Melanie Blokesch

Targeting immune cells in the aged brain reveals that engineered cytokine IL-10 enhances neurogenesis and improves cognition Immune cells populate the old brain, but whether they can be specifically targeted to improve brain function in older individuals remains unclear. Navarro Negredo et al. dissect how aging impacts brai...

Excited to share our new study using engineered immune proteins to quench inflammation in aged brains!!

Congratulations to Paloma Navarro and the entire team!

Fantastic collaboration with Chris Garcia's lab, Tony Wyss-Coray's lab, and Saul Villeda's lab!

www.cell.com/immunity/ful...

New post-doctoral research position in my phage-host interactions (Phi) laboratory in @otagomicroimmuno.bsky.social at @universityofotago.bsky.social New Zealand. The project is focused on defences against jumbo phages. Please share and if interested apply using the link in the comments.

We are very excited to share a new resource from our team: spatial subcellular proteome maps in plants! We developed an MS-based method that registers localizations of about 8000 proteins in Arabidopsis roots in a single experiment.

(1/9)
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Biological Laboratory | LEGO® Ideas This is a two-floor realistic Biological Laboratory building. In this design, I try to tell stories about biologists, introduce biology concepts to general publ…

I just made an account and voted for this biology laboratory made of LEGO to "promote biological research and inspire more people into the world of biology". They need 10K votes. Reposting and/or voting below would be helpful. 🤗
beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

Two cartoon images of children with plasmids for faces about to fight. Commentators are saying "Plasmid-borne CRISPR-Cas systems provide significant defensive benefits" and "Yes, but toxin-antitoxin systems on competitor plasmids constrain the offensive CRISPR-Cas benefit"

Out now in @plosbiology.org : our big joint effort on the role of #CRISPR in plasmid competition. Read on for a really fun (I’m biased ok) analysis of how a defence system has new selective pressures when it’s mobile
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... 1/6

‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, i...

A retired British primary school administrator with a British passport and a valid visa was shackled, chained and detained for six weeks by ICE

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Scientists have developed a method that promotes local resource sharing between individual Mori3 modules, enabling the robot to “walk” even when one agent loses power, communication, and sensing. Learn more in #ScienceRobotics: https://scim.ag/3ZV2d4p

Undergrad teaching semester started again this week - welcome to my new Infection Biology master students 🤩 [record number this year!]
BTW: As an Institute of Technology - this is my "computer stand" for the lectures => inverted paper waste card-box 😂

Going beyond size: Exploring the metabolic burden in Pseudomonas putida during heterologous protein production Abstract. In biotechnological applications, it is often necessary to introduce genes or entire pathways into a host cell, which can create a significant me

📣New paper out in Synthetic Biology (Oxford University Press): Going beyond size: Exploring metabolic burden in Pseudomonas putida during heterologous protein production.
🔗 academic.oup.com/synbio/advan...

96.4% - non-funded postdoc in my lab!! But if this still corresponds to ~10% success rate, then scores must be highly inflated. But the none-sense comments on "administrative risk not addressed" and "teaching burden" (there is 0 teaching) are highly demotivating! Is this still about science at all??

My hot take here: The EU does not prioritize research enough, and all increases to the budget are too small. The choice of opening new calls for massive ERCs, with a strategy of 'winner-takes-it-all' is wrong.

Congrats Jesse 🎉🤩 - well deserved.

Well, for MSCA the review process is broken. It is mostly all about whether it is written the right way, much less about the content.
What brings it over the threshold, is whether the candidates were advised properly on how to write it.

We are excited to share that @jeremyjbarr.bsky.social will be joining us as speaker at the 2026 International SPP 2330 Symposium.

We look forward to meeting you in Berlin!

📅 October 5 – 7, 2026
📍 Harnack House, Berlin
🌐 More information is available at lnkd.in/eeSphFER

Now, this is officially a problem. MSCA fellowships need to be competitive, but it cannot be a lottery. Time to focus on the core mission of supporting science and ditching all vanity initiatives in the Horizon Europe program. (Looking at ERC super-grants...)

Postdoc in my lab just got her letter => 96.4%(!!) = NOT funded! 😔
Comments are ridiculous: "overlaps with existing teaching commitments, raising concerns about timely execution"- there is NO teaching commitment!! + "among the risks, administrative risks are not clearly identified or addressed." 🙄

Healthcare worker administering oral oral cholera vaccine to a child wearing a red hoodie. A WHO banner seen on the background.

GOOD NEWS: Preventive cholera vaccination resumes as global supply reaches critical milestone, first time in 3 years https://bit.ly/4qRWDLK

First country to restart the preventive vaccination: Mozambique

This means we can move from reacting to outbreaks, to preventing them before they begin 💪🏼

Now published: our work using phylodynamics from surveillance data to quantify and experimentally validate the fitness impact of antibiotic resistance determinants & how this changes with patterns of antibiotic use: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thanks so much. Will look into this 🤩

This feeling of panic when university tells you that ordering system will undergo change+you cannot order for 10 days 😰Tried to order primers ahead of time but as new data come in, I feel paralyzed to not react+plan follow-up experiments😆 Even after being PI for 17yrs, my❤️ for science never changed!

Great new story from Sophie Helaine and Molly Sargen!

www.helainelab.com

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...

So much work still to do to break the glass ceiling!

Analysis of millions of biomed & life science articles reveal that female-authored articles spend longer under review than comparable male-authored ones
@plosbiology.org

🧪 plos.io/4658FZN

Listeria now?? Nice 🤩

Characterising antibacterial toxins in the food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes at Newcastle University on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Characterising antibacterial toxins in the food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes at Newcastle University, listed on FindAPhD.com

www.findaphd.com/phds/project... interested in bacterial antagonism? PhD opportunity in our team, see below. Please repost!

Our latest CRISPR ring nuclease paper focusses on Csx15 - which seems to act as of a sponge as well as a canonical phosphodiesterase. Great work led by @haotianchi.bsky.social

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

Big congrats Philip 🥳🎉👏 @kranzuschlab.bsky.social - so well deserved!

Join us in congratulating Philip J. Kranzusch (@kranzuschlab.bsky.social) of @danafarber.bsky.social and @harvardmed.bsky.social, winner of the 2026 NAS Award in Molecular Biology for his groundbreaking work advancing understanding of innate immunity! www.nasonline.org/award/nas-aw... #NASaward

The @dmf-unil.bsky.social is supporting the application of a candidate for the SNSF/ERC Starting Grant (deadline 5th of May). Reach out to me if you are interested. We are collecting CV’s until the 8th of Feb. We can offer a stimulating scientific environment and help with the application/interview.

A phage protein screen identifies triggers of the bacterial innate immune system - Nature Microbiology A library of 400 phage protein-coding genes is used to find a trove of antiphage systems, revealing systems that target tail fibre and major capsid proteins.

I’m thrilled to share our work on phage triggers of the bacterial immune system in its final form @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Creation of new junior research groups at the Institut Pasteur - Call for applications 2026 - Research The Institut Pasteur is launching an international call to recruit new junior research group leaders leveraging cutting-edge transdisciplinary approaches to exploring infectious diseases, host-microbe...

🔬 Call to create junior research groups at the Institut Pasteur

Focus: Infectious diseases, host-microbe interactions, vaccines
Special interest: AI methodologies

📅 Deadline: Feb 9, 2026
👥 2-12 years post-PhD

Apply now 📝 research.pasteur.fr/en/call/crea...

#JobOpportunity #Research