Susan Schlimpert

Group Leader position available @johninnescentre.bsky.social !

It’s a creative and stimulating environment for plant and/or microbial biology - spanning the full spectrum of fundamental and applied research.

Apply to join us - don’t be shy!

A to do list from the article in Nature

From bench to big boss: mitigating the widening gap between PI and lab

Laboratory dynamics can change as the age and experience of the principal investigator increase. But there are ways to combat this.

Read our piece in Nature, with @sprekeler.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Kiwa is a membrane-embedded defense supercomplex activated at phage attachment sites Zhang, Todeschini, and Wu et al. show that the bacterial defense system Kiwa senses phage attachment at the membrane and assembles a transmembrane complex that halts infection by blocking phage DNA re...

Thrilled to see our Kiwa story out today! A membrane-associated supercomplex that senses infection and blocks replication and transcription.

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Huge congratulations to Yi and Zhiying for bringing it home, to Thomas for starting us off, and to all the collaborators.

*JOB AD*: interested in doing a postdoc in microbial metabolomics? Passionate about natural products mass spec?

Come join the group! Informal enquires welcome!

Closing Date: 19 August 2025

jobs.ncl.ac.uk/job/Newcastl...

Congrats Phil!

The Genetic Basis of Bacterial Adaptation to Hosts Microbes colonize and interact with diverse multicellular hosts using specialized genes, many of which remain unidentified. Better understanding of host-associated gene functions is a key aspect of mi...

📢 New preprint alert!
We used comparative genomics on 72,000+ bacterial genomes to uncover the genetic basis of microbial adaptation to multicellular hosts—plants and animals alike.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We’re pleased to announce two new vacancies for senior roles at our institute:

Group Leader in Discovery Plant Sciences: www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/gr...

🗓️ Closes 25 August

Independent Fellowship in Plant-Associated Microbial Interactions: www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/in...

🗓️ Closes 5 September

a man wearing sunglasses and a white t-shirt is holding something in his hands . ALT: a man wearing sunglasses and a white t-shirt is holding something in his hands .

We wrote 2 📕 chapters with tips & tricks to identify protein-protein interactions in bacteria 🦠

1) In vivo proximity labeling with miniTurbo link.springer.com/protocol/10....

2) An adapted polar recruitment assay feat. E. coli as a test tube link.springer.com/protocol/10.....

Enjoy #MicroSky 🧪

Optical Microscopy Support Specialist | John Innes Centre An exciting opportunity has arisen for an Optical Microscopy Support Specialist to join the Bioimaging Platform at the John Innes Centre.

VACANCY - We’re seeking an Optical Microscopy Support Specialist to join our Bioimaging Platform, to help train users on light microscopes, collaborate on imaging projects and provide technical support.

www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/op...

Closing date - 11 August 2025
Contract - Full time, indefinite

Group Leader in Discovery Plant Sciences | John Innes Centre The John Innes Centre (JIC) seeks a visionary Group Leader to lead research on Discovery Plant Science.

GROUP LEADER VACANCY

JIC is recruiting a Group Leader in Discovery Plant Sciences.

If you think your research would synergise and thrive at JIC, please apply.

www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/gr...

Independent Fellowship in Plant-Associated Microbial Interactions | John Innes Centre An exciting opportunity for an Independent Fellowship in Plant-Associated Microbial Interactions has arisen at the John Innes Centre. To read the full job description for this role…

New Independent Fellowship position in Microbiology to launch your lab in our department @johninnescentre.bsky.social (UK). We are conducting a broad search in the area of plant-associated microbial interactions. Message me if you have any questions.

Apply here: www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/in...

Nice one! Congratulations Thomas & team

Our new preprint is out! EEC1 is a massive 4.2 Mb secondary chromosome from Embleya australiensis. Conserved across Embleya, these are the first replicons of their kind in Actinobacteria and the largest secondary replicons in bacteria identified to-date!

1/6 🦠🧪🧬🔬

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

Thank you :)

Thank you Khaled :)

Function and firing of the Streptomyces coelicolor contractile injection system requires the membrane protein CisA CryoEM, genetic, and cell biological analyses reveal that the conserved membrane protein CisA mediates membrane recruitment of contractile injection systems Streptomyces coelicolor, enabling their act...

Happy to see our collaborative work on the contractile injection system (CIS) in Streptomyces published. We show that the membrane protein CisA gives Streptomyces CIS a licence to kill.
@pilhoferlab.bsky.social & Bastien Casu, @joesallmen.bsky.social #MicroSky

elifesciences.org/articles/104...

Folddisco finds similar (dis)continuous 3D motifs in large protein structure databases. Its efficient index enables fast uncharacterized active site annotation, protein conformational state analysis and PPI interface comparison. 1/9🧶🧬
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🌐 search.foldseek.com/folddisco

The ParA-like ATPase PldP influences the TatA dynamics in Corynebacterium glutamicum https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.02.662783v1

SpoIIIL is a forespore factor required for efficient cell-cell signalling during Bacillus subtilis sporulation Author summary Bacterial endospores allow bacteria to survive stress, persist in the environment and seed new and recurring infections. Cell-cell signalling is a cornerstone of how bacteria develop in...

Checkout the latest paper from our lab in PLOS Genetics: dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Thanks to our wonderful collaborators, @sgribaldo.bsky.social, @cavalab.bsky.social, @perbullough.bsky.social and Cecile Morlot.

Bacteria fending off bacterial predators with Curli amyloid proteins!

Expanding the diversity of bacterial DNA partitioning: A CTP-independent ParABS system for plasmid partitioning in Streptomyces | PNAS The ATP- and CTP-dependent ParA-ParB-parS segrosome is a macromolecular complex that segregates chromosomes/plasmids in most bacterial species. CTP...

Finally published! Many thanks to the reviewers and editor whose comments & suggestions improved this work significantly more than the first preprint version!!!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🔬👨‍💻📰 #SReD is out!
Automated structural detection for #ImageJ & #FIJI, from nano to macro ✨🐘. No training data, no bias - texture analysis with GPU acceleration!⚡️
Brainchild of @afonsomendes92.bsky.social and adventure w @christlet.bsky.social lab + friends.

Check: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Many congratulations to all the newly elected EMBO members and in particular to Martin Pilhofer @pilhoferlab.bsky.social 🍾

New Postdoc position (2yrs) available in our #EvoMPMI lab @JohnInnesCentre. Come and work with on harnessing the diversity of immune mechanisms to protect plants. jobs.jic.ac.uk/Details.asp?va…

After 5 amazing years @pilhoferlab.bsky.social I'm starting my lab @embl.org Grenoble this November embl.org/wollweber
We'll image Asgard archaea and many other strange microbes ( #archaeasky, #protistsonsky..) to understand eukaryogenesis
First job ad: #teamtomo scientist!🔬❄️ tinyurl.com/2rdu2ze6

Alejandra introducing her poster

If you want to know more about how rhizosphere members impact Streptomyces growth and how this can be used to activate silent BGCs visit p234 today and ask the very talented @alejandradiag.bsky.social all about it! #isba2025

Profs Gilles van Wezel and Eva Stegmann giving the Welcome Ceremony of the 20th International Symposium on the Biology of Actinomycetes in Edmond aan Zee (coastal Netherlands) #ISBA2025 #actinomycetes #streptomyces

We are recruiting a tenure-track assistant professor in molecular microbiology in our department in Lausanne! Do consider appyling!!

Staphylococcus aureus as an emerging model to study bacterial cell division Research on bacterial cell division has traditionally focused on rod-shaped model organisms such as Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. While these models have been important in uncovering broadly...

@felixrl.bsky.social's new review in JBC highlights recent research on how #Staph aureus performs several interrelated processes like peptidoglycan assembly, cell division septum placement, and how the septum is a hub for modifying the PG to decorate the cell surface:
www.jbc.org/article/S002...

New tenure track assistant professor position in molecular microbiology in our department @dmf-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social! We are casting a wide net for an experimental molecular microbiologist. Apply here: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...