Ronan McCarthy

Advancing urinary tract infection treatment through on-chip technological innovation at University of Southampton on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Advancing urinary tract infection treatment through on-chip technological innovation at University of Southampton, listed on FindAPhD.com

PhD Opportunity: Advance UTI treatment with on-chip tech! 🔬🧫
Work at the microbiology-bioengineering interface with Hywel Morgan, @fnobrega.bsky.social and me.
Program EPSRC/MOD CISDnS CDT cisdns-cdt.ac.uk
Co-funded by IfLS Southampton
tinyurl.com/infoUTI
tinyurl.com/applyUTI
Deadline: 8 Dec 2025

Powering team science to unlock life’s secrets Four world-class teams awarded major BBSRC sLoLa grants to push the frontiers of discovery in microbiology, photosynthesis, gene regulation and quantum biology.

Really excited to say that we have been awarded a BBSRC sLola! Really looking forward to kick off this project with such a fantastic team! @webberma.bsky.social @overtonlab.bsky.social @bugsinblood.bsky.social Sara Jabbari, Dong-Hyun Kim @imibirmingham.bsky.social www.ukri.org/news/powerin...

Amazing news, congratulations!

Deaths linked to antibiotic-resistant superbugs rose 17% in England in 2024 Data also shows an average of nearly 400 newly reported cases of antibiotic-resistant infections a week last year

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

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...

MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Hiding in plain sight: How multi-drug resistant pathogens evade detection and killing by human neutrophils at Newcastle University on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Hiding in plain sight: How multi-drug resistant pathogens evade detection and killing by human neutrophils at Newcastle University, listed on Fin...

If you are interested in researching how drug resistant bacteria evade killing by our immune system, them this PhD project is for you. Come join the our team at Newcastle, in collaboration with University of Liverpool, and lead research at the interface of microbiology, immunology and metabolomics.

Paul Nurse describing the main job of a PI

(From ‘The Thinking Game’, 2024)

the @ukbiofilms.bsky.social I will be advertising several positions for my lab over the next few weeks/months so please do get in touch

I'm delighted to share that I have joined the School of Biological Sciences at @unisouthampton.bsky.social as Professor in Microbial Biofilms. I'm very excited about this next step in my academic journey and the opportunity to work more closely with all the great scientists at Southampton and

Antibiotic Resistance and Mechanisms (ARM) Workshop for Researchers 2025 - The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

Join us in Birmingham for the annual BSAC #AntibioticResistance & Mechanisms workshop - excellent talks and it’s designed to make conversation & networking between attendees easy #MicroSky bsac.org.uk/antibiotic-r...

📝 Call for abstracts is open for #ACC2026!

Researchers are invited to share their work on #AMR for short talks or poster presentations.

💡 Themes: child & maternal health, stewardship & access, clinical research, AI in health & more.

⏳ Deadline: 14 Nov 2025, 17:00 GMT
🔗 acc-conference.com#posters

Now published! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very nice collaboration with Hoogenboom ( @ucl.ac.uk ) and Bonev ( @uniofnottingham.bsky.social ) labs.

Delighted to share that Lyuboslava Harkova passed her PhD viva today with only minor corrections. Her thesis focused on virulence regulation in Acinetobacter baumannii. Special thanks to Prof Jake Malone and Dr Ayca Sayi Yazgan for being fantastic examiners

Delighted to share that @evgeniamaslova.bsky.social passed her PhD viva today with only minor corrections. Her project focused on novel models to study wound infection. Thank you to the @nc3rs.bsky.social for funding her PhD and @flamycain.bsky.social and Anthony Tsolaki for being superb examiners.

Cyclic-di-GMP signalling mutants drive ecological succession and self-generated diversity in experimentally evolved biofilms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilms represent a discrete form of microbial life which are physiologically distinct from free-living planktonic cells. The altered phenotypic manifestations of the biofilm may also elicit lifestyl...

Cyclic-di-GMP signalling mutants drive ecological succession and self-generated diversity in experimentally evolved biofilms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Microbiology from @webberma.bsky.social

www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Massive congratulations!

Cyclic-di-GMP signalling mutants drive ecological succession and self-generated diversity in experimentally evolved biofilms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilms represent a discrete form of microbial life which are physiologically distinct from free-living planktonic cells. The altered phenotypic manifestations of the biofilm may also elicit lifestyl...

New paper alert! Serial selection for hyper-biofilm production identifies c-di-GMP as central to genetic control and phenotypic dynamics. @microbiologysociety.org @webberma.bsky.social www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Delighted to announce the launch of the BBSRC-funded UK-wide microbiome innovation network Microbiome-Net.

I'm looking forward to representing and furthering the East Midlands Microbiome Research Network's contributions to research, innovation and policy.

www.liverpool.ac.uk/microbiome-i...

Uridine as a potentiator of aminoglycosides through activation of carbohydrate transporters Uridine boosts aminoglycoside treatment efficiency against antibiotic-susceptible as well as antibiotic-resistant E. coli strains.

So excited our antibiotic potentiation story is out 🤩 Led by the extraordinary @manonlang.bsky.social with @fox-science.bsky.social & @amazeld.bsky.social +amazing collaborators @immunobladder.bsky.social @imaneelmeouche.bsky.social 🦠 We believe it can make a difference in #AMR infections!

Delighted with our new paper on a novel itaconate transporter in the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, led by Javeria and Reyme. @ybri-uoy.bsky.social @javeriamehboob.bsky.social @bethkw.bsky.social A duplicated transporter on its way to itaconate selectivity
portlandpress.com/biochemj/art...

Sub-cellular chemical mapping in bacteria using correlated cryogenic electron and mass spectrometry imaging

Congrats Hannah Ochner and authors on this important paper! Strong collaboration with @kiranrpatil.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
@mrclmb.bsky.social @wellcometrust.bsky.social

Small molecule inhibitors of the NorA multidrug efflux pump potentiate antibiotic activity by binding the outward-open conformation Antibiotic resistance is among the greatest threats of the modern era. Multidrug efflux pumps expel antibiotics from bacterial cells and present a particular challenge by conferring resistance to a br...

New preprint from the lab, in collaboration with Ed Tate, Nate Traaseth and many others!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Check out the first preprint from our lab describing a direct molecular cross-talk between (p)ppGpp and c-di-GMP nucleotide messengers! Great work from first-author Corentin Jaboulay who was a postdoc in our lab, and great collaborations! @mmsb-lyon.bsky.social @cnrsbiologie.bsky.social

New paper out!

The evolutionary replacement of restriction-modification by Ssp antiviral systems is associated with the distribution of prophages in the major clonal group of Acinetobacter baumannii | mBio Acinetobacter baumannii is a bacterium of great concern in clinical contexts due to the plasticity of its genome and its resistance to antibiotics. Its cells are infected by a multitude of bacteriophages, and the bacterium defends itself with dozens of ...

Today, our UPOBioinfo group presents the defensome of Acinetobacter baumannii.
Do you know about its concerning Global Clone 2? Well, part of its success could be due to the replacement of restriction-modification systems by Ssp antiviral systems.

A family of linear plasmid phages that detect a quorum-sensing autoinducer exists in multiple bacterial species Temperate phages oscillate between lysogeny, a genomic maintenance state within a bacterial host, and lytic replication, in which the host is killed, and newly made phage particles are released. Successful transmission to new hosts requires that temperate phages appropriately time their transitions from lysogeny to lysis. It is well understood that temperate phages trigger lysis upon detection of host cell stress. Understanding of the breadth of cues that induce lysis expanded with the discovery of phages carrying quorum-sensing receptor genes that promote lytic induction exclusively at high host cell density. Bacteria engage in a cell-cell communication process called quorum sensing, which relies on the production, release, accumulation, and group-wide detection of extracellular signal molecules called autoinducers. Bacteria use quorum sensing to monitor changes in population density and synchronize collective behaviors. The temperate phage VP882 (jVP882) encodes VqmAj – a homolog of its host’s quorum-sensing receptor/transcription factor VqmA. VqmAj allows jVP882 to detect the accumulation of the host autoinducer called DPO. Presumably, launching the lytic induction program at high host cell density maximizes jVP882 transmission to new hosts. Here, by mining sequence databases for linear plasmid phages, we identify VP882-like phages in multiple DPO-producing bacterial species isolated at diverse times and geographic locations. We show that the VqmAj homologs can indeed detect DPO and, in response, activate the lytic pathway. Our observation indicates that jVP882 is a member of a large family of globally-dispersed quorum-sensing-responsive temperate phages.

A family of linear plasmid phages that detect a quorum-sensing autoinducer exists in multiple bacterial species | bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.30.667625v1?rss=1

Kiwa is a membrane-embedded defense supercomplex activated at phage attachment sites Zhang, Todeschini, and Wu et al. show that the bacterial defense system Kiwa senses phage attachment at the membrane and assembles a transmembrane complex that halts infection by blocking phage DNA re...

Thrilled to see our Kiwa story out today! A membrane-associated supercomplex that senses infection and blocks replication and transcription.

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Huge congratulations to Yi and Zhiying for bringing it home, to Thomas for starting us off, and to all the collaborators.

*JOB AD*: interested in doing a postdoc in microbial metabolomics? Passionate about natural products mass spec?

Come join the group! Informal enquires welcome!

Closing Date: 19 August 2025

jobs.ncl.ac.uk/job/Newcastl...

Human gut bacteria bioaccumulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances - Nature Microbiology Human gut bacteria bioaccumulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly known as forever chemicals, in intracellular aggregates. Colonization of gnotobiotic mice with bioaccumulating bac...

#NewResearch

🚨Out now!

Human gut bacteria bioaccumulate forever chemicals, in intracellular aggregates and colonization of gnotobiotic mice with these bioaccumulating bacteria increases faecal PFAS excretion. @kiranrpatil.bsky.social

#MicroSky #MicrobiomeSky 🦠

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

Phage therapy: I found a bacteria-eating virus in my loo It's hoped phages could give us new ways of treating infections which are immune to antibiotics.

We’re excited to bring the @phagecollection.bsky.social to #SummerScience at @royalsociety.org next week.

Big thanks to James Gallagher for covering the project in the BBC
Read more here: www.bbc.com/news/article...

Hope to see some of you there! #PhageTherapy #AMR #OpenScience