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Type VI Sophia System

@wheezenfeld.bsky.social

Former Vibrio, current System Biology PhD candidate in Michael Baym's Lab at Harvard Medical School. she/her "The agreement of the results seems to show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance" (James Maxwell 1865)

108 Followers  |  152 Following  |  43 Posts  |  Joined: 19.11.2024  |  2.3107

Latest posts by wheezenfeld.bsky.social on Bluesky

(The demo microbes are Photobacterium leiognathi, not quite Dinoflagellates but easy to culture and quite bright!!πŸ’‘)

30.09.2025 15:58 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Loved having a chance this weekend to showcase the science behind bioluminescence & talk about the bioluminescent bays of Puerto Rico at the Harvard Museum's Celebremos Puerto Rico πŸ•ΊπŸ‡΅πŸ‡·!

30.09.2025 15:57 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Really cool work on anthropomorphic driven change of plasmids :)!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

26.09.2025 15:54 β€” πŸ‘ 10    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

So cool! What species is this?😍

10.09.2025 19:01 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

we were losing our minds over this yesterday, it’s so wild

05.09.2025 00:16 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Very relatable stuff from President Garber, this is how I feel learning that the incoming freshmen were probably all born in 2007

02.09.2025 22:42 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

speaking of excellent lore I wonder who will be the first to find the easter egg #ImageForensics >:)

02.09.2025 22:34 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

This is one of the findings that really motivates my research: yes, antibiotic resistance genes are ancient, but the age of antibiotics has likely contributed to a big change in their mobility and of the landscape of MGEs we see today! Very happy for Arya and to see this published.

02.09.2025 22:30 β€” πŸ‘ 13    πŸ” 8    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 2
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broke: the professor writing professor x grad student romance novels
woke: the PhD student writing about a student going to Hell to bring her PI back from the dead bc he hadn’t finished writing her rec letter

26.08.2025 23:29 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Microbial communities demonstrate robustness in stressful environments due to predictable composition shifts Environmental stress reduces species growth rates, but its impact on the function of microbial communities is less clear. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that increasing salinity stress shifts com...

Have you ever wondered what increasing environmental stress will do to microbial communities?

In our new preprint, @martinadalbello.bsky.social, Jeff Gore and I studied the impact of salinity on microbial community composition and function. 🧡 (1/5)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

25.08.2025 14:33 β€” πŸ‘ 60    πŸ” 24    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 1
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time to truly test the pet policy in my dream apartment's listing

18.08.2025 01:13 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

SUPER cool, I've never managed to take a phone picture of this much luminescence!! What species/strain is this?

18.08.2025 01:00 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Spring 2nd half! Third times the charm :)

15.08.2025 14:44 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Proud to announce I got this new piece of paper !!! (And also finished my Bok teaching certif)

For the past 3 years I’ve done coursework, teaching observations & made a portfolio to try to become a better TF. It’s been amazing so far and I’m excited to teach Integrated Science again this spring :)

15.08.2025 01:53 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

We will miss you Hue!!!

08.08.2025 19:13 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Last week with our summer undergrads πŸ₯²πŸ’” SPECTACULAR students and we will all miss them immensely. Summer research experiences are (for me) one of the most rewarding parts of being in academia so I am really praying that they will continue to be a learning opportunity for mentors and mentees alike

08.08.2025 14:56 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Getting powerpoint alt text to summarize my PhD (colorful image of a long line)

01.07.2025 03:14 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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1/27 We have a new paper out! Turns out that snowflake yeast have been hiding a secret from us - they've evolved a (very!) crude circulatory system. Not with blood vessels or a heart, but through spontaneous fluid flows powered by their metabolism. πŸ§ͺπŸ”¬

www.science.org/doi/full/10....

24.06.2025 16:52 β€” πŸ‘ 357    πŸ” 146    πŸ’¬ 14    πŸ“Œ 25
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I will also be giving the first conference talk of my PhD on my continuation of @fernpizza.bsky.social ’s plasmid MLS work, on determinants of plasmid competitive fitness :)

21.06.2025 17:10 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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the Baym lab πŸ”œ Molecular Mechanisms GRS! Come talk about the evolution and ecology of MGEs
@fernpizza.bsky.social Multilevel plasmid selection!
@arya (arya.casa) Creation of deletion-born fusion genes (frankenstein genes 🧟)
@theshreyaspai.bsky.social Why sex is so common even though it’s costly

21.06.2025 16:58 β€” πŸ‘ 12    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Day 1 of PhD vs. Day 1000

19.06.2025 21:30 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I just called my congress members (www.congress.gov/members/find...). 5calls and Chop Wood, Carry Water have good scripts if you are not sure what to say.

31.05.2025 20:56 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I'll also add: all five federal grants that supported different parts this work were part of the mass termination of Harvard grants three weeks ago

29.05.2025 02:21 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Disco lights

Disco lights

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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 πŸ•Ί

28.05.2025 22:33 β€” πŸ‘ 93    πŸ” 39    πŸ’¬ 6    πŸ“Œ 2

Phage DisCo is out in mSystems!! Super useful (and beautiful) method for targeted phage discovery for your every need :)

29.05.2025 19:04 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Also interested in hearing people's takes on this :( we have the same policy and really like to use the summers to focus on undergrad mentoring but for this summer (& beyond?) the only options seem to be internal grants or no money at all

29.04.2025 17:33 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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HUGE celebration moment, on Friday @ellie-rand.bsky.social defended her PhD!! Took a lot of determination✨ but it was awesome to see and I am so proud of the newly titled Dr Rand :)

28.04.2025 14:01 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1

Have been using them too and I love mJuniper and mLemon with my whole heart

24.04.2025 16:43 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Why is sex so common if it's so costly?
Super excited to share our new preprint β€œSex decreases the pleiotropic costs of local adaptation”, where we bring a new angle to this age-old evolutionary question. Co-led by Parris Humphrey, in Michael Desai's lab. Short thread here: (1/n)

02.04.2025 18:59 β€” πŸ‘ 75    πŸ” 25    πŸ’¬ 4    πŸ“Œ 1

if this is a bit I have been fooled. like I think it's real

03.04.2025 14:42 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

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