Luke Allsopp

With no treatment available when Michael was diagnosed with SPG50, his dad Terry built a team, launched Elpida and helped create a gene therapy now improving Michael's life. A powerful reminder this #RareDiseaseDay of the support needed for rare conditions.

Job opening for Research Group Leader in Structural Studies at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, focusing on macromolecular structures.

Are you a structural biologist pushing the boundaries of molecular science with an ambitious research programme?
Join our Structural Studies Division as a tenure-track Group Leader, with core funding, world-leading facilities & enthusiastic colleagues.
Apply by 16 MAR
www.nature.com/naturecareer...

🔍How do fungal-bacterial pathogen interactions worsen disease outcomes?

Check out our latest Micro Briefing highlighting new research from The MRC Centre for Medical Mycology at University of Exeter and Mackerere University, Uganda. Read the full paper here🔗 https://10.1099/jmm.0.002128

"Precarity is the one constant of academic science. Themes of instability thread themselves through everything we do."

A brief blog post from me about the @ukri.org funding pause and who the real victims will be.

occamstypewriter.org/mindthegap/2...

#AcademicSky

‘Universal vaccine’ protects mice against multiple pathogens An innovative approach supercharges the innate immune system to provide a first line of defence against respiratory infections.

An innovative approach supercharges the innate immune system to provide a first line of defence against respiratory infections.

go.nature.com/4qQncQx

📢📢📢Lectureships at Bristol!📢📢📢

We're hiring 3 x lecturers (=assistant professor) in Biological Sciences, across the discipline.

Great department, great colleagues, great building, great city

Details here:
www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review Women are underrepresented in academia, especially in STEMM fields, at top institutions, and in senior positions. This study analyzes millions of biomedical and life science articles, revealing that f...

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Dr. Libby Duignan, CPI Scientist will present her work entitled 'Optimizing Phage Production: Strategies for Scale-Up, Purification and Analysis' at the Viruses of Microbiome 2026 meeting in Newcastle today. @northumbriauni.bsky.social @ukcpi.bsky.social, @cysticfibrosis.org.uk

Characterising antibacterial toxins in the food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes at Newcastle University on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Characterising antibacterial toxins in the food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes at Newcastle University, listed on FindAPhD.com

www.findaphd.com/phds/project... interested in bacterial antagonism? PhD opportunity in our team, see below. Please repost!

🔬 Postdoc position – Infection Biology & Cryo-ET (Zurich) 🇨🇭
We are looking for a motivated Postdoc to join our interdisciplinary team.
📩 Interested? Check out the job advert:
www.imm.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:cb17...

👉 More info on the lab: www.weiss-laboratory.com
Please share with interested colleagues!

Description Please note that job descriptions are not exhaustive, and you may be asked to take on additional duties that align with the key responsibilities ment...

We're advertising for a bacteriology technician and a post-doc to work on AI-guided antibiotic development as part of a large multidisciplinary Fleming Initiative project:
www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

How bacteria resist hostile attacks Some bacteria use a kind of molecular “speargun” to eliminate their rivals, injecting them with a lethal cocktail. Researchers led by Prof. Marek Basler at the Biozentrum have now discovered that cert...

🧪 New research by @basler-lab.bsky.social reveals a surprising microbial trade-off: Pseudomonas aeruginosa activates a defense program to survive “speargun” attacks from rival bacteria, but this defense makes it more vulnerable to antibiotics. @unibas.ch @snsf.ch @nccr-antiresist.bsky.social 👇

Creation of new junior research groups at the Institut Pasteur - Call for applications 2026 - Research The Institut Pasteur is launching an international call to recruit new junior research group leaders leveraging cutting-edge transdisciplinary approaches to exploring infectious diseases, host-microbe...

🔬 Call to create junior research groups at the Institut Pasteur

Focus: Infectious diseases, host-microbe interactions, vaccines
Special interest: AI methodologies

📅 Deadline: Feb 9, 2026
👥 2-12 years post-PhD

Apply now 📝 research.pasteur.fr/en/call/crea...

#JobOpportunity #Research

JB Editor's Choice: Panich, Wadhwa et al. describe a new type of motility in Salmonella they refer to as "swashing", which does not appear to require active propulsion.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriology

Structural characterization of the YbbAP-TesA ABC transporter identifies it as a lipid hydrolase complex that extracts hydrophobic compounds from the bacterial inner membrane In E.coli, three of the four Type VII ABC transporter systems have been structurally characterized. This study solves cryo-EM structures of the fourth Type VII ABC system, YbbAP-TesA, and suggests tha...

Type VII ABC transporters underpin many core activities in the bacterial cell envelope - including efflux, cell division and lipoprotein trafficking.

A new paper in PLOS Biology reveals YbbAP-TesA as a novel Type VII system in E. coli.

dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

High frequency body site translocation of nosocomial Pseudomonas aeruginosa - Nature Communications Here, the authors report within-host diversity and body site translocation dynamics in hospital samples of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and reveal that body site sharing was likely due to within-patient tra...

Really pleased to share the first paper to come out of the lab.
We found that hospital patients were frequently colonised with P. aeruginosa and that the same clone was shared between the gut and the lung.
The phylogenies indicate that the clones moved from lung->gut

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

The type VI secretion system and associated effector proteins - Nature Reviews Microbiology In this Review, Basler and colleagues examine the type VI secretion system (T6SS), focusing on the diversity of antibacterial T6SS effectors and the evolutionary forces that shape them. They explain h...

Happy to share our latest T6SS review:
nature.com/articles/s41...

Thank you, Jan, Danny (@dannyjamesward.bsky.social), Joana (@joanampereira.bsky.social), as well as reviewers and editors @natrevmicro.nature.com!

It was powerful to see the many stories of how antibiotics have changed people's lives as part of the Fleming Initiative's takeover of the Piccadilly Lights in London last night. #WAAW2025

This week is World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week and this #ResearchWednesday we wanted to explain why preventing and tackling antimicrobial resistance is so important to people with #cysticfibrosis.

➡️ www.cysticfibrosis.org.uk/news/improvi...

World AMR Awareness Week call to action: Patient and public involvement and engagement to improve impact on antimicrobial resistance – the time to act is now A step change is required in citizen awareness of the global AMR health crisis and, crucially, public involvement in tackling it. The global context presents new challenges but real-world examples show what is possible and an historic moment approaches, that we can leverage for positive action.

This week is World #AntimicrobialResistance Awareness week

To mark the occasion, Dr Scott-Dearing reflects on her @natcomms.nature.com paper published in January, noting the setbacks and progress made in tackling #AMR since

Some #Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains naturally lack the major virulence system T3SS. 🦠 @inaattree.bsky.social & @cbuch.bsky.social labs reveal that avirulent isolates still produce valuable metabolites (e.g. rhamnolipids, elastase, pyoverdine)—making them promising for #biotech use.
buff.ly/JST7ZR1

Bacterial warfare is associated with virulence and antimicrobial resistance - Nature Communications Bacteria employ a range of competition systems that deliver toxins to inhibit competing strains. This study shows that these systems are particularly important for the ecology of virulent and antibiot...

So happy to share this! Bacteriocins were first discovered over 100 years ago, but what do they actually do? We look at >1000 bacteriocin plasmids and find links to virulence and antimicrobial resistance, and frequent bacteriocin sharing in Enterobacteriaceae.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Rare disease research needs a more integrated and collaborative approach.

Next week, experts from across our 4 Translational Centres for Rare Disease, will meet to discuss the year's progress, share knowledge, and discuss the challenges and opportunities to come.

Great kick off meeting for the Precision CF Innovation Hub @imperialnhli.bsky.social @janedaviescf.bsky.social. Awesome talks and a real energy. Thanks to funders @lifearc.bsky.social and @cysticfibrosis.org.uk

New in JB: Bhattacharya, Zhang, & Yu review the current state of knowledge around protein trafficking across the membrane by gram-positive bacteria with a focus on the model organisms Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org
#JBacteriology

Today is #WorldPhageDay! One of our key aims is to advance #phagetherapy, which uses natural viruses called #phage to target bacteria instead of antibiotics. We are working to develop new phage combinations, test the best way of giving them, and ensure the UK can produce phage at medical standards.

Thrilled to share that two of our papers with @jrpenades.bsky.social & GoogleDeepMind
are now out in @cellpress.bsky.social

1️⃣Microbial piracy: tinyurl.com/yvf6t3b3
2️⃣AI co-scientist mirrors experimental science: tinyurl.com/2dym92kj

@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
@imperiallifesci.bsky.social

Please RT! Call for Fellows! If you’re a structural biologist and wanting to start your lab by applying for an external Fellowship then we at Imperial may be excited to host you. Synthetic biologists too.. Please submit expression of interest with details below 🙏

www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperi...

Systematic discovery of antibacterial and antifungal bacterial toxins - Nature Microbiology Genome sequence mining and computational analyses lead to the discovery and functional characterization of conserved bacterial toxins with activity against bacteria and fungi.

Several years of work with several great collaborators, that combined computational biology, molecular microbiology, biochemistry, structural biology and mycology assay culminated in today's publication on discovery of novel bacterial toxins:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...