Valerie Soo

Immunity to S pyogenes and Common Respiratory Viruses at Age 0 to 4 Years This cross-sectional study examines changes in immunity to Streptococcus pyogenes and other common respiratory pathogens among young children in 10 European countries after the introduction of nonphar...

Why did severe #StrepA infections in children increase after the pandemic?

Our new @jamanetworkopen paper suggests COVID restrictions delayed immunity development in young children.

tiny.cc/63vt001

15.10.2025 17:50 — 👍 4    🔁 3    💬 1    📌 1

How to apply Applications for 2026 entry will open on Tuesday 7 October 2025 at midday (BST) and close at 23:59 (GMT), Tuesday 18 November 2025.

Applications for @ukri.org Medical Research Council funded MRes+PhD studentships in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences at @imperialcollege will open on Tuesday 7 October.
www.imperial.ac.uk/multisci-mrc...

#PhD #Interdisciplinaryhealthscience #Scholarships

29.09.2025 08:49 — 👍 2    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0

The 2024 rankings of bacterial threats

27.08.2025 16:18 — 👍 66    🔁 36    💬 4    📌 4

Archaea produce peptidoglycan hydrolases that kill bacteria Archaea regularly interact with bacteria but reports of archaea killing bacteria are very rare. This study shows that many archaea encode peptidoglycan hydrolases, which specifically target bacterial ...

This first-author publication is my… first! Archaea kill bacteria by targeting their Achilles’ heel: peptidoglycan. Big shoutout to @ahocher.bsky.social‬, @valeriesoo.bsky.social‬, Pauline Misson, @tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social‬ and MRC LMS Proteomics. A thread 🔽
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

15.08.2025 11:19 — 👍 77    🔁 28    💬 5    📌 2

Left: Results of spotting various supernatants onto lawns of Halalkalibacterium halodurans, Phycicoccus endophyticus, and Virgibacillus salexigens. a,b: top fraction (>3 kDa) of supernatant from Haloferax volcanii expressing an intact (a) or catalytic mutant (b) version of Woldo; c,d: bottom fraction (<3 kDa) of supernatant from H. volcanii expressing an intact (c) or catalytic mutant (d) version of Woldo; e: unfiltered supernatant from Halogranum salarium B-1; f,g: top fraction (>3 kDa) of supernatant from H. volcanii expressing (f) Danwoldo or (g) and empty plasmid control; h,i: bottom fraction (<3 kDa) of supernatant from H. volcanii expressing (h) Danwoldo or (i) and empty plasmid control. Top right: Structural overlay of zoocin A from Streptococcus zooepidemicus (UniProt ID: O54308) and Woldo, a candidate PGH from Halogranum salarium B-1 (UniProt ID: J2ZZK6), highlighting homologous M23 domains but divergent cell wall binding domains. TRD: target recognition domain. PG: peptidoglycan. Bottom right: Images of bacterial cells following exposure to H. volcanii supernatants expressing Woldo, Danwoldo or the control (as above). Bacteria are stained using LIVE/DEAD BacLight bacterial viability staining kit with ingress of red dye into bacterial cells indicative of cells with terminally compromised cell wall integrity.

Archaea-on-bacteria action! @romainstrock.bsky.social @tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social &co show that many #archaea encode #peptidoglycan hydrolases, which specifically target #bacterial cell walls, experimentally confirming the killing capacity of 2 of these enzymes @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4lrJBBa

15.08.2025 08:13 — 👍 16    🔁 8    💬 1    📌 1

Very happy to see this work published + getting the recognition it deserves! Archaea are very cool + understudied organisms and we are only scratching the surface! Since the preprint last year, we (@romainstrock.bsky.social) have included more evidence of bacteria getting killed by archaeal arsenal.

15.08.2025 09:12 — 👍 10    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Putting our deductive, problem-solving, and team-working skills to good use - we had so much fun at the Sherlock Escape Room aaand we escaped in 53 minutes! #teampbp #escaperoom

12.07.2025 19:35 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Research Associate (Fixed Term) - Job Opportunities - University of Cambridge Research Associate (Fixed Term) in the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge.

The MIMIC lab is hiring a Postdoctoral Research Associate to join my team at @Cambridge_Uni!
Exploration and engineering DNA-mimicking proteins (wet-lab position.) 🧬
Details: www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/50652/
Please get in touch / circulate !

22.03.2025 15:54 — 👍 14    🔁 20    💬 0    📌 0

AI mirrors experimental science to uncover a novel mechanism of gene transfer crucial to bacterial evolution AI models have been proposed for hypothesis generation, but testing their ability to drive high-impact research is challenging, since an AI-generated hypothesis can take decades to validate. Here, we ...

With @jrpenades.bsky.social, we challenged Google AI co-scientist to generate hypotheses. In just 2 days, it recapitulated our unpublished, experimentally confirmed mechanism for how cf-PICIs spread between bacterial species! @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/3byyaeh2

20.02.2025 13:24 — 👍 16    🔁 12    💬 0    📌 0

I hope I managed to convince the families that scientists nowadays can look very different than what is typically portrayed. For instance, I lead an all-girls group now and I am enjoying it! [2/2]

12.12.2024 21:20 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Inspiring the next generation of microbiologists at the Invention Rooms | Imperial News | Imperial College London Workshops at Imperial's White City campus Invention Rooms have inspired youngsters from the local community to become the microbiologists of tomorrow.

I volunteered at the half-term workshops focused on microbes and the immune system at the Invention Rooms, and I had great conversations with kids and families. Some parents asked sharp questions about why we wanted to become scientists in the first place! www.imperial.ac.uk/news/258715/... [1/2]

12.12.2024 21:19 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Wow, that looks amazing! 🤩

09.12.2024 14:50 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0