Scott Nichols

Hypermutable hotspot enables the rapid evolution of self/non-self recognition genes in Dictyostelium Cells require highly polymorphic receptors to perform accurate self/non-self recognition. In the amoeba Dicytostelium discoideum, polymorphic TgrB1 & TgrC1 proteins are used to bind sister cells and e...

I'm excited to announce our new biorxiv preprint, wherein we investigate the evolution of the weirdest genetic locus I've ever seen! Behold the tgr genes of the social amoeba, which mediate self/non-self discrimination during facultative multicellularity 🐅 🧵 1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Extra kudos and thanks to all the staff at NIH and NSF and other federal funding agencies for working extra hard in very small windows of opportunity to get grants reviewed and funds released before the attention-addled federal policies change again (on an hourly basis).

Recruitment poster for the Bhamla Lab. Top shows Georgia Tech and CU Boulder logos. Main headline: “Hiring Multiple Postdoctoral Researchers: Organismal Biomechanics, Soft Robotics, and Raman Diagnostics.” Left column lists four roles—Organismal Biology, Bioinspired Engineering, Raman Diagnostics, and a Curiosity‑Based slot—plus note of 3‑year funding from DARPA, NSF, NIH, and Schmidt. Right side features a vintage collage of a Victorian‑era scientist with robotic arm, insects, and globe, and a circular “Physics of Life” diagram linking biology, physics, engineering, and mathematics. Tan background, Bhamla Lab crest at top.

Hiring 4 postdocs — organismal biophysics, soft robotics, frugal Raman diagnostics, or your own bold idea.

3-year funding, $65K+ benefits. GT (Atlanta) now → CU Boulder BioFrontiers Institute in Fall ’26.

PDF/details in next post. Tag/share if someone comes to mind. 🧪🪲🪳#livingphysics

Nice to see that you’re coming to Colorado! We should reconnect when you’re here!

✨Dream job alert!✨ Come join our Oceans Department at Stanford University! We are hiring an Assistant Professor. This faculty search focuses on 3 major areas: Oceans & global change, Ocean technologies & solutions, or Human dimensions of oceans 🌊
facultypositions.stanford.edu/en-us/job/49...

MBL Announces Largest Ever Gift for Its Renowned Biological Education and Research Programs | Marine Biological Laboratory Cell Biology Researcher Mark Terasaki’s $25 Million Unrestricted Gift Will Support Operations and Infrastructure Contact: Samantha Cummis scummis@mbl.edu; 973.800.4119

We're thrilled to announce the largest private gift in our 137-year history: a $25 million unrestricted donation from MBL Whitman Scientist Mark Terasaki.

His extraordinary generosity will bolster our renowned research and education programs. 🔬

Learn more: bit.ly/452WL1m

Alert: The Trump administration is quietly slashing new NIH grant awards, and it's not via the budget NIH’s sudden move to multiyear grant funding is forcing shocking cuts in the number of grants funded. This is an effective budget cut. It's bad, folks.

“A nuclear bomb dropped on cancer research”

Must-read @donmoyn.bsky.social about a new Trump administration attack on NIH funding donmoynihan.substack.com/p/alert-the-...

Protect the integrity of the US National Institutes of Health Letter to the Editor

These members of the NIH Council of Councils are voicing serious concerns about NIH grant terminations, restructure, and budget cuts

go.nature.com/46Vr8t2

Please help get the word out - We are hiring at all levels (graduate students, technicians, and postdocs)! If you are interested in sponges, cell biology, evolution, immunity, and symbiosis, please don’t hesitate to contact me to learn more.

Not the very best picture, but the first Toucan I’ve ever seen.

Junior, Assistant, or Associate Specialist – Xue Lab University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!

The Xue lab at UC Irvine is looking for a staff scientist to support our work investigating how microbes interact and evolve in the gut microbiome! Open to a wide range of previous experience levels, see ad for more.
recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09601

Please help get the word out - We are hiring at all levels (graduate students, technicians, and postdocs)! If you are interested in sponges, cell biology, evolution, immunity, and symbiosis, please don’t hesitate to contact me to learn more.

Using time series graphs to make causal claims be like

Sloan Lab Welcome! Our research focuses on the evolutionary process at the molecular level. In particular, we investigate how a mixture of natural selection and non-adaptive forces create and maintain the amazi...

Please share! Our lab is recruiting a PhD student to join us starting fall 2026. Our group is broadly interested in plant molecular evolution and comparative genomics. More info about our lab and grad programs at Colorado St. is available on our lab website.

sites.google.com/site/danielb...

Screenshot of NSF proposal status page. It has four columns, one with the partial title (CAREER: Characterizing the mechanisms linking bleaching and recovery to), one with the “Awarded” status, one with the status date (today) and one with the submission date (nearly a year ago).

Celebrating this Friday evening!!

After 7 long months I can finally share that I have received an NSF CAREER award to study the link between bleaching and disease in cnidarians!!

Stay tuned for more info about postdoc and graduate student positions!

US science is being wrecked, and its leadership is fighting the last war Facing an extreme budget, the National Academies hosted an event that ignored it.

US #science 🧪 is being wrecked and its leaders are ignoring it as it is just a 4yr phase, instead of using their power to fight back. History remembers the 12 profs who stood against the italian fascist regime, not the hundreds who took its oath. (1/2)

arstechnica.com/science/2025...

We just published our first paper in the Peer Community Journal - diamond open access, no APCs!
Awesome experience, with less than a week from submission after receommendation by #pcigenomics.
Highly recommended!
#molpalmuc
@lmumuenchen.bsky.social
@peercommunityin.bsky.social

There is no replacement (yet) for animal models in medical research The NIH is “reducing animal use in research.” But there is no replacement for animal models.

It is beyond disturbing when the NIH and HHS Directors do not understand that animal models are essential in research

www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/a...

Thibaut Brunet Interview with Thibaut Brunet, who studies the evolutionary origin of animal morphogenesis at the Institut Pasteur.

Check out our latest issue to read a Q&A with @thibautbrunet.bsky.social, who studies the evolutionary origin of animal morphogenesis at the Institut Pasteur. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Sponges, ctenophores and the statistical significance of syntenies Shared fusions between ancestral chromosomal linkage groups have previously been used to support phylogenetic groupings, notably sponges with cnidarians and bilaterians to the exclusion of ctenophores...

New entry into the sponge/ctenophore debate.... Have the chromosome fusions separating ctenophores from all other animals been given too much weight? Beautifully clearly written paper covering complex arguments from @rcply.bsky.social.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New contribution in @elife.bsky.social: Genetic parallels in biomineralization of the calcareous sponge Sycon ciliatum and stony corals doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

@lmumuenchen.bsky.social
#molpalmuc

MBL Light Microscopy Bootcamp | Marine Biological Laboratory Director:  Ed Munro, University of Chicago

Applications open for the MBL Light Microscopy Bootcamp in October
www.mbl.edu/education/mb...

I have in general become way less tolerant of ‘crunchy’ bullshit since ascension of people like RFK jr. to actual power. Sorry but the obnoxious Reddit science and logic guys were right, you should be scorned for believing objectively wrong things about consequential issues.

Expansion microscopy micrograph of the choanoflagellate Choanoeca flexa, vaguely evocative of a cactus. Red = tubulin, green = actin, blue = DNA

Same with yellow = lipids (BODIPY)

A dream come true: the first expansion microscopy images of C. flexa 🤩 Generated by Mylan & Uzuki who learned from the best (@hiralshah.bsky.social @gautamdey.bsky.social @dudinlab.bsky.social). We will learn so much from these!

It's publication day of my first book: The Tree of Life. The tree of life is a time machine that can take us back 4 billion years to meet our most distant ancestor. It is the magic that lets us tell the origin stories, beginning with this ancient relative, of everything from mushrooms to man.

@govofco.bsky.social Gov Polis, care to provide an update on your “optimism” about Kennedy?

Detecting a microbial DNA signal in a sample does not mean that the sample contains a microbiome.

Organ structure and bacterial microbiogeography in a reproductive organ of the Hawaiian bobtail squid reveal dimensions of a defensive symbiosis | Applied and Environmental Microbiology Sequence-based microbiome studies have revealed much about how hosts interact with communities of symbiotic microbiota but often lack a spatial understanding of how microbes relate to each other and t...

This work is finally officially out!

Check out our paper, where we use various advanced microscopy techniques to shed light on the structures of a complex symbiotic organ and the communities of bacteria that live inside it.

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Home | Derrick Kamp

I made a website! Come check it out! Get to know me! See cool pictures! Learn that I'm looking for a post doc in fall 2025!

www.derrickkamp.com