Andrew Krusenstjerna, Ph.D.

Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs:

Tick-Borne Disease Research Program Anticipated Funding Opportunities for Fiscal Year 2026

cdmrp.health.mil/pubs/press/2...

New in JB: Jackson, Kearns et al. describe a role for ClpX-dependent proteolysis of a global regulator controlling expression of the flagellar genes and thus motility.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology

New in JB: Jorgenson reviews recent advances in cell envelope assembly via the lens of the essential lipid carrier undecaprenyl phosphate and with an eye on targets of novel Abx development.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology

TBDRP banner, showing: Gloved hand with blood sample Three ticks on a human hand Family walking in the woods

The new US budget includes funding for the Tick-Borne Disease Research Program of the CDMRP.
Details on the program and requests for applications to be announced soon.

cdmrp.health.mil/pubs/press/2...

#MicroSky

Peptidoglycan architecture dictates protein interactions, tissue tropism, and arthritis in the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi Author summary Many of the pathogenic mechanisms by which Borrelia burgdorferi causes disease involve cell envelope interactions with host components. To further elucidate the role of peptidoglycan in...

Check out our exciting new paper out now in @plos.org where Dr Ahmad manipulated #peptidoglycan chemistry to understand Lyme disease and arthritis 👇👏
#Microsky
#glycotime

journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Plasmid mutation rates scale with copy number | PNAS Plasmids are extrachromosomal DNA molecules that spread by horizontal transfer and shape bacterial evolution. Plasmids are typically present at mul...

New paper out in PNAS!!! 🎉

Do more plasmid copies mean faster evolution?

🧵 Dive into the story

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

Construction of complex and diverse DNA sequences using DNA three-way junctions - Nature Sidewinder enables high-fidelity DNA assembly by separating the information that guides assembly from the final assembled sequence.

Clever new method for assembling DNA oligos into larger sequences without the need for unique overlap sequences. Can't wait for those 'this sequence is too complex' rejection messages from DNA suppliers to become a thing of the past. 🧬🧪

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

Bacteria are amazing! The abundant Dps protein binds and protects DNA in stationary-phase cells with minimal effect on chromosome accessibility, dynamics, and organization. Now in NAR doi.org/10.1093/nar/...; I'm really proud of our multidisciplinary team led by Lauren, Lindsay, and Xiaofeng, et al.

Fluorescence increases over time in mother cells due to aggregates.

How does E. coli age? According to this #mBio study, the the decisive factor driving growth decline in E. coli is not the presence of protein aggregates, but the fraction of the intracellular space they occupy. Learn more: asm.social/2KZ

YouTube video by David Fay David's AlphaFold WorkShop 2026

Greetings! I decided to make a YouTube video of my AlphaFold workshop that I've given a few times in the past year. Caveats aside, people seem to find this useful for thinking about how to model protein interactions and how to interpret various AF outputs 1/2

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u63o...

Comparative Analysis of Borrelia’s Defence Mechanisms and Their Impact on Genetic Manipulation of Low-Passage Isolates of #Borrelia afzelii and Borrelia garinii

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #OpenAccess #MicroSky

A scalable transposon mutagenesis system for non-model bacteria https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.22.696024v1

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...

Doing a PhD is - at heart - one long discussion with your mentor. The discussion changes over time - with unexpected turns and ups & downs - but through it all is a pair of people discussing a topic endlessly to make sense of it.
PhD students: choose someone you like to talk to!

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...

indeed, 𝘙𝘶𝘨𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘢 𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘻𝘢𝘦 looke like fusilli, which are notably better at holding on salsa di pomodoro than spaghetti... and as pasta addicts, we fell instantly in love with the shape of this newly described alphaproteo from the Rhizobiales 🤭
#MicroSky

FtsZ fans, take note 👇

christoph: I just stumbled upon an older post by Elio - doesn't this FtsZ-less 𝘌. 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘪 looks like a lava lamp from the 1970s ? ahem, the paper is from 2016 (Mercier R, Kawai Y, Errington J doi: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.91).
#MicroSky

smallthingsconsidered.blog/schaechter/2...

DNA topoisomerase I acts as supercoiling sensor for bacterial transcription elongation - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Vidmar et al. use cryo-EM to reveal how bacterial RNA polymerase (RNAP) and topoisomerase I (TopoI) cooperate. TopoI switches conformation, senses DNA supercoils near RNAP and relaxes them. Mutations ...

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

An archaeal transcription factor bridges prokaryotic and eukaryotic regulatory paradigms Methanogenic archaea use the one-component system AmzR to sense methylamines and regulate the expression of methylamine-metabolizing genes. Unlike other prokaryotic one-component systems, the DNA-binding motif of AmzR resembles a structural fold typically found in eukaryotic transcription factors. This discovery narrows the gap between prokaryotic and eukaryotic regulatory proteins.

Now online! An archaeal transcription factor bridges prokaryotic and eukaryotic regulatory paradigms

Molecular dissection of Class A PBP function uncovers novel features of the non-canonical Clostridioides difficile divisome complex Author summary Bacterial cell division is an ancient and essential process, but our molecular understanding of this process is primarily based on studies in a select few model systems. Recent work fou...

Excited to share my latest postdoctoral work in the Shen Lab at Tufts! In this study, we follow up on an exciting finding by former grad student @shailab.bsky.social that C diff uses its Class A PBP (PBP1) to drive cell division (unlike previously studied bacteria)! journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Very cool results! A small protein with so many functions!

Nucleoid structure and dynamics influence natural chromosomal transformation in Bacillus subtilis: the role of EbfC Abstract. Natural chromosomal transformation (NCT) in Bacillus subtilis requires RecA and its accessory proteins including RecX and RecD2. Inactivation of

Nucleoid structure and dynamics influence natural chromosomal transformation in Bacillus subtilis: the role of EbfC url: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Pathogenic rickettsiae encode a secreted lipase that facilitates intracytosolic colonization in host cells Key cellular processes for the rickettsial obligate intracellular lifestyle, including internalization by phagocytosis, regulation of intracellular trafficking, and evasion of lysosomal destruction to...

New paper from the Voss lab!

RLip, a secreted lipase, helps pathogenic Rickettsia thrive inside host cells. Grateful our work in the Goley lab building a R. parkeri transposon library could support this discovery. 🦠 🔬

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

New PubPeer comment on "Efficacy of oral folinic acid supplementation in children with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial" (Panda et al, 2024). Concerns about significant errors. #folinicacid #leucovorin, #autism

pubpeer.com/publications...

Gel of the initial cloned cagA product in λgt11 on 20 July 1989.

In #mBio, dive into story behind the 1989 discovery of Helicobacter pylori CagA, the first tumorigenic bacterial protein. This article recounts the early steps in the investigative process and relates some of the unexpected discoveries that ensued. asm.social/2C1

GitHub - JoachimGoedhart/A_Shiny_start: A beginners tutorial on Shiny apps A beginners tutorial on Shiny apps. Contribute to JoachimGoedhart/A_Shiny_start development by creating an account on GitHub.

If you want to get started, here's a tutorial that I made:
github.com/JoachimGoedh...
Reach out if you have questions or want advice!!

The Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science awarded to Lucy Shapiro | PNAS Scientists can contribute to society in numerous ways. Some scientists discover new biological principles and found entirely new fields. Some scien...

2025 #LaskerAward winner Lucy Shapiro asked: How do living organisms translate information from a linear genetic code into three-dimensional structures?
And with that, she broke open a new field. 🧪
@pnas.org
#Lasker2025 #systemsbiology

Lasker Award for Uncovering Spatial Organization in Bacterial Cells Lucy Shapiro received this year’s Lasker Special Achievement Award for her discovery of how bacteria use genetic circuits to encode three-dimensional cellular life.

www.the-scientist.com/lasker-award... 🧪
#devbio #LaskerAward #Lasker2025 #LaskerLaureate

Some awesome, fundamental work here: Lucy Shapiro, on bacterial cell differentiation, Dirk Görlich and Steve McKnight on IDRs & protein gels in nuclear pores and biomolecular condensates, & Michael Welsh, Jesús González & Paul Negulescu, (overdue) for bench to bedside work on cystic fibrosis 🧪 1/2

This year's Lasker Awards went to scientists who studied the wiring diagram of life, a new state of biological matter, and a potent treatment for cystic fibrosis. Here's my story with Gina Kolata. Gift link: nyti.ms/4mZlH1F