Rebecca J Hall drrebeccajhall

VACANCY - We’re searching for a Postdoctoral Researcher to join the newly appointed group of Dr @hassansalem.bsky.social, to explore the developmental biology of host-microbe symbiosis

www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/po...

Deadline - 25 March 2026
Salary - £37,500 - £45,350
Contract - 3 years, full-time

03.03.2026 18:56 — 👍 10 🔁 18 💬 1 📌 0

rambaut/figtree Automatically exported from code.google.com/p/figtree - rambaut/figtree

The first version of FigTree was released nearly 20 years ago and it is still widely used (including by me). But there are currently 85 issues on the GitHub repo (github.com/rambaut/figt...) and some of them I don’t really like the look of.

28.02.2026 19:01 — 👍 138 🔁 40 💬 4 📌 2

International Women's Day: Nominate a woman in microbiology! | crm.fems-microbiology.org

Hey #Microsky, time to celebrate your amazing female colleagues, students and mentors for #IWD2026! Nominate an inspiring woman whose research, teaching, innovation, or community leadership deserves recognition! @femsmicro.org crm.fems-microbiology.org/ssp/internat...

27.02.2026 11:45 — 👍 12 🔁 10 💬 0 📌 0

Co-occurrence is associated with horizontal gene transfer across marine bacteria independent of phylogeny Abstract. Understanding the drivers and consequences of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a key goal of microbial evolution research. Although co-occurring

Now out & nicely formatted in @isme-microbes.bsky.social

A big analysis of ocean genomes & metagenomes co-led by former postdocs, now PIs, @gmdouglas.bsky.social & @cyanophage.bsky.social along with co-PIs @lbobay.bsky.social & Samuel Chaffron.

A few highlights... 🧵 (1/n)

doi.org/10.1093/isme...

09.02.2026 20:31 — 👍 78 🔁 38 💬 1 📌 0

(PDS) Targeting Septal Plugging to Disrupt the Evolution of Antifungal Resistance in Hyphal Networks at The University of Manchester on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - (PDS) Targeting Septal Plugging to Disrupt the Evolution of Antifungal Resistance in Hyphal Networks at The University of Manchester, listed on FindAPhD.com

PhD Opportunity: Are you interested in evolutionary biology and the global challenge of antifungal resistance?
We are seeking a motivated candidate for a President’s Doctoral Scholar Award
📅Deadline: March 16 2026
📍Location: @manchester.ac.uk @fbmh-uom.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

19.02.2026 16:45 — 👍 4 🔁 11 💬 1 📌 0

Super cool stuff, and the figures are *beautiful*!

21.02.2026 08:10 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

🚨 New pre-print! 🚨 In the largest study of its kind to-date, we investigate the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms driving within-patient evolution of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Read here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... , and follow along with this thread, discussing our findings (1/21)

20.02.2026 15:57 — 👍 63 🔁 32 💬 2 📌 3

Image card of a children's playmat displaying free crèche available and date info of Annual Conference 2026

The Society is teaming up with Nipperbout again to provide a free crèche at Annual Conference 2026. All registered delegates will be offered the opportunity on a first-come, first-served basis: https://microb.io/48tq0w8
#Microbio26

20.02.2026 13:00 — 👍 1 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0

Looking forward to this!

18.02.2026 13:18 — 👍 8 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

Vacation Studentships The Society offers a limited number of awards to enable undergraduates to work on microbiological research projects during their summer vacation. The scheme also gives early- and mid-career scientists the opportunity to gain supervision experience.

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

16.02.2026 17:30 — 👍 5 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0

How specific are heritable symbioses?

And what can we learn from swapping obligate symbionts across host species?

We address this in our latest, led by @inespons.bsky.social & in our collaboration w/ @microbiome.bsky.social 🦠🪲 Out today in @natcomms.nature.com!

1/n
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

16.02.2026 07:24 — 👍 112 🔁 70 💬 3 📌 3

We understand a great deal about how and why cooperation evolves, but what about its long-term consequences?

Great to see our new review on this out now in @asn-amnat.bsky.social!

13.02.2026 09:47 — 👍 31 🔁 12 💬 0 📌 0

Limits to the evolution of metabolic dependency in spatially structured microbial communities In microbial communities, evolutionary processes can lead to loss of biosynthetic pathways, creating metabolic dependencies. The Black Queen Hypothesi…

Excited to share our new paper led by Divvya Ramesh: Limits to the evolution of metabolic dependency in spatially structured microbial communities 🧫
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

11.02.2026 11:49 — 👍 8 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 1

Super cool

11.02.2026 14:02 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Diagram illustrating early genome erosion during the transition from a free-living Sodalis bacterium to two host-associated endosymbionts inside the long-tailed mealybug. Circular genomes show intact genes in blue and pseudogenes in red, highlighting increased pseudogene accumulation in symbiotic forms. Caption asks: “What are the downstream molecular consequences of early genome erosion?”

Happy to share a preprint—the last chapter of my dissertation with @mcsymbiont.bsky.social and Co—on what happens when bacterial endosymbionts accumulate huge numbers of pseudogenes during early genome reduction.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

08.02.2026 02:08 — 👍 32 🔁 19 💬 3 📌 1

PhD projects in microbial engineering now up, including one with @whelanfj.bsky.social @willpjsmith.bsky.social and me! 🦠

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

06.02.2026 20:16 — 👍 7 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 1

'Research Associate in Microbiome Ecology:Manchester We wish to appoint a PostDoctoral Research Associate to an exciting project exploring the assembly, stability and function of microbial decomposer communities.

We're Hiring! We're looking for a postdoc with bioinformatics/modelling skills to join us in an exciting microbiome ecology project in Manchester (deadline 1st March) www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

02.02.2026 16:16 — 👍 15 🔁 32 💬 1 📌 0

Evolution and diversity of oxidoreductases involved in redox balance and energy conservation - Nature Ecology & Evolution HORBEC are protein complexes involved in the regulation of redox balance and energy conservation. The authors develop a bioinformatic tool for HORBEC annotation in bacterial and archaeal genomes and r...

Passioned by #bioenergetics? Do not miss our new article on the evolutionary history of oxidoreductases with G. Borrel and @sgribaldo.bsky.social @archaeal.bsky.social @valdeanda.bsky.social @pasteur.fr @cnrs.fr @cnrsbiologie.bsky.social @natecoevo.nature.com (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).

03.02.2026 10:52 — 👍 55 🔁 33 💬 2 📌 3

📢 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

03.02.2026 11:33 — 👍 2 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0

Phylosymbiosis and functional redundancy in the Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae) gut microbiome and its implications for host fitness Abstract. The gut microbiome plays a fundamental role in host ecophysiology. Numerous studies have examined microbiome composition and functionality to und

academic.oup.com/jinsectscien...

31.01.2026 20:42 — 👍 9 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 1

This is a really cool study on one of my favourite obligate symbiotic systems: Aphid + Buchnera by @jerrymaeda.bsky.social, @nancy-moran.bsky.social, & co.

A secreted #endosymbiont protein (SyeA, formally Yba3) essential for colonizing host cells

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

#SymbioSky

30.01.2026 11:28 — 👍 14 🔁 6 💬 3 📌 0

Calling all OrthoFinder users!

We’ve just released GLADE, a tool to infer gene gains, losses, duplications, and ancestral genomes across a phylogeny.

GLADE runs directly on OrthoFinder results.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
github.com/lauriebelch/...

(1/10)

29.01.2026 12:07 — 👍 102 🔁 48 💬 1 📌 2

Congratulations on both counts, Allison!

27.01.2026 19:50 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Research Associate - Department of Microbes, Infection and Microbiomes - 106850 - Grade 6 As a Research Associate in the Hall Lab, you will play a crucial role in supporting microbiome research initiatives aimed at enhancing our understanding of the role of early life microbes in promoting...

We’re recruiting for an RA @unibirmingham.bsky.social!

Support our #microbiome research - lab work + sample/data organisation & coordination. Looking for an organised, proactive & great team player.

🗓️ Closes 04/02/26 . To Mar 2028

Apply via UoB portal:
edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

27.01.2026 17:32 — 👍 12 🔁 10 💬 0 📌 1

Smashing it, Rachel! 💪🏻

27.01.2026 19:45 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review Women are underrepresented in academia, especially in STEMM fields, at top institutions, and in senior positions. This study analyzes millions of biomedical and life science articles, revealing that f...

Cost of being female lead/corresponding author in biomedical sciences: "[T]he median amount of time spent under review is 7.4%–14.6% longer for female-authored articles than for male-authored articles" even in disciplines where women well-represented. #AcademicSky

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

21.01.2026 14:38 — 👍 181 🔁 128 💬 6 📌 11

‘How does it get in/out of the cell’ is something I will never forget to consider from my time with team GHT! @gavinhthomas.bsky.social

19.01.2026 08:00 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Metabolite toxicity as a driver of bacterial metabolite externalization Some microbes externalize costly biosynthetic precursors in sufficient quantities to sustain a recipient population through cross-feeding. However, it is unclear whether metabolites are externalized purely for a reciprocal benefit or if metabolite externalization also plays a physiological role for the producer. Here we focus on adenine, a metabolite externalized by some strains of the phototrophic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris at sufficient levels to support Escherichia coli growth. In 10 long-term monocultures and 22 cocultures pairing R. palustris with E. coli, extracellular adenine externalized by all 140 isolates screened was 1.7 - 3.4-fold higher than that by the ancestor, suggesting that there was selective pressure for adenine externalization. We hypothesized that adenine is toxic to R. palustris. The CGA0092 growth rate decreased by half in the presence of about 0.3 mM external adenine. This inhibitory effect increased by an order of magnitude when we over-expressed adenine phosphoribosyltransferase to overcome a bottleneck in the purine salvage pathway, suggesting that toxicity stems from a metabolite derived from adenine. To assess whether adenine tolerance is connected to adenine externalization, we surveyed 12 evolved isolates and 49 environmental strains that externalized different levels of adenine, revealing a significant positive correlation. Our data suggests a physiological role for externalization of costly-metabolites like adenine at the origin of cross-feeding. In addition to cross-feeding, resulting metabolic interactions could be negative, considering that even a biosynthetic precursor like adenine can be inhibitory. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. United States Army Research Office, https://ror.org/05epdh915, W911NF-14-1-0411, W911NF-17-1-0159 U.S. National Science Foundation, MCB-1749489

#microsky

Then I wonder: are there specialised exporters?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

19.01.2026 06:32 — 👍 8 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0

🚨4-year fully funded PhD in the lab of @magicmicrobe.bsky.social (& collaborating with me!): How does iron availability shape the ability of pathogens to invade the gut microbiome?
Apply by Jan 26th
Advert: research.reading.ac.uk/foodbiosyste...
How to apply: research.reading.ac.uk/foodbiosyste...

15.01.2026 19:42 — 👍 13 🔁 18 💬 0 📌 0

New paper just out in Microbial Genomics @microbiologysociety.org! As always, a great team effort! Well done all. 🤩

@imibirmingham.bsky.social @hannahpugh.bsky.social @leahburgess.bsky.social @alanmcn1.bsky.social @astimeosa.bsky.social

12.01.2026 12:50 — 👍 29 🔁 11 💬 2 📌 0

Posts by Rebecca J Hall (@drrebeccajhall.bsky.social)