Happy #InternationalWomensDay to the brilliant women in our Hypothesis Fund community who are taking the intellectual risks to pursue bold ideas, supporting one another, and transforming science together. You inspire us every day. 💫 #IWD2026
STARS in our pockets! Check out our shiniest research to date!
Evolution navigated billions of challenges to get to us to where we are today. Directed evolution compresses this to a 1D axis.
Imagine if you could sample 200 dimensions at once, with data to boot 📈
First @chorylab.bsky.social PACE preprint on our new system to tackle this: bit.ly/turboprance
New paper from @adjiep.bsky.social on viral impacts in groundwater at Nature Comms. Congratulations Adjie and team!
Read: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#viruses #viromics #groundwater
Big congrats to HF Awardees @stevenbanik.bsky.social and @herdelineardona.bsky.social for being awarded Sloan Research Fellowships! 🤩
Congratulations new Sloan Fellow @stevenbanik.bsky.social @stanford-chemh.bsky.social 👏
Zheng Kuang is uncovering how gut microbes may influence which gene isoforms our cells use. Supported by a new grant from @hypothesisfund.bsky.social, his work could reveal new links between diet, the microbiome and disease, opening doors to novel RNA‑based therapies. 🧪 #Biology #MolecularBiology
4/ Awardee Sukrit Silas is setting out to solve the longstanding challenge of predicting phage-bacteria compatibility🦠. His project could transform how phages are harnessed to fight against antibiotic resistance.
🍾 Congrats Dr. Silas! @gladstoneinst.bsky.social
#HFScout Devaki Bhaya
3/ Can the microbes in our gut change how our genes🧬 are read & used? Awardee Zheng Kuang's bold research question may lead to the discovery of novel host–microbe interactions critical for health & disease.
🎉 Congrats Dr. Kuang! @cmu.edu
🙏 #HFScout Rob Knight
2/ Awardee @archaeon-alex.bsky.social, in collab w/ Co-Is Amy Schmid & Bonnie Baxter,
is taking the lab🔬 to the field -- to uncover how microbes adapt to extreme environmental changes found in the Great Salt Lake!
🥳 Congrats Dr. Bisson! @iubiology.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout @planaria1.bsky.social
📣Announcing our first awardees of 2026🌠, who are setting out to uncover new knowledge about microbes in extreme environments, host-microbiome interactions, & bacterial defenses. bit.ly/HFAwardees
Hear why our #HFScouts recommended these talented scientists👇 in our 🧵:
Hear about Devaki Bhaya's work on cyanobacteria in last week's @scifri.bsky.social episode!
www.sciencefriday.com/segments/lig...
Our lastest publication on a new killer toxin produced by a yeast isolated from a fungus-growing ant garden! journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
I'm immensely grateful for Hypothesis Fund support!
For years, we've speculated about "rules" for mixotroph metabolic flexibility. This funding will allow us to integrate new mol & cell bio tools with our modeling optimization approaches.
Thank you 🙏 to scout Ginger Armbrust for finding us!
This is a huge honor and we’re so excited to get started on this new direction for our group stemming from the work of William McLaughlin, a Ph.D. Candidate in our lab!
Major thanks to our scout, Paul Turner and Hypothesis Fund for seeing the potential in this project! Time to get to work! 🧬🧫🧪
4/ #DYK during pregnancy🤰, cells are exchanged between mothers + offspring, & even twins? Awardee @elizostrow.bsky.social will study how microchimerism mediates genetic conflict and drive resource competition.
🍾 Congrats Dr. Ostrowski! @uwbothell.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout @paulturnerlab.bsky.social
3/ Awardee @mixotrophe.bsky.social aims to uncover how mixotrophs (marine microbes that harness energy from the 🌞 & organic matter) strategize their metabolisms. Her project may be key to understanding our changing ocean.
🎉 Congrats Dr. Moeller! @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout Ginger Armbrust
2/ Awardee @megbehri.bsky.social will study how chaotic dynamics arise in microbial🦠 populations. Her research could transform how we predict microbiome dysbiosis across human health and beyond.
🥳 Congrats Dr. Behringer! @vuartsci.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout @paulturnerlab.bsky.social
✨Announcing our newest awardees, who are taking scientific leaps to uncover new knowledge across microbial ecology, marine microbiology, and mammalian genetics. Learn about their projects: bit.ly/HFAwardees
Meet our awardees and hear from their #HFScouts in our 🧵/1
Our next extraordinary biologist is Manu Prakash, plenary speaker at the Biologists @ 100 conference, who was recently interviewed for @jcellsci.bsky.social. #100biologists @prakashlab.bsky.social
The winners of the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Audio Gold Award, including Science Friday's Flora Lichtman for "The Leap."
Congratulations to the 2025 winners of the international @aaas.org Kavli Science Journalism Awards! Read the full list of this year's winners—including journalists from Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom: bit.ly/4oCwZtq
Congrats @flichtman.bsky.social, @annetteheist.bsky.social, @pvangay.bsky.social, & David Sanford on the award! Great to partner with @scifri.bsky.social to share The Leap w/ the world!
Here’s to celebrating science not just as a discipline but as a daring & profoundly human endeavor. 4/4
This award recognizes this spirit of curiosity & courage, and we’re so grateful to the scientists who shared their stories with us, as well as everyone who listened, shared, and found inspiration in our podcast. 3/
When we created The Leap, we wanted to dive into the journeys of visionary scientists (like Nobel Laureate Katalin Kariko, volcanologist Richie Robertson, & biochemist Virginia Man-Lee Yee) and unpack the risks they took, the setbacks they faced, and their lasting impacts. 💫 2/
🎉 Big news! We've been awarded the 2025 @aaas.org Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award for The Leap, our audio documentary that features the scientists behind some of the biggest breakthroughs of our time. sjawards.aaas.org/news/2025-aa... 1/
It was lovely speaking to @harmitmalik.bsky.social for @dmmjournal.bsky.social Infectious Disease Special Issue. We chatted about his work on host-viral evolution, the importance of blue-skies research and his approach to creating a supportive lab environment
journals.biologists.com/dmm/article/...
The ocean’s got rhythm — and so do its viruses.
With the Bermuda Atlantic Time-Series (BATS), we dove deep — every 4 to 12 hours — to see how viral populations swing through day and night.
Dipti was initially drawn to Archaea for their highly unusual metabolism. "In reflecting on my scientific trajectory, I realize how unique it has been & now take pride in being the ambassador for archaea to the broader scientific community." 4/4
Shown in this image, the frozen methane bubbles🫧 are produced by the microorganisms that she studies in her lab. She shares: "This image beautifully captures the dramatic impact that these invisible microorganisms can have on our planet and on us too." 3/
The oxygen-free environments that methanogens thrive in are also what makes them technically challenging to work with. But Dipti found a way💡. By pioneering the development of genome editing tools for methanogens, she's unlocked a completely new way to study these microbes. 2/
