Excited to share our latest work! 📝
We measured the fitness effect of 136 AMR genes and found that many are neutral or even beneficial without selection. 🤯🧬
Oxygen availability can flip their fitness and our stochastic model indicates that oxygen fluctuations help maintain them.
Learn more 👇🏼
tRNA gene arrays: emerging roles in bacterial persistence and adaptive evolution
Some molecular machines, like ribosomes, can persist for long periods of time in cells.
Could molecular aging of ribosomes shape how proteins are made?
In our new preprint we track ribosomes as they age in cells and uncover unexpected effects on translation (1/10)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Evolutionary emergence and preservation of microproteins encoded by upstream ORFs https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.05.709866v1
We found a viral Trojan Horse: a virus can hide inside another virus.This one surprised us: deltaviruses don’t just borrow a helper virus. They can travel inside it.
A literal Trojan Horse “virus-in-a-virus” route into cells. 🤯 Kudos to 1st author @viroscope.bsky.social and co-authors !
In vivo de-amplification of a multi-resistance pseudo-compound transposon in Escherichia coli https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.06.710075v1
Pls re-post: My department @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social are recruiting for several new faculty positions (links below). Broad search in molecular biology/biochemistry, across prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Interested in understanding life at the molecular level, this job might be for you!
1/n
PhD position in our lab - 4-year funded by BBSRC and @nrpdtp.bsky.social in collaboration with @earlhaminst.bsky.social and Inspiralis Ltd. Open to UK fee qualifying students - UK citizens and citizens of Ireland (residency requirement), etc biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/how...
Vacation Studentship Grant🚨
The Society offers a limited number of awards to enable undergraduates to work on microbiological research projects during their summer vacation. The deadline for applications is 15 March 2026, find out more and apply now: https://microb.io/4kDKRm5
A jumbo cyanophage encodes the most complete ribosomal protein set in the known virosphere www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🔔Seminar Opportunity🔔
We're looking for (self)recommendations for a Postdoc who is working in the area of AMR (any area, any discipline) to give an online seminar in May.
Reply, DM or email me, there will more opportunities in the future as well so will be good to have a list.
#MicroSky #AMR
The impact is already hitting science agencies hard. The NIH—the world's largest public biomedical research funder—has had to rely on leftover stopgap funds.
New grant awards have slowed to a trickle — exacerbating the effects of a record-long shutdown in October.
(h/t @jeremymberg.bsky.social)
A quote: “We would like to know, for example, what the initiation and termination signals for RNA polymerase are, what kind of sequences are recognized by repressors, by host modification and host restrictive enzymes and by enzymes involved in genetic recombination and so on. For these studies eventually what is required is the ability to synthesize long chains of DNA with specific non-repeating sequences.” H. Gobind Khorana, 1968 (Khorana, 1968) Sadly, the quote was cut from the final version of our paper.
One thing I learned while contributing to this was how much foresight pioneers of DNA synthesis technology had in understanding the importance of their work to studying genome regulation. Found this 1968 gem from Khorana (who , incidentally, was at UBC for a time):
We are excited to be recruiting a new tenure track group leader in the Structural Studies Division at MRC LMB! It is an amazing place to start your own lab.
@mrclmb.bsky.social
Please get in touch if you have any questions.
www.nature.com/naturecareer...
Our department at Genentech is hiring. We're looking for a freshly-minted PhD (0-3 years) protein biochemist / structural biologist to join as a Sr Scientist. A rare opportunity to join our group leader job family at a more junior level than we usually hire.
📢 Call for Abstracts!
📊 We're now accepting abstract submissions for Lightning Presentations at the TARGetAMR Conference 2026! 🧠
📅 Deadline: Friday 20th March, 5pm GMT
🔗 Submit yours here: www.targetamr.org.uk/now-open-cal...
#TARGetAMR26
🔔Collabator Alert🔔
I’m putting together a project on UTIs and the urogenital microbiome and am looking for a collaborator with solid metagenomic sequencing/analysis experience. If you’d be interested in joining the work, I’d love to talk
#MicroSky #UTISky
MENI is back! Join us in Dublin this August 2026 for our 3rd Meeting for Microbial Evolution in Ireland. We are delighted to have @rachelmwheatley.bsky.social @drrebeccajhall.bsky.social @jpjhall.bsky.social and @tweethinking.bsky.social join us as keynote speakers this year. miniurl.com/MENI
Colony morphogenesis regulates sporulation dynamics in bacterial biofilms
#Bacillussubtilis #colonybiofilm #radialexpansion
bioRxiv
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We are recruiting a computational scientist for a postdoc position to work on detecting RNA modifications using nanopore sequencing:
tinyurl.com/RiboComp
Deadline March 4th.
Please share and repost!
More on the group: www.bric.ku.dk/research-gro...
Advances in CLIP-derived methods have enabled high-resolution mapping of individual RNA binding protein-RNA interactions as well as RNA binding protein-associated RNA–RNA interactions #RNA #CLIP @evannostrandlab.bsky.social bit.ly/4bYjAsg
Bit different from our usual work
A PhD applying metagenomics to identify microbial plastic degradation and metabolism, fully funded studentship (UK students only).
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Anyone interested in applying for a BBSRC Fellowship on projects involving;
Microbial evolution
AMR
Mobile genetic elements, inc. insertion sequences
3D culture models
Feel free to get in touch, happy to discuss supporting or host potential applicants!
#AMR #UTISky #MicroSky
tinyurl.com/46fdyfppv
Dear friends and fans of evolutionary biology & medicine (#EvMed), deadlines for the 2026 meeting in Kiel Germany are coming up. Looks to be excellent!
March 1, 2026: Abstract submission deadline and travel award decisions
April 1, 2026: Abstract decisions
open.substack.com/pub/evmedrev...
Applications for Vacation Studentship Grant are now open. The Society offers a limited number of awards to enable undergraduates to work on microbiological research projects during their summer vacation. The deadline for applications is 15 March 2026: https://microb.io/4kFjubf
🧵 New preprint! Our 4-lab team evolved Streptococcus pneumoniae in antibiotic-treated mice of varying immune states and discovered something surprising: bacteria rarely evolved resistance. Instead, they found a different way to survive — by rewiring RNA turnover.
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
@science.org A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #RNA #ribozyme #evolution
Ever notice that when one gene is disrupted, its orthologs get upregulated? This phenomenon, known as transcriptional adaptation, has been controversial and mysterious - glad to see that we are starting to learn how it works.
New in JB: Weiss, Tamayo et al. describe a very cool microbial interaction wherein Enterococcus faecalis, an opportunist found in the inflamed gut, impacts phase-variation noted by chaining & rough colony morphology of C. diff.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology
Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin
