Sebastian Schmidt

Congratulations, Lisa Maier and Stephen Cusack!

The two EMBL alumni have received the 2026 John Kendrew and Lennart Philipson awards for their outstanding contributions to host–microbiome research and structure-guided drug development, respectively.

Learn more: www.embl.org/news/awards-...

No, your "AI platform for scientific profiles" got this one quite wrong I'm afraid.

Wouldn't say no to "227+" publications, but I draw the line at being called an expert in Diarrhea.

Yes I've heard (anecdotally) that turnaround times are increasing in particular for bulkier submissions. And that the requirements on data preparation (which I think are important btw) can be a turn off too – why bother jumping through hoops if one doesn't absolutely have to.

Could this be in part bc it's more difficult to submit to SRA (shutdowns) and ENA (due to load & requirements) recently? I strongly suspect that *generation* of isolate seq data is still exponential, but maybe just fewer get submitted bc it's a bother to do so?

Haha, there’s more to the story. We had bought tickets bc there was a festival in town and we had tickets. João skipped because he was too preoccupied, so I went to see Norah Jones on my own 😅

I distinctly remember being at a conference w/ Joao (lead author) in Ottawa 2012. We had the evening off and wanted to explore the city. But Joao had had an idea and stayed in the hotel, "just going to code this up real quick".

Well, 14 years later, this extremely cool db and study is the result!

The MicrobeAtlas database: Global trends and insights into Earth’s microbial ecosystems Environmental DNA sequencing has revolutionized our understanding of microbial diversity and ecology. Microbiomes have now been sequenced across the e…

The Microbe Atlas database paper is *finally* published! Out in @cellpress.bsky.social today:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The MicrobeAtlas database: Global trends and insights into Earth’s microbial ecosystems MicrobeAtlas (www.microbeatlas.org) is an integrated, reference-based resource for truly planet-wide microbiomics, analyzing hundreds of thousands of microbial lineages across diverse environments, co...

MicrobeAtlas is now published in Cell. 🌐🌎🦠

Explore the paper and resource to see what large-scale microbiome data reveal about global ecological patterns:
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

For a concrete application, see our recent work on “Community conservatism”:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Has anyone been able to figure out who that "Companion AI" company behind this Einstein Canvas completion bot is? They don't really seem to have an online footprint at all, no legal address on the website, nothing.

As a fervent Discworld fan, this one hits hard.

This graph gives me nightmares (but in a good way)

me: trust me, there's so much cool stuff we can to with SPIRE data!

half the ppl I say that to: nah, it's a nice resource, but I just don't see it.

me: *gestures wildly at @chanyeong-kim.bsky.social & @podlesny.bsky.social 's new study now out in @cellpress.bsky.social *

In the largest study of its kind, scientists in the Bork Group at EMBL have found that a small subset of microbes can carry and transfer genes across disparate habitats, creating a planet-wide, interconnected network of microbiomes 🌍 🦠

🔗 Read more here: www.embl.org/news/science...

Just published: "Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats" by @podlesny.bsky.social @chanyeong-kim.bsky.social and @jonas-bio.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

See the quoted post below for a thread on the preprint!

I invite you to check our paper entitled “Rebuilding Ukraine’s capacity for fundamental research in evolutionary biology” doi.org/10.1038/s415... in @natecoevo.nature.com about the Ukrainian School in Evolutionary Biology #USEB we organized in 2025.
#biology #evolution #school #science #Ukraine

Same here. Postdoc's applciation scored very highly, would have been well within window all previous years, this time not making the cut.

From Fork to Feelings: How Foods Shape Mental Health via the Microbiota–Gut–Brain Axis

Latest review out in @annualreviews.bsky.social -Well done Aimone Ferri, Laise Paes & @elizschneider.bsky.social

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
@apcmicrobiomeirel.bsky.social @anatneuroucc.bsky.social

I agree w/ the sentiment, but "targeted" viral metaG is far from perfect too. It depends on the question one's asking. Viral enrichment introduces bias of its own, in particular given diff. methods that do diff. things. And non-dsDNA viruses are hard to profile with any metaG.

Wirtschaftsrat der CDU: Sollten wir den Zahnarztbesuch bald selbst zahlen? Der CDU-Wirtschaftsrat schlägt vor, Zahnbehandlungen nicht mehr zu finanzieren. Das soll die Kosten senken. Es könnte aber auch das Gegenteil bewirken.

Aber Hauptsache, wir lassen Homöopathie, Akkupunktur und Ayurveda im Leistungskatalog...

www.zeit.de/politik/deut...

I believe the appropriate collective nouns in this case are, depending on context:

a smattering of species
a shenanigan of species
an artefact of species
a nightmare of species
a chimera of species

„American gut project guy in Colorado - don’t recall the name.“

This made my day 😂

It has been two weeks since the unexpected death of Peer Bork, and all of us in his research group are deeply missing him. His scientific vision brought us together as a team, and we are immensely grateful for the time we spent together. 🧵

A job post with APC Microbiome Ireland

APC & @teagasc.bksy.social are recruiting a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to analyse gut microbiome datasets and the impact of birth mode and antibiotic exposure. Bioinformatics experience required.
#microbiome #jobfairy #researchjobs #metagenomics
Full Details: bit.ly/4qQgRWr

Multiple protein structure alignment at scale with FoldMason Protein structure is conserved beyond sequence, making multiple structural alignment (MSTA) essential for analyzing distantly related proteins. Computational prediction methods have vastly extended ou...

FoldMason is out now in @science.org. It generates accurate multiple structure alignments for thousands of protein structures in seconds. Great work by Cameron L. M. Gilchrist and @milot.bsky.social.
📄 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🌐 search.foldseek.com/foldmason
💾 github.com/steineggerla...

prodigal has entered the chat.

Peer Bork - personal thoughts | Ewan Birney Personal thoughts on the passing of Peer Bork

I have been one of the many people across the world impacted by the sudden death of Peer Bork - a friend, colleague and remarkable scientist. I now have enough time this weekend to write some personal thoughts about Peer. www.linkedin.com/posts/ewan-b...

In remembrance of Peer Bork  | EMBL EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General.

very sad news. Peer Bork was one of the leaders of our field, a wonderful scientist, and he's much too young to be gone. www.embl.org/news/embl-an...

In remembrance of Peer Bork  | EMBL EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General.

Sad day. @borklab.bsky.social bring so much to Science and notably in the #microbiome

RIP Peer thank you for all your legacy.

www.embl.org/news/embl-an...

This is such an elegant study. Great to see it published!

If you find microntology or our pre-annotated terms useful, please send praise via DM to @fullam.bsky.social and @vishnuprasoodanan.bsky.social

For complains, use my email.

For comments and suggestions, please look here:

github.com/grp-schmidt/...

/end