Drew Bridges

Congratulations to @emmynguyen.bsky.social and our wonderful collaborators. Here we uncover and characterize a periplasm protein that modulates broad physiological changes to V. cholerae by controlling a two component system!

A small periplasmic protein governs broad physiological adaptations in Vibrio cholerae via regulation of the DbfRS two-component system - Nature Communications A two-component system, DbfRS, regulates biofilm formation in Vibrio cholerae. Here, Nguyen et al. identify a small periplasmic protein that controls the activity of the system’s receptor, and show th...

Thrilled to share that my first-author paper is now published in Nature Communications! 🎉 Huge thanks to my PI, Dr. Drew Bridges (@bridgesbio.bsky.social), my collaborators, and all the incredible lab members for their support throughout this project

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

Head of the Department of Biological Sciences - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania job with Carnegie Mellon University | 675374 Head of the Department of Biological Sciences Carnegie Mellon University 4400 5th Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213   The Department of Biological Scienc...

The Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon is seeking an innovative and accomplished scientist to serve as our next Department Head. Join us in shaping the future of biological sciences in Pittsburgh. jobs.sciencecareers.org/job/675374/h...

An exciting future for microbial molecular biology and physiology | mBio The first two bacterial genomes were sequenced nearly 30 years ago (1, 2). The cost of one of those sequences, that of Haemophilus influenzae, was over 1,000,000 U.S. dollars and took multiple years (...

A future perspective article on the next 10 years in microbial molecular biology and physiology is online now.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... 🧵👇

I'm delighted to share a useful FREE web-based app portal of powerful bioinformatics tools for microbial genomes and shotgun microbiome sequences!

It's called Micromics and is built by Middle Author Bioinformatics, led by co-founder @ironark.bsky.social
omix.midauthorbio.com

Congratulations to @vscooper.micropopbio.org on his election to become the next president of the @asm.org!

asm.org/Press-Releas...

Excited to host a session at @asm.org #Microbe2025 in LA. Our session is entitled, "Acting As a Unit: Regulation of Microbial Collective Behaviors From Molecules to Populations." Please join us and submit an abstract!
www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/20974...

#Microsky

Thanks @fabricejpierre.bsky.social, hope all is well!

We anticipate that the FAP-fluorogen labeling approaches described here will enable research in diverse areas of microbiology. O2 independence combined with far-red spectral properties! Could be used to tag proteins, to label multiple organisms, or to monitor gene expression. #microsky #biofilm

Using this approach, we characterize biofilm dispersal in V. cholerae. We find that dispersal initiates at biofilm periphery and ~25% of cells never disperse. We define novel micro-scale patterns during dispersal, including biofilm compression and regional heterogeneity in cell motions (see movie).

Excited to share our latest, "Biofilm dispersal patterns revealed using far-red fluorogenic probes." @plos.bsky.social We developed a cell-labeling strategy using far-red dyes to image dense microbial communities (where fluorescent proteins often do not work well) journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Biofilm Starter Pack on the Blue place

go.bsky.app/HF1jeCQ

Mind adding me?😀

Has anyone had the time to setup a starter pack for the brave 🙌🏻 early adopter scientific journals that have migrated to BlueSky? 🧪🦠🧬💉🩻🔬🧫

Leaky ice bucket left on top of lab notebook overnight 😭

Congratulations 👏

I would love to be included, thanks!

...and tag your own posts with #MicroSky if appropriate. it helps (=be your own algorithm 😌)

Has anyone made a microbiology or bacteriology starter pack??

Another starter pack of fine fine folks - New PIs! We're all figuring it out together! Please do (self-)nominate

go.bsky.app/KJXNgfZ

🖐️🖐️🖐️

Thrilled to have presented my research in the lab of @bridgesbio.bsky.social at three conferences this year: Bacteria and Phages, ABASM, and Rust Belt Microbiome. Grateful for the chance to share my work and connect with inspiring scientists. Can't wait to see what future conferences bring!

🖐️🖐️🖐️

Sky Follower Bridge - Chrome Web Store Instantly find and follow the same users from your Twitter follows on Bluesky.

For those moving from X/Twitter, I just used this excellent tool to transfer 1000+ Followings in 5 min. chromewebstore.google.com/detail/sky-f...

Being a Scholar in Trumpian times Some thoughts about doing the right thing as an academic in an autocracy

Endorse this outstanding essay by @hormiga.bsky.social written in 2016, republished here:

TLDR:
1. Keep up our research.
2. Teach critical thinking.
3. Advocate publicly for evidence-based decision making.
4. Build diverse and inclusive academic communities

open.substack.com/pub/sciencef...

Bluesky is now open. Science Twitter, here’s how to use it! The once-great science twitter is, depending on who you talk to, either dying or dead. Once a vibrant place for many discussions related to my fields of marine biology, ocean conservation, and publ…

Friends, I wrote up a quick guide to getting started on Bluesky for folks who are used to old Science Twitter.

Please share it with your folks who are joining. And please let me know if I missed anything or got anything wrong. 🧪

www.southernfriedscience.com/bluesky-is-n...

We determine that additional pathogenic organisms also exhibit multicellular community formation in response to lysis. Given the pervasiveness of lysis in the environment, we propose that lysis sensing is a threat-agnostic mechanism by which bacteria can gauge endangerment. (4/4)

We identify the cell lysis signal as an abundant cytoplasmic polyamine, norspermidine, which is detected by an inner-membrane receptor, MbaA, that in turn drives biofilm formation. (3/4)

We find that the mechanism underlying this observation is a process we refer to as "lysis sensing"...whereby surviving cells sense a signal released by the death of their kin. (2/4)

Our first paper from the lab! We find that upon exposure to lytic phages, the pathogen V. cholerae rapidly lyses, but then recovers, with surviving cells exhibiting robust biofilm formation. www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/4)