1) The Herzik lab is excited to announce our newest preprint in collaboration with the Grotjahn lab! We have developed a surfactant cocktail that seeks to overcome one of the more nefarious problems in #cryoEM, Air-water interface (AWI)-induced damage and preferred orientation (PO).

Neat paper from Schwille lab. They demonstrate constriction of synthetic vesicles using important components of the bacterial cell division machinery, FtsZ and FtsN. They induce strong constriction of Z-rings in vesicles just by adding the cytoplasmic domain of FtsN www.nature.com/articles/s41...

3D-MINSTED nanoscopy and protein tracking in densely labelled living cells https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.09.710616v1

Come work with us in Oxford! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQL601/p...

There's still time to apply for this PhD position!

During her PhD, Jenny found something unexpected: biofilm-deficient P. aeruginosa mutants were just as tolerant to antibiotics as the WT when grown in our cystic fibrosis lung model. But why? #MicroSky 1/n

This is a nice one! Congratulations @carballido-lab.bsky.social et al! Nice to see you agree that this might lead to local enrichment of cell wall precursor lipids. Not easy to prove but I still think its an attractive model (to ensure high CW synthesis given low lipid II levels).

The demand for #ProkaryoticCellBio so far has been crazy! We received a record number of abstract & grant submissions, to which the conference chairs are busy reviewing! We predict poster slots & accommodation to begin filling up, don't wait until the deadline to register! More info ➡️ bit.ly/4raYCu

Preprint on the permeability of Gram+ bacterial cell wall from a few months ago. Intriguing findings, elegant methodology. Cell wall is largely impermeable to molecule sizes of mNeonGreen (27kDa) and above. How do larger secreted proteins get through? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #microsky

A gift of an article from the inimitable Colin Kleanthous as he says a moving farewell to his laboratory. A brave, unrepentant and scientifically brilliant journey is described - please have a read, friends. www.jbc.org/article/S002...

iCASE PhD project available in my lab, combining microscopy method development with high throughput screening of bacteria. Applications to antibiotic drug discovery and screening for new cell division proteins. Collaboration with Cairn Research #microsky #bioimaging www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Finally comms from UKRI - on a Sunday evening. No mention of the hundreds of ECRs who will see their careers ended by these decisions and notably no explanation for MRC retrospectively applying cuts and wasting all the work that went into writing, reviewing and scoring applications - £millions

Happy to share a new preprint from the lab: Marko became interested in whether the disordered linker of FtsZ might influence how the protein organizes into the Z-ring. And this led to some surprising findings! Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I’m happy to share the main result of my PhD, which you can find on bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... If you are interested in learning about a new way to perform DNA-PAINT multiplexing, which we call Combi-PAINT, or if you are interested in the study of mRNA conformation, keep reading! 1/10

SAVE THE DATE! The next instalment of the long-running Bacterial and Archaeal Cell Division Conference will take place at www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels..., Italy from the 20th to 23rd of April 2027. Organisers: me, @s-lab.bsky.social, @awehenkel.bsky.social. More info soon. #MicroSky

Our first lab paper is out. Large-scale testing of antimicrobial lethality at single-cell resolution predicts mycobacterial infection outcomes. From single cells to patients, across tuberculosis and M. abscessus. 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s415... 👇 Thread

Fabian was quicker :) But yes, we have an open postdoc position in bacterial bioenergetics and membrane biology, using on B. subtilis as the model. Come join us! @cbcb-newcastle.bsky.social is a great place to work, and we are a friendly, international lab. Visa+IHS fees covered. #microsky

Just 4 days until our Grants, Early Bird & Talk deadline closes for #ProkaryoticCellBio! Join Heath Murray, Jie Xiao, Marc Bramkamp and Ethan Garner 13 - 16 July 2026 in Portugal, alongside our fantastic speaker line-up! More info on how to register here➡️https://bit.ly/4qCDhtw

AI folks now having to realise what GWAS folks did about studying bacterial genome datasets. Great work by great researchers

Want to do great science and beautiful microscopy with a great guy? @maikbischoff.bsky.social is recruiting a PhD student for his new lab! #cellbio #devbio #microscopy #bioimaging

🎓Online-course: Machine Learning for Bio-imaging 📅 9–11 March 2026 🧠 Instructor: @hernanmn.bsky.social Learn CNNs for image segmentation & classification with hands-on Python sessions on real bioimage data. www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work... #Bioimaging #MachineLearning

My lab is hiring a postdoc (ERC funded)! If you're interested, get in touch!

We are looking forward to sunnier days and some fantastic presentations at our #ProkaryoticCellBio meeting in Portugal next July! Grants, Early Bird pricing and Talk slots close on 12 Jan, register & submit today to join us! 🌞 👉https://bit.ly/48G29dP

linguists take note 👇 apart from a few oddities, the similarities and differences between US and UK english correspond quite well to those in sporulation in 𝘉. 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘴 and 𝘉. 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘴. #MicroSky

Woop Woop, it's out!!! Congratulations everyone. A beautiful paper

@simonecoppola.bsky.social has made micromorph, the first native Python application and library for measuring bacterial morphology. It runs interactively in napari or can be easily integrated into automated Python scripts. It integrates deep learning cell segmentation and is easily extended 🔬🦠🧫

(𝘌. 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘪) chromosome replicationists take note 👇 (paper edited by mike o'donnell, so you know where you are) #MicroSky

wohoo! FtsZ aficionadas/os take note 👇 #MicroSky

Congratulations @tosinorababa.bsky.social! #MicroSky

New release of the TrackMate single particle tracking plugin for ImageJ by @jytinevez.bsky.social looks amazing! forum.image.sc/t/trackmate-... Loads of new features, most excitingly to me deep learning segmentation algorithms including Omnipose (for cells), and Spotiflow (for spots) #bioimaging

Apply now to attend the next EMBO Bacterial Networks meeting #EMBOBacNet 🗓️13-18 September 2026 📍Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain 📝Program and registration info: meetings.embo.org/event/26-bac... 👩‍🔬Organised with co-chair @s-lab.bsky.social and ECR @coralietesseur.bsky.social #MicroSky

I've made a short blog post summarising currently available substitutes to GeneFrames for bacterial timelapse microscopy. I will keep it updated with any future developments, so let me know if anything should be added. holdenlab.github.io/blog/2025/Ge... #microsky

Are you looking for female speakers in CryoEM for seminars and conferences? Are you a woman in CryoEM and not yet on the ‚woman in CryoEM‘ list? Find your speakers and add/update name and affiliation! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Ten days left to apply to be a @crick.ac.uk Early Career Group Leader Closing date 27th November www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...

Another update on the GeneFrame saga 🙄 #microsky #bioimaging

Broader #bioimaging and #microsky people - anyone have any suggestions for sources of ~0.25mm non-cytotoxic double sided adhesive sheets?

Negative update on the GeneFrames saga: I got ghosted by GraceBio, who had said they were working on replacement. Back to square one. A few ideas how to move forward. Input appreciated. #microsky #bioimaging

The diderm cell envelope is not a stack of layers but a unified scaffold of Inner Membrane–Peptidoglycan–Outer Membrane. We discuss how tethering the OM to the PG in E. coli preserves integrity — and extend the concept across diderm bacteria. Curr Opin Microbiol: doi.org/10.1016/j.mi... #microsky 🔬

#Archaeasky #Microsky #FtsZ

PhD project available in my lab. Email me with CV if interested www.findaphd.com/phds/project... #microsky #bioimaging

🚀🔬 Announcing #IMS2026 at @itqbnova.bsky.social! We're assembling a #LifeSciences #Microscopy symposium packed with ✨ speakers and 🧑‍🔬 workshops. All about imaging cells with photons, electrons and AI! If you love microscopy, you need to be here. Join us on March 19! ims2026.itqbnovacommunity.org

Letting AI anywhere near my writing is a big line in the sand for me. No thank you.

C̳H̳E̳C̳K̳ ̳I̳T̳ ̳O̳U̳T̳ Spectacular atomic force microscopy time course studies from Carolina Borrelli et al. in Nature Microbiology show how polymyxin drugs (like colistin) cause blebbing and shedding of the Gram-negative bacterial outer membrane It looks almost like the bacilli 🦠 caught smallpox then died

Thrilled to share that our article in @jofmicroscopy.bsky.social is now accessible online and as open access! If you wonder how to start the analysis of your images, we propose a decision tree to help identify suitable methods. Just follow the link(s)... #imageanalysis #bioimaging

BindCraft: an AlphaFold2-powered de novo protein binder design tool 🧬✨ Tested in some bacterial systems too! Designs so far are short peptides or mini-domains. Looking forward to long/full protein design ahead! 🧪 #microsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

And the crispri genetic interaction screen 👏💫🤯 #microsky from J-W Veening lab. Dual CRISPRi-seq for genome-wide genetic interaction studies identifies key genes involved in the pneumococcal cell cycle: Cell Systems www.cell.com/cell-systems...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #microsky

Dual transposon sequencing profiles the genetic interaction landscape in bacteria | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...