Jacobo de la Cuesta-Zuluaga

My new Emmy Noether Group is recruiting!

🔬 Two PhD positions in plant pathogen evolution

🧬 Start: April 2026 (flexible)

📍 Dept. of Phytopathology & Plant Protection @rstam.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de

⏰ Apply by 15 Dec 2025

🔗 More info: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...

Do get in touch or share 😊

Wow, that's wonderful, Thanvi! Congrats 🎉

Research prizes for our lab: Anne has been awarded the DZIF Doctoral Award of the DGHM, and Lisa has received the DGHM Main Award. A wonderful recognition of the creativity, curiosity, and persistence of the entire team! www.dghm.org/dghm-preisve...

A bidirectional tango between drugs and bugs Beyond the commonly considered factor of diet, small-molecule drugs have been identified as effectors of microbiota composition. Recently, two studies (Grießhammer et al. and Kumar et al.) reported that non-antibiotics, like antibiotics, could disrupt gut microbial homeostasis, reducing colonization resistance and facilitating pathogen invasion. These findings hold profound implications for our understanding of drug–host–microbiome interactions.

A bidirectional tango between drugs and bugs

We're very happy to release our new database Metalog metalog.embl.de ! It offers manually curated and harmonised contextual data for 110k metagenomics samples across the globe, incl. precomputed taxonomic profiles, for interactive browsing and for download 🧵 1/7

#microsky

Not a composite! I'm still impressed by this image, my colleagues did a really good job with this one

Non-antibiotics and Enteric Infections Noteworthy — It's allergy season. To assuage your discomfort, your physician prescribes a long-term treatment with an antihistamine. Feeling much better, you go out to enjoy some of your favorite stre...

schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2...
#MicroSky

Thanks for the highlight! btw, we think the green spiky guy is C. perfringens 🦠

Unexpected side-effect: how common medications clear the way for pathogens

CMFI's @lisamaierlab.bsky.social @unituebingen.bsky.social show in @nature.com: many non-antibiotics weaken the natural protective function of the intestine.

Press release: www.cmfi.uni-tuebingen.de/en/news-even...

Non-antibiotics disrupt colonization resistance against enteropathogens - Nature Non-antibiotic drugs from a wide range of therapeutic classes can alter the ability of gut commensals to resist invasion by enteropathogens, a previously underappreciated side effect of such drugs.

Seeing this published is even better than eating sweets! I am so happy and proud of whole @lisamaierlab.bsky.social, especially Lisa and @jdlcz.bsky.social who walked the funny/exciting/rocky road with me until the very end. Check it out!
#science #microbiome #health

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

The paper is definitely worth a read—and if you're curious for a glimpse behind the scenes of how the story developed, don’t miss this short blog post by Anne and Jacobo.
communities.springernature.com/posts/silent...

A tremendous team effort that spanned several years, led by two outstanding scientists in our lab: Anne Grießhammer (@ghammeranne.bsky.social) and Jacobo de la Cuesta-Zuluaga (@jdlcz.bsky.social). Huge thanks to everyone who contributed, to @cmfi.bsky.social, & to our superb collaboration partners.

Non-antibiotics disrupt colonization resistance against enteropathogens Nature - Non-antibiotic drugs from a wide range of therapeutic classes can alter the ability of gut commensals to resist invasion by enteropathogens, a previously underappreciated side effect of...

Finally online!
Our latest research is out @nature.com: We show that non-antibiotic drugs can disrupt colonization resistance, raising the risk of enteric infections.
rdcu.be/ewwrG

This is work of many years and many wonderful people! 🧑‍🔬

Led by Anne Grießhammer @ghammeranne.bsky.social and me at the Maier lab @lisamaierlab.bsky.social in Tübingen @cmfi.bsky.social. Read the TL;DR and how the project and Lisa's lab grew hand in hand here: go.nature.com/3Ix8lu3

It's finally out!🎉

We known that the #microbiome confers colonization resistance against #pathogens, we know that some meds 💊 affect gut microbes 🦠

So, do 💊 alter colonization resistance? It turns out that some do! If you wanna know more, check out our latest work www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Human gut bacteria bioaccumulate PFAS

Excited to share some key details on our latest research in @natmicrobiol.nature.com reporting intra-cellular accumulation of #PFAS (aka forever chemicals) by certain human gut bacteria. #microsky #mevosky #microbiomesky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We asked our current student Elisabeth Limunga some questions about the IBC master programme and her ambitions 🤓 🤩

Application deadline: July 15!

uni-tuebingen.de/ibc

@daadworldwide.bsky.social @unituebingen.bsky.social @pasteur.fr @pasteuredu.bsky.social @steffenbo.bsky.social

Sublethal systemic LPS in mice enables gut-luminal pathogens to bloom through oxygen species-mediated microbiota inhibition Nature Communications - Acute systemic immune activation may affect gut-luminal colonisation dynamics. Here, the authors show that LPS exposure in mice elevates gut-luminal oxygen species levels,...

I am very excited to share our latest publication on the effect of systemic #endotoxin on intestinal #microbiota spearheaded by the brilliant Sanne Kroon at the Hardt lab @eth-dbiol.bsky.social @ethzurich.bsky.social @naturecomms.bsky.social

👉🏼 rdcu.be/eelLn

What a better chance to read our review on how to counteract the negative effects of antibiotics and human targeted drugs 💊 our #microbiome🦠 if you haven't yet!

www.cell.com/trends/micro...

Every time I write the discussion of a microbiome paper

📌

Mechanism to mean everything and nothing at the same time. Do they mean a molecular interaction? A cellular process? An ecological dynamic?

Extensive impact of non-antibiotic drugs on human gut bacteria Nature - Some non-antibiotic drugs have been associated with changes in gut microbiome composition, but the extent of this phenomenon is unknown. Athanasios Typas and colleagues screened more than...

In a great collaboration with @typaslab.bsky.social, @lisamaierlab.bsky.social and @biocs.bsky.social found that 24% of the tested human-targeted drugs inhibit the growth of gut commensal bacteria.

"Extensive impact of non-antibiotic drugs on human gut bacteria" (2018) www.nature.com/artic...

And if you want to read how we're using these little critters to investigate the effect of #medication 💊 on the #microbiome 🦠and resistance against #pathogens 🧫, check our work (led by @ghammeranne.bsky.social) doi.org/10.1101/2023...

Our short piece highlighting the impressive work by @fatimacpereira.bsky.social on how the Parkinson’s disease drug entacapone disrupts gut microbiome via iron sequestration.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

For a PhD student, choosing a good lab is 10 times more important than choosing a particular topic to study

Nepali oral microbiomes reflect a gradient of lifestyles from traditional to industrialized - Microbiome Background Lifestyle plays an important role in shaping the gut microbiome. However, its contributions to the oral microbiome remain less clear, due to the confounding effects of geography and methodo...

Thrilled to share our paper on differences in oral microbiome composition across subsistence strategies in Nepal is now out in Microbiome: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A visualisation of Colombia's river basins

River basins of Colombia.

#rayshader adventures, an #rstats tale

Balancing act: counteracting adverse drug effects on the microbiome

#TrendsMicrobiol from Lisa Maier lab Tübingen

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Figure from a scientific paper describing multiple strategies to reduce damage to the microbiome caused by the use of medications

#Medication 💊 can negatively affect our #microbiome🦠, but we obviously can't stop using meds.

What can we do, then? In our latest article we review and discuss some of the current and future strategies to reduce microbiome damage ❤️‍🩹

@cmfi.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...