Peter Fineran

Peter Fineran

@peterfineran.bsky.social

Prof. and Head of Phage-host interactions (Phi) lab. Phage defences, counter-defences, CRISPR-Cas, toxin-antitoxin. FRSNZ / James Cook Fellow

525 Followers 580 Following 21 Posts Joined Jan 2025
8 hours ago
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Join us for the first Rangahau Rising of 2026 with Dr Nils Birkholz (University of Otago). Nils will talk about his research on the plant pathogen Pectobacterium, highlighting new solutions for targeting problematic bacterial pathogens.

📍 Online, Register via Zoom: zurl.co/FLQvS

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1 week ago
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New post-doctoral research position in my phage-host interactions (Phi) laboratory in @otagomicroimmuno.bsky.social at @universityofotago.bsky.social New Zealand. The project is focused on defences against jumbo phages. Please share and if interested apply using the link in the comments.

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6 days ago

Thanks @frunzkelab.bsky.social

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1 week ago

Supported by @marsdenfund.bsky.social @royalsocietynz.bsky.social

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1 week ago
Postdoctoral Fellow - Microbiology and Immunology Click the link provided to see the complete job description.

Appl here : apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

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1 week ago
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New post-doctoral research position in my phage-host interactions (Phi) laboratory in @otagomicroimmuno.bsky.social at @universityofotago.bsky.social New Zealand. The project is focused on defences against jumbo phages. Please share and if interested apply using the link in the comments.

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3 weeks ago
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Congratulations to Sonomi Yamaguchi for her paper at @nature.com. Sonomi discovered Clover defense and explained how nucleotide signals control each step of viral sensing, immune regulation, and viral restriction – named for her beautiful "four-leaf" structures 🍀

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

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1 month ago

It’s been a fun first few week of my sabbatical. Many exciting meetings w/ @peterfineran.bsky.social lab, learning new stuff and brainstorming ideas. And my own lab has been off to a crazy great start to the year. The early/late zoom meetings have me burning the candle at both ends…

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1 month ago
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🔬 iVoM 2026 Online Conference Series – Session 1: Viral Biotechnologies

🗓 28 Jan 2026
⏰ 17:00 CET | 11:00 EST | 08:00 PST

• Intro by a senior researcher
• 3 ECR talks
• Live Q&A

👉 Register for links & updates:
🔗 docs.google.com/forms/d/1hAB...

#iVoM #VoM2026 #Virology #ECRs #OnlineEvent

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1 month ago

Excited to be hosting @jcornlab.bsky.social on his sabbatical @universityofotago.bsky.social @otagomicroimmuno.bsky.social

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2 months ago
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@peterfineran.bsky.social and colleagues develop Tn-seq for phages by leveraging anti-CRISPR (Acr) as a positive
selectable marker in the presence of CRISPR-Cas counter-selection, and identify essential genes in phage from non model orgs
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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3 months ago
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✨New preprint!

🧵1/4 Excited to share our work on AI-guided design of minimal RNA-guided nucleases. Amazing work by @petrskopintsev.bsky.social @isabelesain.bsky.social @evandeturk.bsky.social et al!
Multi-lab collaboration @banfieldlab.bsky.social @jhdcate.bsky.social @jacobsenucla.bsky.social🧬

🔗👇

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3 months ago
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🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages.

Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms.

A thread 1/8

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3 months ago
YBDTP – BBSRC Yorkshire Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership

📣 Fully funded PhD opportunity - CryoEM, Phage Biology & Structural Mechanisms
University of Sheffield, UK | Start Oct 2026

We’re looking for a motivated student to uncover how bacteriophage proteins shut down drug-resistant Enterococcus bacteria.

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3 months ago
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Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...

Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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4 months ago
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Bacteria can sense when a virus starts shredding their genome — by detecting methylated mononucleotides.
Here’s the story of how we discovered the Metis defense system 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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4 months ago

Really excited to be hosting @jcornlab.bsky.social here at @universityofotago.bsky.social next year. Looking forward to lots of fun science ahead.

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4 months ago
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Use antisense oligomers to silence phage genes and discover new biology.
@jorg-vogel-lab.bsky.social @helmholtz-hiri.bsky.social @helmholtzhzi.bsky.social @uni-wuerzburg.de
print: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
highlight: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
briefing: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

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4 months ago
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Wilkinson Lab We discover and study reverse transcriptases

The Wilkinson Lab is open for science! @mskcancercenter.bsky.social

🧬We'll be finding funky new RNA biology, mainly by looking at reverse transcriptases (i.e. the Best Enzymes In The World)🧬

annnd: I'm hiring - come join! Especially postdocs and PhD students - please get in touch (NYC is great)

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5 months ago
Junior Group Leader - Phage Biology & Biotechnology As a leading research institution for microbial biotechnology the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences - Biotechnology (IBG-1, https://www.fz-juelich.de/de/ibg/ibg-1 ) at the Forschungszentrum Jülich foc...

Please RT:
We have an opening for a junior group leader position in „Phage Biology & Biotechnology“.
www.fz-juelich.de/de/karriere/...

Interested candidates are encouraged to contact me via email for further details.

@spp2330.bsky.social; @mibinet.bsky.social

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6 months ago
The ISVM logo for the International Society for the Viruses of Microorganisms

Welcome @isvm-society.bsky.social to bsky, the International Society for the Viruses of Microorganisms. Check the new look website isvm.org and become a member for free!

#phagesky #microsky

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5 months ago
University of Glasgow - Postgraduate study - Centres for Doctoral Training - NorthWest Biosciences - Our Projects - Underpinning Bioscience - Paul A Hoskisson

Come and work with me and @ariannebabina.bsky.social on #Streptomyces evolution and antibiotic production

Origins of a tangled bank: Adaptation and evolution in antibiotic-producing Streptomyces

www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate...

please repost

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6 months ago
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Assistant Professor Plant-Microbe Interactions We seek a creative, collaborative, and visionary plant biologist to establish an internationally recognized research program at the forefront of plant-microbe interactions aimed at understanding how t...

The Department of Biology at Colorado State University is hiring an Assistant Professor in the area of plant-microbe interactions! Please spread the word!

jobs.colostate.edu/postings/165...

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5 months ago
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Type I CRISPR-Cas immunity primes type III spacer acquisition Smith and Fineran describe how priming by type I CRISPR-Cas systems facilitates adaptation and spacer maintenance by a co-occurring type III system, which normally induces abortive infection. While ty...

Type I CRISPR-Cas immunity primes type III spacer acquisition

Priming by type I CRISPR-Cas aids spacer maintenance by co-occurring type III. Concurrent DNA&RNA-targeting minimize phage escape for population benefit

@peterfineran.bsky.social @leahmsmith.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

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5 months ago
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All systems go: CRISPR crosstalk for enhanced immunity In this issue of Cell Host & Microbe, companion manuscripts from Margolis & Meeske and Smith & Fineran demonstrate that CRISPR-Cas systems have an unprecedented level of cooperative crosstalk between ...

All systems go: CRISPR crosstalk for enhanced immunity

Barrangou Previews papers led by @peterfineran.bsky.social & Meeske demonstrating CRISPR-Cas systems have unprecedented level of cooperative crosstalk between different subtypes, enabling primed spacer acquisition
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

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6 months ago

Willing to join us @pasteur.fr for a PhD for a project on how interactions between mobile genetic elements shape bacterial adaptation? Subject to be tailored to candidates with keen interest in evolution, genomics, computational biology, microbiology. Check www.pasteur.fr/en/education...

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5 months ago
INSTITUT PASTEUR - Technicien de recherche Microbiologie H/F

We're looking for a technician at Institut Pasteur for experimental work on satellite-phage-bacteria interactions, working directly with @jmouradesousa.bsky.social and myself in the lab of @epcrocha.bsky.social ! ANR funded.

Link to the job emploi.pasteur.fr/offre-de-emp...
Thx for sharing!

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6 months ago
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Translational coupling of neighboring genes in prokaryotes | Journal of Bacteriology Prokaryotic genes are arranged in operons, with functionally related genes often located adjacent to one another (1). There are several ways in which the operonic organization of genes facilitates the...

Check out our new paper: a review of translational coupling, the phenomenon where translation of one prokaryotic gene can promote translation of the gene downstream. We cover the history, and delve into the mechanism, which is still not fully understood. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

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6 months ago
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Programmable antisense oligomers for phage functional genomics - Nature Establishing antisense oligomers as versatile, non-genetic tools to silence phage mRNAs opens applications in basic research and biotechnology, as shown by identifying essential factors for propagatio...

No Genetics? Try ASOs – A non-genetic approach to silence genes at the phage-host interface. We use it to study jumbo phage biology and anti-phage defence.
@jorg-vogel-lab.bsky.social @helmholtz-hiri.bsky.social
@uni-wuerzburg.de @helmholtzhzi.bsky.social
published now in @nature.com

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6 months ago
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Chimeric infective particles expand species boundaries in phage-inducible chromosomal island mobilization Capsid-forming PICIs (cf-PICIs) produce their own capsids and exploit phage tails from unrelated species to transfer their DNA across bacterial hosts. This tail piracy enables broad dissemination and ...

Thrilled to share our two latest papers with the @tcostalab.bsky.social
lab! In the first, we uncover a new mechanism of satellite transfer: cf-PICIs hijack tails from diverse phages to spread across species.
@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

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