Alexandra Weisberg

UNC Chapel Hill is hiring an Assistant Professor in Plant Molecular Biology. Per Jeff
Dangl MPMI candidates are also highly desired in the search. unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/307...

Genomic correlates of tailocin sensitivity in Pseudomonas syringae Abstract. Phage-derived bacteriocins, also referred to as tailocins, are structures encoded by bacterial genomes and deployed into the extracellular enviro

Here’s published version of our manuscript using GWAS to investigate tailocin sensitivity in Pseudomonas syringae. TL:DR pretty clear LPS is tailocin receptor but also that P.syringae often completely swaps out its entire O antigen biosynth pathway w/ recombination

academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...

Chromosome architecture affects virulence and competitiveness in Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58 Chromosome architecture influences Agrobacterium fitness, competitiveness, and virulence, shaping its adaptation and evolution.

Chromosome architecture affects virulence and competitiveness in Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58 | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The Panoptes system uses decoy cyclic nucleotides to defend against phage - Nature The Panoptes antiphage system defends bacteria by detecting phage-encoded counter-defences that sequester cyclic nucleotide signals, triggering membrane disruption and highlighting a broader strategy of sensing immune evasion through second-messenger surveillance.

Our story describing the Panoptes bacterial immune defense system is now finally peer-reviewed and published today! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

First publication from our lab!

ZmHSCF1 enhances Agrobacterium-mediated transformation frequency in commercial maize inbred lines by promoting embryogenic callus proliferation #correspondence #PlantCommunications cell.com/plant-commun...

The NSF GRFP is now limited to undergrads and first-year grads The solicitation for the 2025 submission dates for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program is out, with the first deadline of November 10 for life-sciences disciplines. The big news is that el…

The NSF GRFP is now limited to undergrads and first-year grads drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/09/26/t...

Dual transposon sequencing profiles the genetic interaction landscape in bacteria Gene redundancy complicates systematic characterization of gene function as single-gene deletions may not produce discernible phenotypes. We report dual transposon sequencing (dual Tn-seq), a platform...

Dual transposon sequencing profiles the genetic interaction landscape in bacteria | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols.
Thread 1/n

Ecology and evolution of virulence Silva and King discuss the concept of virulence and the ecological and evolutionary factors that shape it.

Interested in #virulence? Not sure what it is - or how to explain it? Just curious? 🧐🦠🧬🦋

@kayla-king.bsky.social and I just wrote a Primer for @currentbiology.bsky.social on the ecology and evolution of virulence!

Check it below and share :)

#MicroSky #EvoSky #pathogens

Ah interesting, I had not caught that.

If you are non-ESI and don't have an R01, you are a "New Investigator" and can apply for a MIRA: www.nigms.nih.gov/Research/mec...

Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!

My department at UC Davis is hiring a mycologist, broadly interpreted. Please repost, share, and consider applying. recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07339

This promises to be a great read!
“the pathogenicity island was horizontally transferred from Yersinia pestis to E. coli and other Enterobacterales approximatively 4,800 years ago” ⏩️ it then spread to Klebsiella and positively selected over the last 100 yrs ago

Call for a tenure-track position at our Department of Plant Molecular Biology in Lausanne! We are searching for promising early-career researchers in the broad field of plant-organismal interactions. Deadline: November 30, 2025 - Please re-post!

career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...

Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is ...

How many chromosomes can an animal have?

In our paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that the Atlas blue butterfly has 229 chromosome pairs- the highest in diploid Metazoa! These arose by rapid autosome fragmentation while sex chromosomes stayed intact.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Assistant Professor Plant-Microbe Interactions We seek a creative, collaborative, and visionary plant biologist to establish an internationally recognized research program at the forefront of plant-microbe interactions aimed at understanding how t...

The Department of Biology at Colorado State University is hiring an Assistant Professor in the area of plant-microbe interactions! Please spread the word!

jobs.colostate.edu/postings/165...

Assistant/Associate/Full Professor Tenure System - East Lansing, Michigan, United States Working/Functional Title Assistant/Associate/Full Professor Tenure System Position Summary The Plant Resilience Institute (PRI) at Michigan State University invites applications for multiple tenure-st...

Super excited about this new Open Rank tenure-track faculty search for the MSU Plant Resilience Institute. We successfully hired two excellent new faculty in our last search and we are hoping to build on that success with this search. careers.msu.edu/jobs/assista...

Feel free to reach out to any of us here at GT if you have questions!

On bluesky: me, @wcratcliff.bsky.social, @benjaminfreeman.bsky.social, @sepl.bsky.social, @seananderson.bsky.social, @digglelab.bsky.social, and everyone else here:
biosciences.gatech.edu/people

Clustering of plasmid genomes for genomic epidemiology by using rearrangement distances, with pling Integration of plasmids into genomic epidemiology is challenging, because there are no clearly defined evolving-units (equivalent to species), and because plasmids appear to evolve as much by structur...

For anyone who has used pling for comparing plasmids using rearrangement distances ("how many structural events apart are these plasmids"), here's how to tweak parameters, and integrate it with typing info, and the host phylogeny
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
github.com/iqbal-lab-or...

This true also of figure legends. "The Sky is Blue" not " "Graph showing principal colours of things above your head"

The 16th Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Bulape Health Zone, Kasai, Democratic Republic of the Congo: A new spillover event from an unknown reservoir host Background The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is currently facing concurrent outbreaks including mpox, cholera and malaria (1-4). The Ministry of Public Health, DRC has declared the 16th Ebola...

Sequence data from the new Ebola outbreak in DRC suggests it is indeed a new spillover.

And just incredible to see the virus sequenced and the data publicly shared less than 24 hours after confirmation of the outbreak.
#IDsky 🧪

virological.org/t/the-16th-e...

Systematic discovery and engineering of synthetic immune receptors in plants Plants deploy a diverse array of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which perceive microbe-associated molecular patterns to activate immune responses. Leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase subgr...

Very happy to share our latest work “Systematic discovery and engineering of synthetic immune receptors in plants” out in @science.org !

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

My department is hiring a Plant-Fungal Assist Prof!! As the newest #NewPI here, don't get me started on how wonderful my colleagues, how smooth my onboarding has been, how supportive the school and the department are, how nice my brand new lab is, and how convenient living in Champaign Urbana is!

Commensal yeast promotes Salmonella Typhimurium virulence - Nature Commensal Candida albicans enhances the virulence and dissemination of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium.

Excited to share our new publication, out today in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41.... @kanchanj.bsky.social led this fascinating fungal-bacterial interaction project. We are grateful for our wonderful collaborators Brian Peters and David Underhill.

Biology never ceases to amaze!

The Weisberg Lab at Oregon State University is recruiting a postdoctoral scholar in molecular microbiology to study mobile genetic element host range and transmission in microbial communities. Please see the full job description here: files-dev.cqls.oregonstate.edu/Weisberg_Lab...

Multiple Early Career Faculty Positions in Ecology The Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame invites applications for multiple, tenure-track assistant professor positions that will enhance existing institutional excellence in ecology. We are searching broadly for creative and collaborative individuals (1) working at any spatial scale, from local to global, in any system, (2) studying any level of biological organization, from genes to ecosystems, and (3) using any mode of inference, from empirical to theoretical. Applicants should demonstrate research excellence that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries; ongoing growth in the department will emphasize new hires that use quantitative and/or integrative approaches to study ecological processes. Postdoctoral experience is desirable in applicants. Successful candidates will engage with and benefit from UNDERC, Notre Dame’s 8000-acre environmental field station and home to NEON’s Great Lakes domain, superb on-campus chemical and genomic analytical facilities, an experimental research facility located close to campus, cross-disciplinary interactions through multiple centers and institutes including the Environmental Change Initiative, and a unique Interdisciplinary Graduate Training Program in Environment and Society. New faculty will benefit from Notre Dame’s recent campus-wide Strategic Framework that included the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative. Modern research facilities exist in a new environmental research building, which opened in 2025.

Multiple ecology faculty positions at @notredame.bsky.social. Apply at apply.interfolio.com/171650. (1/2). 🌎🌐🧪

MSU Plant Bio is hiring a new herbarium director! Our herbarium is a wonderful resource on campus and I'm excited to have the opportunity to make it even better by bringing in a new director. Details here: plantbiology.natsci.msu.edu/job-postings...