Sarah Svensson

Happy CNY 🏮🧧🎇

Do you want to pursue your ideas in computational biology independently, running your group in @embl.org‘s uniquely collaborative environment, beside world’s most comprehensive biomolecular data resources @ebi.embl.org in Genome Campus next to @sangerinstitute.bsky.social?
Apply to join us & share 🙏

Our new cat perched on a laptop, demanding attention. (We used to be a dog family, lost our 17.5 yo dog a few months ago, and just adopted a cat with a surprisingly dog-like personality)

How your email finds me

Working at HIRI At the HIRI, we do not just value excellent research. Short distances, an open door policy, and a good working atmosphere—this is what distinguishes us from others. Have a look at our current job…

🧬 Shape the future of #RNA-based infection research!
We are inviting applications for @helmholtz.de Junior Research Group Leader Positions (f/m/d). 👉 Apply by February 15 at www.helmholtz-hiri.de/en/jobs-tale...
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Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

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"All T6SS-inducing regulators are equal, but some regulators are more equal than others".
Preprint 🚨: We use #Vibrio to show that #T6SS activation by regulator manipulation may result in the expression of different effector repertoires, affecting toxicity 🦠
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Quantitative RNA pseudouridine landscape reveals dynamic modification patterns and evolutionary conservation across bacterial species 🦠https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.13.653745v2.full

A stable, hierarchical LIN code system for Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli: A unified genomic nomenclature for lineage-level typing and global surveillance. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.10.705007v1

Calling all curious minds!🧠💡

As part of the “CURIOSITY IS INFECTIOUS” initiative, @helmholtzhzi.bsky.social is offering 10 fully funded PhD positions in infection research across its five sites.
At #HIRI, we are especially excited to welcome PhD candidates who are passionate about all things #RNA.🧬

Do you want to understand how RNA #splicing decisions are made? We‘ve got a PhD position open for you (see 👇👇)!!
Please share #RNAsky and RT!

tinyurl.com/4ztu9cb9

gradient.horse Draw a horse, watch it run!

omg everybody go draw a horse this is what the internet was made for

gradient.horse

Davis Summer Population Genomics Program Want to learn population genetics? Please fill out this form to indicate your potential interest in a 2-week intensive online summer population genetics course taught by Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and Graham...

Fun news! @gcbias.bsky.social and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!

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...

Three people, two women and a man, smile and converse outside a modern building. Text reads: Oxford Biology Mentorship Programme. To support strong senior independent research fellowship applications. Apply by 25 March.

Applications for our Fellowship Mentorship Programme are open!

The programme supports promising early career researchers to submit fellowship applications and move towards research independence. Find out more ⬇️
https://bit.ly/BioIRF

The Klebsiella Seminar Series - 2026 Please use this form to register for the 2026 Klebsiella Seminar Series. To submit an abstract for consideration as a 15 minute research talk, please fill out the abstract submission portion at the en...

Kind reminder: There is one week left to apply for a talk for the Klebsiella Seminar Series!
Send your abstract by February 16th!
& Register for free in the link below:
forms.gle/LhJu11WQN6Yy...

#MicroSky #UTISky #AMRSky #Agenda

Bidirectional promoters in Escherichia coli: regulatory rules and implications for gene expression noise Abstract. In prokaryotes, bidirectional promoters are pseudo-symmetrical DNA sequences that stimulate divergent transcription. Ubiquitous, and far more lik

@ewarman.bsky.social has followed up on her discovery of bidirectional promoters in bacteria by defining their basic rules for regulation and links to gene expression noise...

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

The run wins again, another datapoint supporting my aversion to adulting ;) some progress made on the paper though.

run in 1 degree weather, clean my apartment, or finish the manuscript?

A 28-year evolution experiment on Burkholderia pseudomallei survival in nutrient-depleted sterile water https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.06.704356v1

Here, the authors compile transcriptomic data from experimental evolution of a prokaryotic and five eukaryotic species in 22 environments to reveal that gene expression evolution is often repeatable and deterministic.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Context-dependent adaptation in structured environments

Proc Biol Sci by @yuyakarita.bsky.social et al from @paulbrainey.bsky.social

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Captain Haddock looking very frazzled, saying, “What a week, huh?” Tintin leans into the frame and says, “Captain, it’s Wednesday.” Snowy aka Milou is very excited about the drink he has found.

postdoc position in tuebingen:

New in JB: Bange, Dornes, et al. review the molecular basis for flagellar patterns and numbers across bacterial species.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology

We are hiring postdocs :)

Join us at the 2026 GRC Microbial Stress Response to be held on July 19th-24th at Mount Holyoke College!! Here is the link for more information: www.grc.org/microbial-st...

RNA-triggered Cas12a3 cleaves tRNA tails to execute bacterial immunity - Nature Cas12a3 nucleases constitute a distinct clade of type V CRISPR–Cas bacterial immune systems that preferentially cleave the 3′ tails of tRNAs after recognition of target RNA to induce growth arres...

Our paper is out! Hiding in plain sight among Cas12a nucleases, Cas12a3 cleaves not its RNA target but the 3′ ends of tRNA. Huge thanks to all who made this possible, especially the Beisel lab, Biao & Dirk for the structure, & @sebastianglatt.bsky.social for all things tRNA. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

A web-based atlas for exploring post-transcriptional regulation in the archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius | mSystems Post‑transcriptional regulation is a key control layer in gene expression. Yet, resources integrating antisense RNAs (asRNAs), RNA processing sites, and RNA-protein interactions are scarce for archaea...

A web-based atlas for exploring post-transcriptional regulation in the archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius
#microbiology #archaea #MicroSky #ArchaeaSky
@asm.org
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Always good to start the year with a new preprint. We charted DNA methylation in Salmonella enterica: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.27.702048v1.