @kjosts.bsky.social and @mattbashton.bsky.social. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Already missing heather season in the UK 😭

Summer, please never leave. Mostly so that all my weekend walks look like this (pics from Swaledale) but also because I still have so much to do before the new academic year starts lolsob.

Montenegro, you beau-t

Petition for England to look like this every weekend.

IS IT CHRISTMAS YET

I’m proud to join more than 30 colleagues today in sharing our analysis of potential risks from “mirror life”. We summarize our findings in a @science.org article, and in greater detail in a 300pg technical report: Article: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Report: purl.stanford.edu/cv716pj4036

Our time is monetized but not valuable

Bluetorial: What’s the worst that can happen? Meeting a scientific hero (Lots of chemical history today)

If I have to sit through another meeting where students are referred to as "our target market", I might actually scream out loud instead of internally.

Ok, I figured out how to create a Metallobiologists starter pack. I'll keep adding to the list as I find more, but please add your name here if I've missed you. go.bsky.app/SgEyRLv

My guess is that this post is a joke to 50% of scientists and serious to the other 50%.

Only 1 week left to apply for this competition-funded position in my group!

Good explanation of recent changes for efficiency: No more academic boards of studies, each module can only have one summative assessment, modules with <10 students cancelled, removal of all double-blind marking. www.yorkvision.co.uk/news/assessm...

#ChemSky This Preprint by @sophieguti.bsky.social has got it all: Natural Product synthesis, Chelators, Ln, Curium luminescence, mass spec methods, bacteria! doi.org/10.26434/che... Comparative Binding Studies of the Chelators Methylolanthanin and Rhodopetrobactin B to Lanthanides and Ferric Iron.🧪🧵

I have a PhD position available in my group, to start in March 2025. If you have a keen interest in biochemistry and would like to study an exciting and novel class of copper proteins (aka weird Cu tubes) from bacteria, I'd love to hear from you. You should apply here: ibb.edu.pl/app/uploads/...

Another preprint, and this time the excellent work of @imrsankhan.bsky.social from his PhD & our first full experimental Staph aureus paper - on transporters of course! Imran found a cool link to glutathione and infection too. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Reposting this for new arrivals. PS: this isn't an exclusive PI-only list! If you are student, postdoc, or tech working on metals in biology, and I have missed you, please let me know. ☺️

Final call for early abstracts is tomorrow!

I'm recruiting! I'm looking for a motivated postdoctoral scientist to join my new team at SCELSE in Singapore. The role will explore various aspects of how #eDNA is produced and utilised in #Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms. #Microsky #phagesky #Science ntu.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/Careers/job/...

A widespread family of ribosomal peptide metallophores involved in bacterial adaptation to metal stress | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The Lake District in late autumn never disappoints.

In other news, I discovered last night that the big Tesco in Durham now sells Tim Tams. I may/may not have bought so many that may/may not have prompted the person at the register to comment, "Wow, you must really like Tim Tams."

Does anyone know of small grants schemes that a PhD student could apply to in order to cover sequencing costs? Looking for ~£4k. #MicroSky

www.findaphd.com/phds/project... #microsky

The Natural Products Atlas 3.0: extending the database of microbially derived natural products - thanks to the Linington lab for letting the Duncan lab be part of the curation efforts academic.oup.com/nar/advance-... #NaturalProducts #SpecializedMetabolites #microsky #microbialchemistry

I am delighted to announce a tailored PhD scheme supporting candidates from minority backgrounds. This scheme is fully funded, passport blind and comes with tailored mentoring www.findaphd.com/phds/program.... Come join us at @livuni-ismib.bsky.social!

Exciting times! Our latest preprint is now live 🤩! After nearly 16 yrs of running my lab, I truly believe this is one of the most significant contributions we've made. It offers fresh hypotheses about how pandemic Vibrio cholerae spreads globally. Let’s dive in!🧵..1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Re-bluesky-ing this? Re-posting? What's the word? 😅

Look who's here @pnas.org ✔️ @science.org ✔️ @naturecellbiology.bsky.social ✔️ @natrevgenet.bsky.social ✔️ @naturebiotech.bsky.social ✔️ @naturemicrobiol.bsky.social ✔️ @naturechemistry.bsky.social ✔️ @genesdev.bsky.social ✔️ @cellchembiol.bsky.social ✔️ @genomeresearch.bsky.social ✔️ @jcellbiol.bsky.social ✔️

The Parkinson’s disease drug entacapone disrupts gut microbiome homoeostasis via iron sequestration www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I took biochem in 2001, and for nearly 20 years read amino acid sequences daily… and I never knew Dayhoff named them or even the logic behind things like Q until last Friday (h/t Mike Janech). Also, this is another big Dayhoff moment for me. She was incredible! #proteomics #bioinformatics

ChatGPT and similar LLM systems will help you save time here when used judiciously 👇

Snowy day in Durham

Crazy stuff in PNAS dental plaque bacterium 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘯𝘦𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘮 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘪 can divide into an unprecedented 14 daughter cells at once—then each daughter cell starts growing immediately in a rare process called multiple fission, achieving 0.5 mm per day of expansion www.snexplores.org/article/bact...

PhD project with Ioannis Kourtzelis, our lab and Mesenbio in lovely York! Macrophage, EV and innate immune responses, what's not to love! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Took the group out for afternoon coffee to celebrate paper acceptance, new members, returning member, and end of a successful UG project. Definitely the best parts of my job.

We have a fully-funded PhD position to develop and test a mathematical model that can explain how metal ions influence microbial coexistence. Will suit candidates with a natural sciences, maths, ecology, or microbiology background who can imagine themselves doing some wet lab and some modelling.

We also have a industry-linked PhD position on Bacteroides and host glycans that will be advertised soon #glycotime🍭 The IMI is an amazing environment with lovely PIs doing loads of cool science, so please apply if you see a project you're interested in 🥼🧪

Here’s my spreadsheet of starter packs (>80!) related to broadly ‘mechanistic biology’ plus some intriguing extras Complete with collective nouns I’ve been tracking these but now can’t keep up Hope it’s helpful 2/2 docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Bacillus on the Blue place, starting small, but hopefully extending to keep the conversation active [it was also gorwing slow on Twitter] go.bsky.app/BfusVyD

PhD studentship available. The project is VERY interdisciplinary, combing social science, biophysics and microbiology to understand inequalities of UTIs treatment and replicate them in vitro to help choose the correct antibiotic. Pls share, home students only #AMR #MicroSky tinyurl.com/45d8h54u

We have a fully-funded PhD position to develop & test a mathematical model to explain how metal ions influence microbial coexistence. Would suit candidates with Maths, Bio, or Nat Sci background. Great project & training. Our project undergrads this year are currently writing a paper already!

PhD studentship alert!! Two projects available with me fully funded by BBSRC This one is a collaboration with Dr Michelle Buckner warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fa... And this one a collaboration with @overtonlab.bsky.social warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fa... Both will be lots of fun! Come & join us 😃

The starter pack I made is at the 50/50 limit - I’ve heard many packs were expanded automatically to 150 people, any suggestions on how to make this happen? go.bsky.app/72NeGsT

New preprint from the team, looking at the links between carbon metabolism, calcium detoxificatin and bacterial biomineralisation! As always a fun collaboration with Kevin Paine and many other wonderful people. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...