Igor Iatsenko

Only a few hours left before our meeting starts! Are you travelling to #EDRC2025 now? Let us know by using the oficial #EDRC2025 hashtag!

Infectious bacteria, but not the microbiota, induce a NOX-ATM-cytokine pathway that controls epithelial turnover Nagy et al. identify a NOX-ATM-cytokine signaling axis in the Drosophila gut that is activated by infection independently of DNA damage. This pathway promotes enterocyte loss, cytokine production, and...

Our new study is out in Cell Reports!
We show that the DNA repair pathway ATM-γH2Av is repurposed in the gut during infection, even without DNA breaks. Pathogens, not microbiota, trigger it via NOX to clear damaged cells and drive stem cell regeneration. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Graphic with a blue background and light green dots. The text 'call for applications' appears in green, and 'Ausschreibung' in white. A white arrow on the right points diagonally upward.

Early-career researchers: want to run your own lab? 🌟Max Planck Research Groups offer 6+ years, up to €2.7M in funding, open-topic freedom, team support & tenure-track opportunities. Intrigued? 😃Apply by Oct 14, 2025! www.mpg.de/max-planck-r...

Open postdoc position in in my lab in Berlin @mpiib-berlin.mpg.de.

Join us to push the frontier in ancient microbial genomics. Please apply until Oct 17th. Reach out in case you have any questions.

www.mpiib-berlin.mpg.de/2193291/job_...

Based on feedback from applicants, reviewers and broader research community, the ERC Scientific Council decided to make changes in the 2026–27 calls for proposal for research funding.

More details from the ERC President 👉 europa.eu/!hP3WWF

What’s your take on this? Tell us! 👇

Bild einer Zeitung. Ein Bild mit einer fetten Fliege mit roten Augen. Überschrift: Notruf der Fliege. Lead: Erkenntnisse aus der Drosophilaforschung werden in einer Datenbank gesammelt. Deren Finanzierung steht vor dem Aus. Wegen Trump.

Wegen den Einschnitten der US-Regierung fürchten sich Wissenschaftler, dass die Flybase, eine zentrale wissenschaftliche Datenbank für die Forschung an der Fruchtfliege Drosophila melanogaster, verloren gehen könnte. Mein Text dazu in der heutigen F.A.Z.

📢 We are looking for a sandwich student to join the lab of @irenemiguel-aliaga.bsky.social at the @crick.ac.uk for a 12-month placement starting July 2025!

Interested in how the 🐁 gut changes during pregnancy? Check the project and eligibility criteria here: www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...

Call for Applications / Ausschreibung

Springboard for an international scientific career! 🧬🧪🔭⚛️🧠🌱 Call for #MaxPlanckResearchGroups launched; applications are possible until October 14, 2025 www.mpg.de/max-planck-r... #ScienceCareer

Applying evolutionary theory to understand host–microbiome evolution - Nature Ecology & Evolution This Perspective discusses how well-established theoretical models of evolution can be adapted to study and generate testable predictions about the evolutionary dynamics of host–microbiota association...

I am happy to announce publication of our new perspectives paper on applying evolutionary theory to host-microbiome evolution - new tricks for old dogs! @bweek.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de @transevo.bsky.social @crc1182.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

attention 🪰folks. many of you received a survey from @genetics-gsa.bsky.social about potential future sites of the US Fly meeting. We are excited for #Dros26 Chicago, but future sites are in question, for many logistical reasons. GSA is hard at work planning, but we need to hear from you. please RT!

Two fully funded #PhD positions on insect #Symbiosis available in our lab: Spiroplasma in Neotropical Arthropods (tinyurl.com/spiroplasma) & Psyllid symbionts (tinyurl.com/psyllids).
Please contact me for any questions & share widely #symbiosky #academicjobs

Infection and Immunity is now welcoming nominations for highly promising scientists at the assistant professor level (or equivalent) to submit research to the next New Voices in Microbiology Collection!

Please nominate by the August 18 deadline using the below link:
app.asm.org/account/logi...

Majority of fruit fly immunity studies can be replicated, huge analysis finds Verification of 50 years of data bolsters immunology research, but identifies “suspicious” papers that don’t hold up

Comment on our @Reproducibility project in @Drosophila immunity. It is a normal that findings—however exciting and important at the time—may later prove to be more complex than initially believed. Re-evaluations is essential to the self-correcting nature of science. www.science.org/content/arti...

Liver FGF21 mediates sex-specific adaptation to juvenile protein malnutrition Dietary protein sufficiency during childhood is essential for healthy growth and tissue development. Chronic protein deficiency leads to stunting, height-for-age more than two standard deviations belo...

📢 New preprint:
“Liver FGF21 mediates sex-specific adaptation to juvenile protein malnutrition”
Led by @ameliejoly.bsky.social, co-supervised with @francoisleulier.bsky.social.
We’re proud to share this story.
👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

ERC to introduce seven-year €7 million ‘super grants’ in 2026 The European Research Council (ERC) is set to launch its first seven-year €7 million super grant call in May next year.The grants, called ERC+, will be open to researchers at all career stages and in ...

See? There's money! What would be great, instead, is to increase the budget for the existing schemes, though 🧪

Thanks! Will check.

Any recommendations for a #Drosophila transgenesis facility in Europe?

During their trip to Ukraine, Ferenc Krausz and Serge Haroche visited universities, research institutions and destroyed buildings - and met people who, despite the war, are shaping everyday life and believe in the future.

In early March, the Nobel Laureates Ferenc Krausz and Serge Haroche returned from their visit to #Ukraine with strong and lasting impressions. With their documentary, the two researchers draw attention to the dramatic circumstances 📹 peace4europa.org

Infection-Induced Elevation of Gut Glycosaminoglycans Fosters Microbiota Expansion in Drosophila melanogaster https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.24.661374v1

Proud of this work led by a former PhD student @aranzazuarias.bsky.social. Here, we investigated how the host controls the abundance of gut commensals and how some of them can benefit from infection.
#infection #symbiosky #proudPI
#immunity #AcademicSky #insect #symbiosis #Drosophila

New tenure track assistant professor position in molecular microbiology in our department @dmf-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social! We are casting a wide net for an experimental molecular microbiologist. Apply here: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...

Temperate Bacteriophage Populations in the Human Gut: Culturomics and Experimental Insights Jeremy J. Barr june 12 4 PM SEMINAR ROOM 1+2 MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR INFECTION BIOLOGY, BERLIN

📢 Voices in Infection Biology
Join us next this Thursday for a talk with @jeremyjbarr.bsky.social from @monashuniversity.bsky.social, kindly hosted by @iatsenkolab.bsky.social.

🗓️ Thursday, June 12
🕓 4 pm
📍 on-site seminar (Berlin)

Info and abstract: www.mpiib-berlin.mpg.de/events/42144...

Yes, this is an important point that we did not cover very deeply. However, the fact that we still see the differences in germ- free flies suggests that microbiota alone can't explain the phenotype. It is very curios that male microbiome is more responsive to perturbations.

Sex Differences in Drosophila Intestinal Metabolism Contribute to Sexually Dimorphic Infection Outcome and Alter Gut Pathogen Virulence Sexual dimorphism in infection outcomes is a pervasive phenomenon, the underlying mechanisms of which remain incompletely understood. Here, utilizing Pseudomonas entomophila intestinal infection in Dr...

Happy to share our new preprint! We explored the mechanisms underlying differences between male and female #Drosophila in susceptibility to intestinal #infection. #symbiosky
#immunity #AcademicSky #insect #symbiosis

Join us in Tubingen as a Junior Research Group Leader if you do research on #ESKAPE pathogens and infections and are interested in the highly cooperative environment of @dzif.bsky.social‬ and @cmfi.bsky.social ! Please send your application or forward to colleagues!
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

While I applaud Europe taking a step to fund bringing scientific excellence to Europe, the ERC’s current success rates at 10% for Europe based scientists is statistically at lottery levels. The total ERC budget should double across the board aiming at doubling funding rates.

Postdoctoral Research Associate at The University of Edinburgh Apply now for the Postdoctoral Research Associate role on jobs.ac.uk - the leading job board for higher education jobs. View details.

Hi #Drosophila folk: I'm advertising a 2-year #Postdoc, funded by a BBSRC grant on the genetic and immune determinants and evolutionary constraints underlying extreme pathogen transmission phenotypes. Deadline 29 April, details in the link below, or feel free to email:
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMQ231/p...

Drosophila symbionts in infection: when a friend becomes an enemy | Infection and Immunity Occupying the interface between host and environment, host-associated microbes play essential roles in interactions with pathogens and influence disease progression (1–4). Considering that most entry ...

Happy to share our latest minireview on
Drosophila symbionts in infection: when a friend becomes an enemy | Infection and Immunity journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
#immunity #infection #antimicrobialpeptides #microbiome #Drosophila #AcademicSky #insect #endosymbiont #symbiosis

Layers of immunity: Deconstructing the Drosophila effector response The host innate immune response relies on the cooperation of multiple defense modules. In insects and other arthropods, which have only innate immune mechanisms, four main immune-specific modules cont...

Excited to finally announce this work which has been in the pipeline for 5 years: Layers of Immunity.

Faustine et al. made a set of immune mutants covering 4 major immune modules in #Drosophila, deleting melanization (ROS), phagocytosis, and both Toll & Imd NF-kB responses. What did we find?

1/n 🧵

PhD student / doctoral candidate in Infection Biology AUREUS is a multidisciplinary European Training Network built to counteract multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aures infections, funded by Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network (MSCA-DN).

You have a strong background in molecular microbiology and look for a PhD position? Join us in #Tubingen in an international, enthusiastic team team, in an excellent research environment of the EU-funded #AUREUS program
euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/328844
@cmfi.bsky.social