Happy new year! The second big project of my PhD in Rachel Whitaker's lab is now up! 🎉 We look at how provirus infection affects the evolution of the bacterial chromosome with different types of viral induction – with CRISPRs or antibiotics. Take a peek 🦠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🎉 New year, NEW PREPRINT! Bacteria exhibit astonishing genetic diversity, but where do new genes come from? My best friend Arya Kaul (/labmate in the @baym lab) investigates how advantageous deletions can spawn new genes - "deletion-born fusions." 🧵:

Happy to share that I’m opening my lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science! We’ll study systems-level regulation of bacterial defense, driven by RNA-protein interactions shaping cell fate. Now recruiting PhD students & postdocs tinyurl.com/4yfa55vd Please reach out and share!

What is the best strategy to win any contest? Eliminate your opponents of course. Recently, my friend @fernpizza.bsky.social showed how plasmids compete intracellularly (check out his paper published in Science today!). With @baym.lol, we now know they can fight. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The project has excellent lore. From contamination to a integrated tool to classify mobility, A-Dog (Arya to civilians) has found AMR gene have been increasing on MGEs likely due to the use of antibiotics. Some great graphs in here!

“I asked ChatGPT to generate” has replaced “Merriam Webster defines” as the new go to low effort introduction and PIs who start talks this way need to be made fun of

When I was told I’d have a summer undergrad I couldn’t have imagined how lucky I would be. Hue has no tolerance for the easy way out and takes on new challenges with an infectious positivity. One day (hopefully🤞) someone will be just as lucky to have her as a grad student. We will miss you!

I apparently deleted a important “TnpA” label from my poster so now my week is ruined but if you want to help search for more mistakes and you are at the Microbial Populations GRC come see me Wednesday

Last summer I was lucky to attend the Woods Hole Microbial Diversity course and the most important thing I got out of it was meeting Liana. Her genuine curiosity and meticulousness really shine in this super cool story on introns (i.e. the coolest RNAs around). Excited to see what you do next!

It is getting weirder and weirder seeing faceless accounts accuse jewish professors of antisemitism for bemoaning their loss of funding

My advisor @baym.lol pointedly speaking with WBUR. “I think that reason is a pretense. I think that this is an attack on Harvard as a symbol of academia in the United States.”

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

During my rotation I got to work on this project and I immediately knew Soumya and Han were destined to be the future leaders of science and I would be a fool to pass up a chance to work with them. Super thankful to have met, and continue to get to hang with, you guys!

Reposting with an eye catching figure because I forgot

Llamas, dolphins and measles? Oh my! So thankful this story is finally breaking containment from my time in the Manguso Lab at the Broad. Using pieces from viruses and llamas we engineered selective cell specific viral like particles with reduced immunogenicity for in vivo gene delivery

Like we needed another reason for sex… But seriously this is a very cool result, surprisingly intuitive only after you read it. I interpret it is as sex delinking beneficial and deleterious mutations to enable greater adaptability. Shreyas worked super hard to figure this out, good work!

Woolly mice is bioweapon.

My scientific career changed the day I met Fernando and my faith in science restored. In a world dominated by sequencing and LLMs, this project shows how much biology is hidden in plain sight waiting for the right person to make the connection, a must read for any scientist!

Greatful to have been given the opportunity to present my wacky little project at @crisprmeeting.bsky.social and thanks to @baym.lol and the rest of the lab for the support!

Genomic resistance in historical clinical isolates increased in frequency and mobility after the age of antibiotics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.16.633422v1