Can we exploit past phage infection events (prophages) to decipher the specificity of phage receptor-binding proteins such as depolymerases?🔎 Happy to share our recent work at @natcomms.nature.com 🔽 #microsky #phagesky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hey hey hey! Tomorrow, September 16th at 16:00 UTC, don’t miss the next ISPB virtual seminar! This session will focus on plasmid elimination with great speakers lined up. #Plasmid #ISPB #MGEs

Come and be my colleague at the Dunn School! It‘s a brilliant place to work and exciting to be building up our immunology team. Do apply. Do pass on the news 💉🧬🦠🔬🧫

Exciting times ahead! Today marks the first day of the Loeff Lab at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands 🇳🇱. I’m thrilled to begin this new adventure and continue exploring microbial defense mechanisms and their applications through an integrative structural biology approach.

Happy to finally share this! Read here about the best strategy the the persistence of low-copy plasmids. @mariosanter.bsky.social @iwangtoknow.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Do plasmids evolve faster 🐇, slower 🐢, or just like chromosomes 🧬? In our new paper, we tackled this question using theory, simulations, bioinformatics, and experiments! 👇 Check out all the details in Paula’s thread! Hint: 🐇 (most of the time)

Excited 🥳 to share our latest work on gut phages! Big thanks to @epcrocha.bsky.social, Erick D, Camille d'H, @fplazaonate.bsky.social, Quentin LB, and all others involved for support and contributions! 🙌 Out in Cell Reports @cp-cellreports.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.ce... Here's what we found 🤓

Due to some server issues, some applications have been lost, particularly the ones submitted within 12h of the announcement, if that’s your case, it’s better to resubmit, sorry everyone 🙏🏻

Here's our new broad review on the extended mobility of plasmids, about all mechanisms driving and limiting their transfer. From conjugation to conduction, phage-plasmids to hitchers, molecular to evolutionary dynamics, ecology to biotech. The state of affairs. 1/9 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

🚨🚨New paper out in @natcomms.nature.com!! Come for the first large-scale analysis of plasmid copy number across species, stay for one of the most intriguing results of my lab: universal scaling laws in plasmid biology! 📈🧬 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I created a list of researchers working at the @institutpasteur.bsky.social DM me if you'd like to be added to it. bsky.app/profile/did:...

The BIGSdb-Pasteur project, running under my supervision since 20 years, is looking for a project manager - great opportunity to contribute to this high-profile international resource in the field of reference strain taxonomies, genomic epidemiology and antimicrobial resistance surveillance

‼️ Great Postdoc opportunity ‼️ In pathogen interactions with Rolf Kümmerli at the University of Zurich

Working on #klebsiella genomes? ✅ Want to collaborate globally to advance Klebs genomic epi? ✅ Please join us via the KlebNET-GSP Epidemiology consortium ⬇️ #microsky #AMR

I will be recruiting new postdocs with start dates end 2025 - early 2026. If you'd like to work at the Pasteur Institute in the heart of Paris surrounded by amazing scientists, reach out to discuss possible projects on SynBio / Bacterial Immunity!

Very happy to have this comprehensive review published. Well done Fabienne for leading the charge on this 👏

Massive effort lead by the amazing @fabbenz.bsky.social to discuss the present and future of CRISPR-based antimicrobials ⚡

New opinion paper from the lab! www.cell.com/trends/micro...

An excellent and insightful review! Congratulations to all authors!

1/6 Excited to share our review 🚀 🧬 CRISPR–Cas therapies targeting bacteria! #MicroSky

Heey! ✋ If you missed the live session of the ISPB Virtual Seminar Series, there's still time to catch up and enjoy the great work of Zhengqing Zhou and Alicia Calvo Villamañán. Huge thanks to the speakers and the organizers!! 🫂

#NatureMicroPicks Microbial integrons in focus 🦠🧬 Two studies showing microbial integrons encoding phage defense systems #MicroSky www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Preprint: Conjugative transfer inhibition of IncA and IncC plasmids by pervasive SGI1-like elements via relaxosome assembly interference #plasmid #relaxase #bacteria #parasite #MGE #plasmidbiology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New postdoc position in our lab (2 y+): evolutionary genomics of integrons and MGEs with focus on vibrio-phage interactions. Great environment @pasteur.fr for science, career building. Super collaborators @celineloot.bsky.social @amazeld.bsky.social @fredoleroux.bsky.social 3 weeks to apply!

Coming up Tuesday at noon Pacific – @dbikard.bsky.social of @pasteur.fr will be giving a talk on the #phage-bacteria arms race! Join us at the IGI Building in Berkeley or on Zoom: innovativegenomics.org/events/semin...

New paper: long-term trends in antibiotic resistance show signs of stabilisation (thread). journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

New online! Genetics, ecology and evolution of phage satellites

... and finally the paper is out on microbial genomics! www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Newest preprint from our lab. Congratulations to all authors!

Engineering Conjugative Plasmids for Inducible Horizontal DNA Transfer https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.12.642913v1

www.nature.com/articles/s41... In collaboration with Andrew Lang and Alison Buchan, we just published a review on the complex and sometimes convoluted interactions and evolutionary relationships among bacterial mobile genetic elements. #phage #plasmid #evolution #bacteria #plasmidbiology #MGE

The International Society for Plasmid Biology and other Mobile Genetic Elements are finally in Bluesky!! 😎😎😎

The Eligo team did it again! We just shared on biorxiv the work we did towards the development of a CRISPR-Cas therapy targeting Shiga Toxin producing E. coli (STEC). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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...

🚨 Job alert 🚨 — are you interested in understanding how mobile genetic elements and defence systems shape bacterial genome evolution? 🧬 🧪 🧫 🦠 2x 5-year research positions available in experimental evolution @mermanchester.bsky.social Join us! #microsky www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Cool “Behind the paper” article on our recent KorB-KorA sliding clamp-locking clamp story. I remember Chris Thomas and Lewis Bingle (Birmingham) taught me about these proteins when I was an undergrad, and I kept remembering they said the mechanism was not clear!!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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:...

🚨 New preprint! We know that plasmids are associated with very variable fitness costs in their different bacterial hosts. But, what is the contribution of each of the plasmid-genes in these host-specific effects? Study led by @jorgesastred.bsky.social, @sanmillan.bsky.social and myself! 1/14

Interested in microbial #metabolism, #mucosalbiology and #UTI? Then check out the open postdoctoral position in the Mucosal Immunology Group at ETH Zurich! NB: All applications must go via the ETH job portal: www.jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP... Closing date: 24th Feburary 🧪🧫🔬

Deadline extended to 27th January!

ISPB Virtual Seminar Series 💥 Sign up my plasmid friends 💥 Registration and abstract submission open until 20th January, chopchop

Researchers are hoping to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria by harnessing other microbes that are experts at stealing iron. https://buff.ly/4grpj97

Applications for MEME are open! It's a research- and mobility-oriented Evolutionary Biology Master's Programme, where students have the opportunity to visit 4(+2) different universities in two years. Please spread the word! www.evobio.eu #EvoBio

🚨New review🚨 Evolution and ecology of anti-defence systems in phages and plasmids Link: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Very happy to see this work published! We unveil a plasmid-chromosome crosstalk by showing that pOXA-48 encodes for a regulator that mediates the transcription of an enterobacterial chromosomal operon, resulting in a growth benefit for the plasmid-carrying bacteria! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

www.nature.com/articles/s41... New paper out!!

Finishing the year with a paper submission always feels good! 🛡 🦠 (1/5) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Happy holidays everyone! ⭐️🎄

Are #pyoverdines effective antibacterials?🦠💊 Yes! We found strong competitive and antibacterial effects against #ESKAPE pathogens via iron depletion. Out now in @elife.bsky.social: doi.org/10.7554/eLif... (1/4) With @rkmicrobes.bsky.social and amazing collaborators from #UZH & @ethzurich.bsky.social

New paper from our group in @pnas.org!! 🚀 Malte Mütter used our amazing liquid-handling robot to test different treatment strategies and found that combination therapy is the most effective to prevent the emergence of plasmid-mediated double resistance www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The honor of being a 'Pasteurian' does not pay rent, certainly not in Paris… Fingers crossed for today's negotiations with @pasteur.fr