Enea Maffei

Day 4, Claw. Phages don't really have claws, but they do have tail fibres that recognise receptors on host cells and clamp on, allowing phage particles to infect their hosts. #drawtober #SciArt #Phagesky

📢 OUR 2025 FELLOWSHIP CALLS ARE NOW OPEN 📢

🎓PhD Fellowship 👉 nccr-antiresist.ch/join-us/

👩‍⚕️Research Fellowship in Infection and Treatment for clinicians 👉 nccr-antiresist.ch/join-us/

#TransformingAntimicrobialResearch #AMR

@biozentrum.unibas.ch @unibas.ch

The Viral AlphaFold Database of monomers and homodimers reveals conserved protein folds in viruses of bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes VAD is a Viral AlphaFold Database of protein monomers and homodimers from viruses infecting hosts across the tree of life.

Viral AlphaFold Database (VAD) is live in Science Advances

~27,000 predicted viral protein monomers & homodimers

Conserved folds across bacteria, archaea & eukaryotic viruses

New toxin–antitoxin system KreTA uncovered

Vast “functional darkness” remains uncharted

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

That’s really cool. Every lab should have it!

Polymyxin B lethality requires energy-dependent outer membrane disruption - Nature Microbiology The antibiotic polymyxin B requires bacterial metabolic activity to cause sufficient damage to the outer membrane to access the inner membrane, which it permeabilizes via an energy-independent mechanism to kill the cell.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#microsky

Autocycler: long-read consensus assembly for bacterial genomes AbstractMotivation. Long-read sequencing enables complete bacterial genome assemblies, but individual assemblers are imperfect and often produce sequence-l

Happy to share that the paper describing Autocycler is now 100% up:
doi.org/10.1093/bioi...
(1/3)

“Treatment with bacteriophages can combat antibiotic-resistant infections, but Swiss patients lack access” It is not only antibiotics but also certain viruses – known as bacteriophages – that can kill off pathogenic bacteria. However, Switzerland lacks the legal framework for the use of these viruses in th...

It is not only antibiotics but also certain viruses – known as bacteriophages – that can kill off pathogenic bacteria. However, Switzerland lacks the legal framework for the use of these viruses in therapy. What would need to change? Researcher Alexander Harms explains.

ethz.ch/en/news-and-...

So where does the difference come from? More nutrients/energy required for full development?

Had a short but sweet visit to Zürich to speak at @ethz.ch. Many thanks to @phagemuffin.bsky.social and @aharms485.bsky.social!

It was a pleasure having you! Until next time!

Making a good cacio pepe is indeed a science on its own!

I can confirm this applies to postdocs too 😇😁

One technician position (80-100%)

Group Médéric Diard

Start date: 1 November 2025 or as per agreement

@biozentrum.unibas.ch

@unibas.ch s.ch

www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/open-positio...

#job #research #Hiwi #biology #science #basel #recruiting #career

Writing a recommendation letter for yourself

Chimeric infective particles expand species boundaries in phage-inducible chromosomal island mobilization Capsid-forming PICIs (cf-PICIs) produce their own capsids and exploit phage tails from unrelated species to transfer their DNA across bacterial hosts. This tail piracy enables broad dissemination and ...

Thrilled to share our two latest papers with the @tcostalab.bsky.social
lab! In the first, we uncover a new mechanism of satellite transfer: cf-PICIs hijack tails from diverse phages to spread across species.
@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

This is great, congratulations Simona!

Divisome dynamics in intracellular UPEC cells during infection. Left: Representative confocal image of intracellular UTI89 expressing a division marker (FtsZ-mCitrine; pseudo coloured green) with mCherry (pseudo coloured magenta) as cytoplasmic marker, bladder cell membranes shown in blue (CellBrite Steady Membrane 405) and nuclei shown in gold (NucSpot Live Cell 650). Right: Still images of a time-lapse sequence showing FtsZ-mCitrine (pseudo coloured green) driven coccobacilli divisions imaged using HiLo illumination.

Uropathogenic #Ecoli #UPEC proliferate as round coccoid cells during intracellular infection; @alaskapokhrel.bsky.social @bill-lab.bsky.social &co show that accelerated division via FtsZ constriction drives this, the coccobacillus form persisting for generations @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4gdx97i

Efficient detection and typing of phage-plasmids Phage-plasmids are temperate phages that replicate as plasmids during lysogeny. Despite their high diversity, they carry genes similar to phages and plasmids. This leads to gene exchanges, and to the ...

🚨 New preprint! 🧬

𝐏𝐡𝐚𝐠𝐞-𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐬 (𝐏-𝐏𝐬) are fascinating elements: both 𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 and 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐬 ➡️ tricky to detect.

We present 𝐭𝐲𝐏𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐠 — the first 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥 🛠️designed specifically for P-Ps:
✅ Accurate
✅ Sensitive
✅ Easy to use

📖 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genomic resistance in historical clinical isolates increased in frequency and mobility after the age of antibiotics Antibiotic resistance is frequently observed shortly after the clinical introduction of an antibiotic. Whether and how frequently that resistance occurred before the introduction is harder to determin...

What was antibiotic resistance like before we ever used antibiotics? How did we change what antibiotic resistance genes looked like over 100 years?

Our paper looking at resistance genes from a century of NCTC historical isolates now out in mGen:
www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Synthetically designed anti-defense proteins overcome barriers to bacterial transformation and phage infection Bacterial defense systems present considerable barriers to both phage infection and plasmid transformation. These systems target mobile genetic elements, limiting the efficacy of bacteriophage-based t...

Preprint: De-novo design of proteins that inhibit bacterial defenses

Our approach allows silencing defense systems of choice. We show how this approach enables programming of “untransformable” bacteria, and how it can enhance phage therapy applications

Congrats Jeremy Garb!
tinyurl.com/Syttt
🧵

Good morning, Interlaken - fantastic venue for the annual meeting of the Swiss Society for Microbiology! 🇨🇭🏞️🦠

The nature of mutation: a legacy of bacterial genetics Abstract. A central question in the fields of genetics and evolution was the nature and origin of spontaneous mutation. Bacterial genetic experiments throu

I cannot fully put into words what publishing this Review has meant to me, so I leave you with how we closed the paper.

"The humble bacterium is still a relevant tool for the study of the underlying mechanisms that are conserved throughout life."

🧪🧫🧬📚
doi.org/10.1093/gene...

Deep learning reveals antibiotics in the archaeal proteome - Nature Microbiology Use of artificial intelligence to mine proteomes of archaea led to the discovery of archaeasins, antimicrobials that kill drug-resistant bacteria in laboratory and animal models, offering a promising ...

(1/5)For over a century, the hunt for new antibiotics has focused almost exclusively on bacteria and fungi. Today, that paradigm shifts. By coupling state-of-the-art AI with the vast, largely uncharted diversity of Archaea, we open a new frontier for molecular discovery.

🚨 Highly recommended position open as Scientific Officer at the NCCR AntiResist consortium - a unique opportunity to play a central role in this fantastic research setup! 🦠🧬💊

Are we placing bets yet on which fairly-reputable journal will be first to announce that they are incorporating AI into reviewing to modernize & keep up with increasing paper volumes (*cough*) - but *don't worry* they have a *specially designed system* and it will be *fine*?

(p)ppGpp imposes graded transcriptional changes to impair motility and promote antibiotic tolerance in biofilms - npj Biofilms and Microbiomes npj Biofilms and Microbiomes - (p)ppGpp imposes graded transcriptional changes to impair motility and promote antibiotic tolerance in biofilms

The wonderful dynamics of (p)ppGpp, big thank you to everyone involved with this story

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Synteny-aware functional annotation of bacteriophage genomes with Phynteny Accurate genome annotation is fundamental to decoding viral diversity and understanding bacteriophage biology; yet, the majority of bacteriophage genes remain functionally uncharacterised. Bacteriopha...

🚨 New preprint 🚨

My phage annotation tool, Phynteny, finally has a preprint and a brand new version powered by a cool AI transformer architecture and protein language models! #phagesky

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited 🥳 to share our latest work on gut phages!
Big thanks to @epcrocha.bsky.social, Erick D, Camille d'H, @fplazaonate.bsky.social, Quentin LB, and all others involved for support and contributions! 🙌
Out in Cell Reports @cp-cellreports.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
Here's what we found 🤓

Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 21 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s41576-025-00867-6In this Review, Ascensao and Desai discuss how methodological advances in genotype and phenotype manipulation are transforming experimental evolution approaches and providing new insights into the underlying genetics and forces that shape phenotypic evolution.

ICYMI: New online! Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation

Disco lights

Phage DisCo! Our targeted phage discovery method in press today: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Perfectly timed with our four summer undergrad's first successful phage hunt... disco lights in the lab to mark the occasion 🕺