Abigail Roberts

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of attending ClostPath 2025 at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. Alongside, presenting my poster, I also had the opportunity of co-chairing the session on spores with Professor Adriano Henriques. What a fantastic world of clostridia and their spores!

A novel two-component system controls vancomycin resistance in epidemic Clostridioides difficile The glycopeptide antibiotic vancomycin is the frontline treatment for C. difficile infection in the UK. There have been only sporadic reports of resistance in the clinic but testing is rare so the tru...

New preprint from us! The latest part of our C. difficile vancomycin resistance story. We identified a new two-component system (VnrRS) that can control expression of the vanG pathway - just needs one amino acid change

@buddlejess.bsky.social @brockhurstlab.bsky.social @claireyt.bsky.social

Cryo-EM identifies F-ENA of Bacillus thuringiensis as a widespread family of endospore appendages across Firmicutes - Nature Communications B. thuringiensis spores contain uncharacterized protein filaments that extend from the surface of the exosporium. Here, the authors show that these filaments feature conserved β-barrel neck domains an...

Many spores from the Firmicutes group are decorated with hair-like structures. Since the 60s, they remained a mystery. @remaut-lab.bsky.social named these fibres ENdospore Appendages (ENAs). Using Cryo-ID, we report the identity, structure and function of F-ENA.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Back in April, I delivered my first oral presentation at the European Spores Conference! It was loads of fun and I learned so much about spore biology. Since then, I’ve been busy writing my thesis, titled “Insights into clostridial germination and twitching motility using live cell imaging.”

SpoIIIL is a forespore factor required for efficient cell-cell signalling during Bacillus subtilis sporulation Author summary Bacterial endospores allow bacteria to survive stress, persist in the environment and seed new and recurring infections. Cell-cell signalling is a cornerstone of how bacteria develop in...

journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

It was fun to have contributed to this nice work from @crodrigueslab.bsky.social

❗️Calling ECRs❗️We would love to hear what career support you would like us to provide. Please fill out the small survey below to let us know your thoughts ! Deadline : 29th August

@royalmicrosoc.bsky.social

forms.office.com/e/bKDQcZBQdr

It was a pleasure to write this piece on HPV immunisation as part of our #CelebrateVaccines series 💙 Now more than ever, it is critical that we share evidence based resources on vaccination to help people make informed decisions about their health 🦠💉🌍

PhD students in STEM: Nature wants to hear from you Buried in lab work or drowning in data? Take a break and help shape the future of PhD education.

📢 Calling PhD students 📢 we want to hear from you!

Help shape the future of PhD education. Take our survey to tell us all about your experiences

https://go.nature.com/43iJAsi

On this island the birds are so full of plastic they crunch It's an exclusive tourist destination and one of the most pristine places on the planet. It's the last place you would expect to find birds with bellies so full of plastic that they crunch if you sque...

This is a tragic story of environmental degradation but I’m pleased to see that long-running research by our friend @thelabandfield.bsky.social and his colleagues is getting the attention it deserves!

It's your final chance to complete our EDI survey which we're carrying out in partnership with @bioimaginguk.bsky.social - we'd love your input.

Had a great time at the Physics of Life conference in Harrogate 2 weeks ago! Got to present some cool spore stuff again alongside @abigailroberts.bsky.social !

Toll-1-dependent immune evasion induced by fungal infection leads to cell loss in the Drosophila brain This study identifies a new step in the evolutionary arms race between host and fungus in the Drosophila brain. The fungus B. bassiana exploits the Toll-1 host response to activate the MyD88 inhibitor...

Thrilled to see our paper out today @plosbiology.org! By wonderful PhD student @deepanshund.bsky.social & great team of collaborating authors. Fungi hack immune receptor to drive immune evasion in the brain & cause neurodegeration. Thanx DarwinTrust @wellcometrust.bsky.social @BBSRC for funding. 😃

Interested postdoc applicants, please find link here.
Application deadline 19 March.

Are you affected by the Trump administration’s pause on health communications, science meetings, and reviews? Have you been affected by the Trump administration’s pause on communications, science meetings, and reviews? @statnews would like to hear from you.

Please repost! We’re trying hard to sort out rumors from truth + would like to hear from anyone affected by the new federal orders + NIH pause. Patients, scientists, health equity researchers: please contact us below. We won’t share anything without your permission. www.statnews.com/2025/01/25/t...

Has Bluesky replaced X for scientists? Take Nature’s poll The research community has flocked to the social-media platform Bluesky. Tell us about your experience.

The research community has flocked to the social-media platform Bluesky.

Tell us about your experience
https://go.nature.com/42fihQG

Such a pleasure to attend the graduation ceremony for my PhD at the University of Leeds last week. Even though my viva was over 6 months ago, attending the winter graduation was such a lovely way to end the year!

2024 Image Analysis Survey The Center for Open Bioimage Analysis , Bioimaging North America , the Royal Microscopical Society, and the Global Bioimage Analysts’ Society have now released a new and improved edition of our biannu...

Have you ever analyzed a #microscope image before- even just a single one? Please take our survey on progress and places to still improve for image analysis software! #microscopy #imageanalysis #bioimageanalysis forum.image.sc/t/2024-image...

Mechanism of phage infection in the C. difficile pathogen- towards effective phage therapy at University of Sheffield on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Mechanism of phage infection in the C. difficile pathogen- towards effective phage therapy at University of Sheffield, listed on FindAPhD.com

Fully funded Ph.D. position available in structural biology of bacteriophages.

Mechanism of phage infection in the C. difficile pathogen- towards effective phage therapy

For more details, visit:-

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...