Jitendra Gosai

On my 14th hour of troubleshooting the code while ChatGPT tells me we are close for the 280th time.

Site-specific DNA insertion into the human genome with engineered recombinases www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

in other words... genome engineering to precisely insert large multi-kilobase sequences into specific sites without introducing double-strand breaks #synbio

Love everything on the .fun!

Internet Roadtrip Let's take a streetview roadtrip

Internet Roadtrip is my favorite thing on the internet right now—it’s basically Twitch Plays Google Street View. They started in Boston, spent several weeks on a quest to cross the Canadian border, and are now exploring New Brunswick. neal.fun/internet-roa...

Started in Abhishek’s lab as a new postdoc without any coding skills, and now I've contributed to a bacterial-tracking library and debugged critical issues while at that - super happy with this.
Thanks to all my more-hardworking-coauthors on this one! Cheers and here is to many more 🥂.

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume?

Me: I was waiting for the Argon laser to warm up

Release TaxonKit v0.20.0 · shenwei356/taxonkit Changes TaxonKit v0.20.0 This version is mainly for maintaining compatibility with NCBI's recent changes(1, 2). Please remove the ranks.txt file in ~/.taxonkit/ or other directories containing t...

TaxonKit v0.20.0 is adapted to recent rank changes in NCBI Taxonomy.
github.com/shenwei356/t...

Also updated
- taxid-changelog to May, 2025 github.com/shenwei356/t...
- gtdb-taxdump to GTDB r226 github.com/shenwei356/g...
- ictv-taxdump to VMR_MSL40 github.com/shenwei356/i...

Personalized inhaled bacteriophage therapy for treatment of multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis - Nature Medicine A novel personalized phage therapy strategy that selects phages for a predicted evolutionary trade-off may represent a viable alternative approach for the treatment of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria...

New 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘦 🦠

Personalized Nebulized Bacteriophage Therapy for MDR 𝘗𝘴𝘦𝘶𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘴 Infections in Cystic Fibrosis

In 9 patients, 10²–10⁴ CFU/mL drop in sputum bacteria, 6% median gain in FEV1

Post-treatment isolates showed trade-offs—reduced virulence, increased antibiotic susceptibility

Do people in the same household share strains when they have the same species?

How many cells transmit when a strain is shared?
Can strain composition be dynamic when species composition is stable?

We answer these and related questions for the facial skin microbiome in our latest paper.

🧵[1/10]

Four decades ago, this insect built its protective shell from human garbage Study suggests microplastics have been affecting freshwater animal communities for decades

Some insect larvae have been incorporating microplastics into the casings they build to protect themselves against predators since at least the early 1970s, researchers report. scim.ag/3GD5SNx

Baffling chronic pain eases after doses of gut microbes A small, preliminary trial and studies in mice draw links between fibromyalgia and alterations of the gut microbiome.

A trial has drawn links between fibromyalgia and alterations of the gut microbiome

https://go.nature.com/3EDZxkv

Bacterial pathogen deploys the iminosugar glycosyrin to manipulate plant glycobiology The extracellular space (apoplast) in plants is a key battleground during microbial infections. To avoid recognition, the bacterial model phytopathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 produces ...

Fascinating innate immune evasion strategy in SCIENCE #glycotime

𝘗𝘴𝘦𝘶𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘺𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘦 makes GLYCOSIRIN, a novel iminosugar that blocks plant glycosidases from degrading bacterial flagellin—hiding pathogens from plant immune sensors. New cryo-EM insights reveal exactly how this stealthy trick works

Mapping genetic diversity with the GenomeIndia project - Nature Genetics The rich ethnolinguistic and sociocultural differences that exist in India offers a unique opportunity to study human diversity. With the whole genomes of 10,000 healthy and unrelated Indians from 83 ...

Mapping genetic diversity with the GenomeIndia project

Nature Genetics

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

Delighted to share that @asm.org has met its goal for all of its 'legacy' journals (ie favorites like J. Bact, I&I, AEM) so ALL 2025 articles will be published open access. Thanks to all institutional subscribers, this is the S2O way.

Please submit to these great journals!

asm.org/Press-Releas...

This is figure 1, which shows the design of injectable, self-powered, bioresorbable cardiac pacemakers with wireless, optoelectronic control.

A paper in Nature presents a temporary pacemaker smaller than a grain of rice capable of mediating effective cardiac pacing in animal models and human heart tissues. https://go.nature.com/3E4Trt6 #medsky 🧪

Diplomatic row erupts after French researcher expelled from US for expressing 'a personal opinion' on Trump A diplomatic row has erupted between France and the US after a French researcher was expelled from the country for expressing "a personal opinion" on Trump.

"... the space researcher was selected at random for a search...
...There, his personal mobile phone and work computer were confiscated and searched by authorities, with messages discussing Trump's treatment of scientists found on his device."

www.lbc.co.uk/world-news/d...

Lungfish xkcd.com/3064

As I sipped my coffee among the vast open farmlands and surrounding wilderness, I quickly realized the abundant company I had. Here is a beautiful and melodious slice of an ecosystem.
#TenMinMerlin #Merlin

Had difficulties using GenBank the week before. It wasn't difficult to guess the cause

If pubmed is inaccessible at the moment, try @europepmc.org

My annual Valentine’s post of this image that happens to land on #FluorescenceFriday this year! An axon approaching a kidney glomerulus doing its best to look like a rose.

Microbial metabolites tune amygdala neuronal hyperexcitability and anxiety-linked behaviors | EMBO Molecular Medicine imageimageMicrobe-derived indoles modulate anxiety and neuronal excitability in the amygdala of germ-free (GF) male mice. These findings demonstrate a molecular mechanism by which microbes tune anxiet...

🦠 GUT-BRAIN AXIS 🧠

Microbes help keep your brain calm

Germ-free mice show more anxiety, hyperactive amygdala neurons

Restoring microbes—or key indole metabolites—reverses this

More evidence the microbiota fine-tunes brain circuits, specifically linking them to ancient anxiety-defense mechanisms

Evolution of Wolbachia male-killing mechanism within a host species Male-killing bacterial symbionts, prevalent in arthropods, skew population sex ratios by selectively killing male progeny, profoundly impacting ecology and evolution of their hosts. Male-killing is a ...

Evolution of Wolbachia male-killing mechanism within a host species

"In vitro and in vivo data demonstrated that wBol1Y (Wolbachia) feminized splicing and expression of lepidopteran sex determination pathway genes."

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

If I had a penny for every time a published web-tool now leads to 404 or 503, I would whine less over postdoc salaries.

Motile bacterial zorbs demonstrate one of the most fascinating collective migration strategies I have ever encountered. Our lab's postdoc, Jitendra Gosai, gave an excellent talk on the sensory control of zorbs at the BLAST conference.

The best science images of 2024 — Nature’s picks A breathtaking total eclipse, courageous penguins, volcanic smoke rings and more.

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Tis the season;
Abandoned ponceau bottle to mark!

AlphaFold reveals how sperm and egg hook up in intimate detail Three sperm proteins work together as matchmakers to enable fertilisation in vertebrates.

No Coitus Required: AI Unlocks Secrets of Fertilization
Using AlphaFold, scientists have uncovered the structure of a vital protein complex involved in vertebrate fertilization - all without any actual "experiments"!
#latinskySTEM
www.nature.com/articles/d41...