Brad Weiler, Ph.D.

Evaluation of full-length 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing using Oxford Nanopore Technologies for diversity surveys of understudied microbiomes 1. The use of long-read sequencing using portable Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) is becoming increasingly popular in the study of host-associated microbiomes. However, its application has not yet...

We examined Oxford Nanopore 16S amplicon sequencing as a tool for recovering marine microbial communities and we are pleased with the results! Check out our preprint 🌎🧪🧬🌊🖥️🦠https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.20.676612v2.abstract

My group at NOAA/Miami is hiring a postdoc to lead a marine eDNA biodiversity effort (Bio-GO-SHIP). You'll develop and deploy high-throughput metabarcoding assays for ocean DNA. Help make foundational contributions to global marine biodiversity monitoring! t.co/p53s7E0YiL

We're hiring for several positions (a post-bac researcher in #transcriptomics, a #phage #postdoc, a senior researcher (broad topics) and a graduate student to work on #ciliates) - find info here: www.marine.usf.edu/genomics/app...

🪸 New paper alert 🧬
We developed a highly accurate diagnostic tool that classifies between two #coral diseases: white plague and stony coral tissue loss disease. This model accurately classified in situ collected diseased samples, supporting its use as a diagnostic tool.
rdcu.be/eCNic

Check out our new paper on adopting a trait-based framework for protist diversity! We make the case for a unified protist trait database, how to build it, and how it could transform research on protist ecology and evolution.
#protistsonsky

Hello there 🦋
Happy to share our piece "Towards a trait-based framework for protist ecology and evolution" in @cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social

Let's build a unified trait 📏 database to unlock transformative insights into protist 🔬 ecology 🌍 and evolution ⏳

▶️ doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

#protistsonsky

#JoinOurTeam

📣 L'#IBE_Barcelona ofereix dues posicions a la Unitat de Gestió de Projectes i Ajuts de Recerca!📣

🔹Tècnic/a d’internacionalització
🔹Gestor post-award de projectes ERC

📆 Aplica abans del 21 de setembre 👉https://www.ibe.upf-csic.es/work-with-us/job-offers

The Mydlarz Lab has a second coral machine learning paper out this month! @emily-vanburen.bsky.social developed a diagnostic tool that classifies two coral diseases: white plague and #SCTLD. 463 genes, some involved in inflammation and protein trafficking, characterized the diseases.
rdcu.be/eCNic

Research Associate II in Miami, Florida, United States of America | Research at University of Miami Apply for Research Associate II job with University of Miami in Miami, Florida, United States of America. Research at University of Miami

🚨Job alert 🚨
The University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science (Rosenstiel) and Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) are looking for an omics lab manager 🧬
careers.miami.edu/us/en/job/R1...

Looking for a postdoc in coral-associated bacterial genomes/metagenomes/metatranscriptomes? This would be an excellent program to support your original research ideas in a lab with extensive resources, samples, and datasets.

Share widely please! Opportunity to be involved in highly interdisciplinary research focusing on coral reefs. High-tech lab where robots meet coral 🦾🤖🪸

Pseudoalteromonas is a novel symbiont of marine invertebrates that exhibits broad patterns of phylosymbiosis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.22.671635v1

Want to help us image and understand those incredible samples Felix just collected at UBC - and many more?

2 more days to apply!

embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

#ExM #PlanetaryCellBiology

🧪🧬🔬🌍🌱🦠

Leaving Academia: Insights from Evolutionary Biologists on Their Career Transitions and Job Satisfaction https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.19.671061v1

Congratulations! This is awesome🙌🏻

FANTASIA leverages language models to decode the functional dark proteome across the animal tree of life Communications Biology - FANTASIA, a protein language model-based tool, enables large-scale functional annotation across ~1000 animal proteomes, revealing novel gene functions in both model and...

FANTASIA's paper is finally out! Check it out if you're interested in alternative methods to homology for functional annotation in nonmodel organisms 🦐🐙🪱🧬🐝🪲
@gemmaeling.bsky.social @amrojasm.bsky.social @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @cabd-upo-csic.bsky.social
@csic.es www.nature.com/articles/s42...

A few of my favourite things! Microbes, Zymo, Oxford Nanopore, and of course chocolate.

Principles of experimental design for ecology and evolution Here I argue that we do not discuss experimental design, often until it is too late. This editorial seeks to begin a conversation about how and where to replicate appropriately.

I wrote (ranted) on experimental design as I was frustrated as an editor at how little guidance students were getting. I underestimated the interest in the issue: it has been downloaded 10,000+ times! Clearly it’s something we need to be talking about more. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

🚨🚨We’re hiring graduate students!🚨🚨

We are hiring 1-2 PhD students to start sometime in 2026 (Fall start dates preferred). Opportunities to work on a diversity of eco-evo-immuno and symbiosis projects!

Deadline Oct 15! Please share broadly!

Info here: tinyurl.com/y2abjsem

Thanks Allyson! Stoked to get it out finally 👀🙌🏻

Genomes of nitrogen-fixing eukaryotes reveal an alternate path for organellogenesis | PNAS Endosymbiotic gene transfer (EGT) and import of host-encoded proteins have been considered hallmarks of organelles necessary for stable integration...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Genomes of nitrogen-fixing eukaryotes reveal an alternate path for organellogenesis #protistsonsky

Hey wild immunologists of blue sky… do you work on a non-model taxa???

Would you have 15 min to spare to zoom in and share your research with my comparative immunology class?

I’m looking to spotlight real research this semester. Please spread the word and reach out if you’re interested!

Modeling site-and-branch-heterogeneity with GFmix Phylogenetic trees are often inferred from protein sequences sampled from diverse taxa across the tree of life. The compositions of these amino acid sequences may be heterogeneous across both sites an...

Our paper describing our new improved GFmix models for phylogenetic inference that capture site-and-branch heterogeneity in amino acid composition.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thanks Monir! Absolute beast of a paper and had an incredible team supporting me.

Modern microbialites harbor an undescribed diversity of chromerid algae Chromerid algae and the heterotrophic colpodellids together make up the chrompodellids, which are the closest known relatives to apicomplexan parasites [1]. As apicomplexans are prolific parasites of ...

New ‪preprint! Through plastid MAGs and 18S rRNA gene retrieval 🧬 we identify chromerids (including a novel clade ⭐) associated with marine and freshwater microbialites across the globe 🌎, expanding their ecological niche beyond coral reefs 🪸. #ProtistsOnSky #MicroSky #Algae

You don’t sound bitter about the diving schedule at all 😂

This effort was a 'tour de force' only made possible by my incredible lab @ambonacolta.bsky.social and @fonamental.bsky.social. Absolutely thrilled to get this part of my Ph.D. dissertation out, thank you everyone involved!

Lastly, we explored microbiome structure 🦠 through time. Broadly, the microbial composition is largely stable through time, with notable taxon-specific changes through day/night light cycles. During the day carbohydrate catabolizers show enrichment, while night hours feature methylotrophs.

Similar to the host, the symbiont Breviolum showed diel regulated transcription, although more subtle. Time-specific functions were recovered, showing metabolite transfer and nitrogen/carbohydrate metabolism through daytime, while cellular division and reorganization/turnover during the dark hours.