Bork Group at EMBL Heidelberg

Remembering Phil Bourne Personal reflections on a legendary scientist, leader, builder, and mentor

'Phil was also the founding Editor-in-Chief of PLOS Computational Biology, where he created the beloved Ten Simple Rules series. He was so prolific in the series that the meta-article “Ten Simple Rules for Writing a PLOS Ten Simple Rules Article” literally includes, as Rule 4: “Be Philip E. Bourne.”

We’re hiring: Research Group Leader in computational biology.

Are you generating more research ideas than you can explore? Lead cutting-edge AI & biology research at EMBL-EBI.

Apply by 11 April 2026: embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

#ScienceCareers @ewaldlab.org @embl.org

Just published: "Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats" by @podlesny.bsky.social @chanyeong-kim.bsky.social and @jonas-bio.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

See the quoted post below for a thread on the preprint!

In the largest study of its kind, scientists in the Bork Group at EMBL have found that a small subset of microbes can carry and transfer genes across disparate habitats, creating a planet-wide, interconnected network of microbiomes 🌍 🦠

🔗 Read more here: www.embl.org/news/science...

Excited to announce my upcoming @snsf.ch Ambizione research group at EPFL on bacteria-host interactions, combining systems approaches and microphysiological models.
🚨 We have an open PhD position! More info on projects and how to apply here: elisabettacacace.github.io/BHI-Lab/
🧪

Thank you to everyone who reached out or shared what he meant to them and how he inspired them! We will keep working together, striving to fulfill Peer's scientific legacy. We hope you'll follow along! (3/3)

Peer did pioneering work in so many research fields, and we aim that our research on the microbiome within the human gut and across environments will continue in his spirit. We have many ongoing projects, papers under review, and some coming out soon. (2/3)

It has been two weeks since the unexpected death of Peer Bork, and all of us in his research group are deeply missing him. His scientific vision brought us together as a team, and we are immensely grateful for the time we spent together. 🧵

EMBL is deeply saddened by the passing of our Interim Director General Peer Bork, a pioneering scientist who left an indelible imprint on life science research in Europe and beyond.

We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

www.embl.org/news/people-...

microntology: a lightweight, data-driven controlled vocabulary to describe Earth's microbial habitats Summary. We introduce microntology v1.0, a pragmatic controlled vocabulary of 148 terms to describe microbial habitats and lifestyles, and provide manually curated microntology annotations for >300k m...

We just released a @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social describing the *microntology*, a lightweight controlled vocabulary that we have been using for a while to tag metagenomes with contextual data.

Study by @fullam.bsky.social @vishnuprasoodanan.bsky.social et al:

1/

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We’re hiring 2 Postdocs (f/m/d) in Drug–Microbiome–Host Interactions 🦠💊

Focus: how non-antibiotic drugs shape the gut microbiome, drug efficacy & side effects.

#PostdocJobs #Microbiome #AcademicJobs

Full job ad:
lisamaierlab.com/wp-content/u...

Text-mining tools have progressed a lot in the last two decades, and I'm excited to see what can be done now.

More info chembl.blogspot.com/2025/12/new-...

Apply here: embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/EMBL/job/Hin... The position is at @ebi.embl.org

#ScienceJobs #AcademicSky #ChemSky #BioSky [3/3]

...but life intervened and funding changed, so SIDER sideeffects.embl.de is unfortunately gathering dust since its last update in 2015.

But there's good news: @chembl.bsky.social and @opentargets.org are starting a new effort to mine the available data and produce a high-quality databases! [2/3]

Drug Target Identification Using Side-Effect Similarity Targets for drugs have so far been predicted on the basis of molecular or cellular features, for example, by exploiting similarity in chemical structure or in activity across cell lines. We used pheno...

During my PhD @borklab.bsky.social, we extracted drug side effect data from package inserts and used the dataset to predict new drug targets (doi.org/10.1126/scie...) and pinpoint proteins that mediate the side effects (doi.org/10.1038/msb....). We also published the underlying database... [1/3]

Congratulations, Julia Mahamid!

Julia Mahamid receives the @dfg.de Leibniz Prize for her work on structural cell biology!

#LeibnizPreis

eggNOG v7: phylogeny-based orthology predictions and functional annotations Abstract. The eggNOG (evolutionary genealogy of genes: Non-supervised Orthologous Groups) database is a phylogenomic resource for orthology inference, evol

From @jhcepas.bsky.social and colleagues in the @narjournal.bsky.social #NARDatabaseIssue | eggNOG v7: phylogeny-based orthology predictions and functional annotations | #Bioinformatics #ProteinCentric #Database #OpenScience 🧬 🖥️🧪🇨🇭🇪🇸🇩🇪🔓
⬇️
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

We're excited to release metaTraits.embl.de! 🦠 Interactively explore 140+ 𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘁𝘀, harmonized & integrated from culture-derived collections 🔬 & genome-based predictions 🧬 for >2M MAGs & genomes.

Publication at NAR: doi.org/10.1093/nar/... @narjournal.bsky.social #microsky 🧵 1/8

VIRE: a metagenome-derived, planetary-scale virome resource with environmental context Abstract. Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth, yet their global diversity remains largely unexplored. Here, we present VIRE, a compr

Happy to announce VIRE, a planetary-scale database of >1.7M viral genomes reconstructed from 100k+ metagenomes across diverse environments! In collaboration with @fullam.bsky.social, @tsbschm.bsky.social, and @borklab.bsky.social.
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nar/gkaf1225/8356007

proGenomes4: providing 2 million accurately and consistently annotated high-quality prokaryotic genomes Abstract. The pervasive availability of publicly available microbial genomes has opened many new avenues for microbiology research, yet it also demands rob

Congrats @fullam.bsky.social @pangenomics.bsky.social @borklab.bsky.social & team(s). Great to see this published!

proGenomes4: providing 2 million accurately and consistently annotated high-quality prokaryotic genomes: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

We're up to 1000 studies in metalog.embl.de ! For the past year the focus was on finding inconsistencies in the data and creating the website, but now I have more time to go through the backlog of annotated issues to do QC and load them into the database.

Metalog: curated and harmonised contextual data for global metagenomics samples Abstract. Metagenomic sequencing enables the in-depth study of microbes and their functions in humans, animals, and the environment. While sequencing data

Great to see this finally published!

Metalog: curated and harmonised contextual data for global metagenomics samples

now out in @narjournal.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Our newest preprint is the work of two talented PhD students: Dominic Eriksson (working in the labs of Meike Vogt, Nicolas Gruber & Shinichi Sunagawa @ethz.ch) and @jonas-bio.bsky.social from our group @embl.org, investigating latitudinal diversity gradients of the ocean microbiome (🧵 linked below)

Variations in the latitudinal diversity gradients of the ocean microbiome Latitudinal diversity gradients (LDGs), typically declining from the equator to the poles, are among the most pervasive macroecological patterns, yet their generality and underlying drivers in the oce...

Latitudinal diversity gradients (LDGs) are found across 🌱🐨🦠 but their underlying mechanisms remain unclear.

In this study, we highlight that LDGs are not universal in marine microbiomes but reflect lineage-specific ecological strategies and environmental responses.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Scientific Community Manager EMBL is Europe’s flagship research laboratory for the life sciences – an intergovernmental organisation with more than 110 independent research groups and teams performing scientific research in disci...

The Data Science team at EMBL is hiring for two open positions! First, for a Scientific Community Manager, focusing on community aspects and training on data science. embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

Had a great time yesterday presenting my efforts to use large-scale computational analyses to better understand marine microbes and their impact on carbon cycling. Thanks #SAME18 for the opportunity!

Our scientific organisers opened ‘The human microbiome’ symposium by giving us a brief update on their most recent work 🦠 #EESMicrobiome

🔹Mani Arumugam, University of Copenhagen
🔹Ami Bhatt, Stanford University School of Medicine
🔹Peer Bork, EMBL Heidelberg
🔹Nicola Segata, University of Trento

New preprint from lab: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... describing the Metalog database of manually annotated contextual data for >110k metagenomics samples around the globe metalog.embl.de

See the thread below from @biocs.bsky.social for more info!

We’re looking for curious, innovative science leaders at EMBL Heidelberg! 🔬🧬🦠

Join a vibrant, interdisciplinary community where collaboration and innovation are nurtured at all levels.

Take a look at these four open positions 👇

Group Leader – Molecular Systems Biology Unit Are you ready to lead groundbreaking research in Molecular Systems Biology? Join us at EMBL! We are seeking a motivated scientist to lead an independent research group, addressing original biological ...

Ready to lead pioneering research that bridges systems-level investigations of biological systems to molecular mechanism? The EMBL Molecular Systems Biology Unit in Heidelberg is hiring a Group Leader!

Postdoctoral position in human gut microbiome and bioinformatics - VIB About the Lab Thelab of JeroenRaes(VIB, KU Leuven) is home to a vibrant, dynamic and international group of researchers in the field of gut microbial ecology and its

We're hiring a postdoc!🚨

Study human-associated microbial communities in health & disease.

🔬Requirements:
- PhD in bioinformatics, microbiology, or related field
- Expertise in omics data analysis
- Micro & molecular bio techniques are a plus!

Apply now!🌟
jobs.vib.be/j/119682/pos...