Judith Berman

Candida albicans Goliath cells pioneer biofilm formation | mBio Goliath cells, known for their large size and stickiness to plastic, are triggered by limited access to the essential mineral zinc. They are a specialized cell type of Candida albicans, a fungus that ...

Candida albicans Goliath cells pioneer biofilm formation | mBio journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Congratulations Iana and Duncan on your beautiful paper! Goliath cells could be the key to many processes that we don't understand well.

Excellent thread.

If you're American, you are literally safer from violence and theft than your parents or grandparents were. But almost no one realizes that.

A do-or-die moment for the scientific enterprise Reflecting on our paper “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly”

Today, our article "The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly" is finally published in PNAS. I hope that it proves to be a wake-up-call for the whole scientific community.

reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...

Hypermutable hotspot enables the rapid evolution of self/non-self recognition genes in Dictyostelium Cells require highly polymorphic receptors to perform accurate self/non-self recognition. In the amoeba Dicytostelium discoideum, polymorphic TgrB1 & TgrC1 proteins are used to bind sister cells and e...

I'm excited to announce our new biorxiv preprint, wherein we investigate the evolution of the weirdest genetic locus I've ever seen! Behold the tgr genes of the social amoeba, which mediate self/non-self discrimination during facultative multicellularity 🐅 🧵 1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Group Leader - Genome Biology Unit Are you ready to lead groundbreaking research in Genome Biology? Join us at EMBL! We are seeking a motivated scientist to lead an independent research group addressing exciting and original biological...

To all post-docs: The Genome Biology dept ‪@embl.org
has an Independent faculty position. Fantastic place to set up your lab –great package: core funding, fantastic Ph.D. students, cutting edge core facilities & great colleagues. Closing date Sept 19th
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

Excited to report that Joy Bergelson (bergelsonlab.org) and I will be running a brand new GRC conference on the Function of Evolving Systems in the summer of 2026. The 2028 one will be chaired by Mikhail Tikhonov (physics.wustl.edu/people/mikha...) and @asanchezlab.bsky.social! Stay tuned!

Our body is a mosaic of fungi. Some scientists think they could be influencing our brain The fungi within our bodies may have a much greater effect on our health than we've long given them credit for.

www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Fungus among us

Diabetes potentiates the emergence and expansion of antibiotic resistance Diabetic infections are a reservoir for the emergence and proliferation of antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus.

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲: 𝗗𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗲𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝘂𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗔𝗠𝗥

Staphylococcus aureus evolves antibiotic resistance rapidly in diabetic mice, as hyperglycemia aids the expansion and takeover of resistant mutants

VISA strains have a large fitness defect in control mice but not in diabetic mice

➡️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

How we’re rebuilding the Weizmann Institute — and our hopes for a better future Scientific research is at the heart of Israel’s success and has worldwide benefits. Our work will continue despite adversity.

doi: doi.org/10.1038/d415...

How Weizmann Institute scientists are moving forward. Resiliance at its best.

What day is Trump planning his huge ego-wank parade? Because it would be hilarious if Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift collaborated on a free concert in the same town on that day...

The new reality for American academia The endless churn of damaging actions from the Trump administration toward science—from freezing and canceling grants to ending programs that encourage greater participation in science—has wreaked hav...

The new reality for American academia | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Candida and Candidiasis 2025 06 - 09 October 2025

Abstract submission for the Candida and Candidiasis 2025 is open until 23:59 BST on 15 May 2025. Learn more on our website: microb.io/4iyIHTp

When the conference organizers ask if you can send in your slides a week in advance

Pre-symptomatic Parkinson’s disease blood test quantifying repetitive sequence motifs in transfer RNA fragments - Nature Aging Madrer et al. identify a Parkinson’s disease–specific increase in transfer RNA (tRNA) fragments in human blood, cerebrospinal fluid and postmortem brain tissue, demonstrating the ability of blood-base...

A blood test biomarker for early detection of Parkinson's disease when there are no symptoms @natureaging.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s43...

I’ve seen smarter cabinets at IKEA

<chuckle>

#noliesdetected

🔥New Night Science paper!!
Discovery happens when your initial plans fall apart but it requires you to have a particular mindset: it's not extraverted, orderly, neurotic or agreeable that's the most important – discovery requires an OPENNESS to new ideas and unexpected insights.

Who does that? We rented a train JUST for the conference, that will take the participants from Prague to the woods of Bohemia. There'll be talks ON THE TRAIN. In Prague we'll have 5 locations with different atmospheres.
#theconferencetoendallconferences Register now:
woodstock.img.cas.cz

What Can Bob Dylan Teach Researchers? TAU postdocs get a crash course in the art of scientific discovery

Nice writeup on the TAU postdoc-club kickoff--a Night Science workshop—with special guest Itai Yanai @Itaiyanai.bsky.social. Thanks to Shmunis School, Safra Bioinformatics Center, Center for AI & Data Science, and Lowy International School—all at TAU.
international.tau.ac.il/postdoc-club...

New Yorker comic with an image of Nikola Tesla that says: By JON ADAMS "Your time machine works, Nikola Tesla! And what is the future like? Is your name associated only with your groundbreaking achievements?"

#ITeachPhysics ⚛️

Night science is all about facilitating the import and export of ideas between scientists. Today at the workshop in Tel Aviv University we encouraged an open mind and an improvisational attitude to enthusiastically apply ‘night science’ thinking tools to our problems. 🙏 @judithberman11.bsky.social

Thak you @itaiyanai.bsky.social for a wonderful Night Science retreat at TAU. Looking forward to continuing this Post-doc club process.

In these dark times when science is under threat worldwide, scientists need a ray of sunshine.
I can’t wait for Woodstock Night Science in June!
woodstock.img.cas.cz

Don’t miss this wonderful Post-doc club ‘Night Science' workshop at Tel Aviv University with the amazingly creative Itai Yanai!
Register now at forms.office.com/r/xVhzcHTy1t
Senior PhD students are also welcome.

Half sold out in a week!

Poster of the EIPOD call

Join the Interdisciplinary Postdoc Fellowship Program at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), one of the best places to do research in modern biology and develop your career.

Great opportunities for statisticians, comp. biologists, AI experts, mathem. modelers!
www.embl.org/eipod-linc

Schematic of lab and field experiments testing for yeast fitness with and without killer viruses. Panel A depicts a classical fitness assay in which a yeast with a virus (or cured of the virus) is cultured with a viral toxin-resistant reference strain and the number of doublings is compared between the two yeasts. Panel B diagrams field chambers made of 12-ml tubes in which a membrane holding yeast cells lines the mouth of the tube; the tube is then buried next to a tree. Panel C depicts a field experiment with the chambers. Yeasts hosting (or cured of) viruses are mixed with virus toxin-resistant reference cells, put onto chamber membranes, and incubated in soil for fifteen days. The relative ratios of tested and reference strains are then used as a proxy for fitness.

Check out my latest paper on fitness costs and benefits of hosting a killer virus if you're a yeast in the forest!

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

📣📣Are you looking for a postdoc? 📣📣

Does a EU or Horizon Europe assoc country (eg UK, S Korea) seem like a good destination?

These fellowships a great funding option for anyone in the 🌎

👀 Check them out - next call opens 8 May

🧪 👨‍🔬👩‍🔬
marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/post...