Jose L. Balcazar

Uncovering the hidden risks of microplastics in the food chain Microplastics pose hidden risks to the food chain by acting as vehicles for microbial colonization. The plastisphere may facilitate pathogen transfer through seafood, agricultural products, and food processing, raising major concerns for food safety. Standardized methodologies, stronger regulations, and further research are urgently needed to address these emerging risks.

Uncovering the hidden risks of microplastics in the food chain

#Notadepremsa
Investigadors del
@ctbeta.cat, la @univgirona.bsky.social i l’ICRA-CERCA han desenvolupat un reactor basat en biofilms i plàncton que millora de manera notable la qualitat de l’aigua en depuradores petites.

📄 Pots llegir tots els detalls aquí👉 icra.cat/noticia/un-r...

Plásticos biodegradables: ¿solución ecológica o nuevo problema sanitario? - Newsweek en Español los plásticos biodegradables se han consolidado como una alternativa “ecológica” frente a los plásticos convencionales...

Plásticos biodegradables: ¿solución ecológica o nuevo problema sanitario? @icrawater.bsky.social

newsweekespanol.com/2025/07/22/p...

Integrating comparative genomics and risk classification by assessing virulence, antimicrobial resistance, and plasmid spread in microbial communities with gSpreadComp. #Genomics #MicrobialGenomics #AMR @gigascience.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/gigascience/...

Major UK project to tackle AMR closed by aid cuts Government shutters major UK aid programme to tackle antimicrobial resistance

📉 The UK once led the global fight against #AMR.

Cutting The Fleming Fund undermines years of progress, weakens health systems worldwide — and puts UK health at risk.

We need renewed leadership, not retreat. 👇

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

Antihistamines' disturbance of the gut microbiome, contributing to susceptibility to GI infection! 😱
#IDSky #ClinMicro #AMR 🧪

Global emergence and transmission dynamics of carbapenemase-producing Citrobacter freundii sequence type 22 high-risk international clone: a retrospective, genomic, epidemiological study Our study provides evidence to suggest that Citrobacter species are emerging carriers of carbapenem-resistance genes. These findings provide insight into the population structure of CPC species and hi...

Citrobacter freundii ain't ever been a friend of ours... now becoming even more hostile!
#IDSky #ClinMicro #AMR #MedSky
@lancetmicrobe.bsky.social

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Superbugs could kill millions more and cost $2tn a year by 2050, models show Exclusive: Research on burden of antibiotic resistance for 122 countries predicts dire economic and health outcomes

🧬 Superbugs could cost $2 trillion a year by 2050

New modelling shows antibiotic-resistant infections could kill millions more and slash global GDP by $1.7 trillion annually, unless action is taken now.

Cutting aid may worsen the crisis.

🔗 www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

#SciComm #AMR 🧪

ProtPhage: a deep learning framework for phage viral protein identification and functional annotation. #PhageProteins #FunctionalAnnotation #DeepLearning #Phages #Bioinformatics 🧬 🖥️
academic.oup.com/bib/article/...

Viruses of Microbes 2026 | July 6-10 in Prague, Czech Republic The Viruses of Microbes (VoM) 2026 conference is the world’s leading event for research on viruses of microorganisms, including bacteriophages, archaeal viruses, and viruses of microbial eukaryotes.

Note this down! www.vom2026.org
#viruses, #bacteria, #mycoviruses, #microbes, #phages, #archaea, #RNA, #evolution, #bioinformatics, #biocontrol, #ecology

Highly stable bacteriophages PIN1 and PIN2 have hallmarks of flagellotropic phages but infect immotile bacteria npj Viruses - Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that kill bacteria, with potential as antibacterial agents in industrial settings, agriculture, and human health. Here, we identified two phages,...

Because of the forces they have to withstand being whizzed around on #flagellae, flagellotropic #phages are super stable. It turns out that the same super-stability remains long after you adapt to a host bacterium without a #flagellum

rdcu.be/ewnzT

Caught in the crossfire: How phages spread Salmonella virulence genes A global study uncovers the hidden role of viruses in driving bacterial evolution and highlights a surprising bacterial gene that helps fight back.

Phages play a key role in spreading virulence genes among Salmonella, while a bacterial gene, csrA, can limit this process, offering new insights for safer phage therapies and food safety strategies. doi.org/g9k9d9

Interactions and evolutionary relationships among bacterial mobile genetic elements Nature Reviews Microbiology, Published online: 11 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41579-025-01157-yIn this Review, Lang and colleagues present an overview of the current knowledge landscape regarding mobile genetic elements in bacteria, with a focus on their…

New online! Interactions and evolutionary relationships among bacterial mobile genetic elements

New postdoc position in our lab (2 y+): evolutionary genomics of integrons and MGEs with focus on vibrio-phage interactions. Great environment @pasteur.fr for science, career building. Super collaborators @celineloot.bsky.social @amazeld.bsky.social @fredoleroux.bsky.social 3 weeks to apply!

La plastisfera: una amenaza emergente para el medioambiente y la salud pública Los desechos plásticos y los microorganismos que los colonizan componen un nuevo ecosistema que puede ser crítico para la aparición de patógenos y resistencias antimicrobianas.

La plastisfera: una amenaza emergente para el medioambiente y la salud pública
theconversation.com/la-plastisfe...

Genetics, ecology and evolution of phage satellites Nature Reviews Microbiology - In this Review, Penadés et al. explore the genetics, potential origins and life cycle of phage satellites, and they discuss the impact of these elements on the...

If you are interested in phage satellites, we hope you'll enjoy this. Fun collaboration with the Rocha, Seed, Bikard, and Chen labs! rdcu.be/efkvG

Pangenomes suggest ecological-evolutionary responses to experimental soil warming journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs

Limitations of sequence dissimilarity as a predictor of prokaryotic lineage royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs

MicrobeRX: a tool for enzymatic-reaction-based metabolite prediction in the gut microbiome - Microbiome Background The gut microbiome functions as a metabolic organ, producing numerous enzymes that influence host health; however, their substrates and metabolites remain largely unknown. Results We presen...

MicrobeRX: a tool for enzymatic-reaction-based metabolite prediction in the gut microbiome microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... #jcampubs

NanoASV: a snakemake workflow for reproducible field-based Nanopore full length 16S Metabarcoding amplicon data analysis academic.oup.com/bioinformati... #jcampubs

Addressing the dynamic nature of reference data: a new nucleotide database for robust metagenomic classification journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs

Horizontal transfer of bacterial operons into eukaryote genomes academic.oup.com/gbe/advance-... #jcampubs

Antimicrobial resistance in Europe Resistance of Salmonella and E. coli in food, animals and humans. Explore data country by country.

🔬 Discover the latest in #AMR monitoring with our interactive data tools!

Explore our data viz, story maps and dashboards for E. coli, Campylobacter, Salmonella, & MRSA

Check resistance levels in humans, animals, and food – country by country for 2022-2023

Check it out here → europa.eu/!63cF6p

El 2007 érem 2 dones, i avui som 46 en un equip en creixement d’aproximadament 100 persones. 👩‍🔬💪

Aquest canvi és una mostra de l’esforç, el talent i la dedicació de totes les dones que formem part de l’equip d’ICRA.

Feliç Dia Internacional de la Dona 💟 #8M

Phage interactions may contribute to the population structure and dynamics of hydrothermal vent microbial symbionts www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #jcampubs

Evaluation of Metagenome Binning: Advances and Challenges www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #jcampubs

mettannotator: a comprehensive and scalable Nextflow annotation pipeline for prokaryotic assemblies AbstractSummary. In recent years, there has been a surge in prokaryotic genome assemblies, coming from both isolated organisms and environmental samples. T

mettannotator: a comprehensive and scalable Nextflow annotation pipeline for prokaryotic assemblies academic.oup.com/bioinformati... #jcampubs

Viroid-like “obelisk” agents are widespread in the ocean and exceed the abundance of RNA viruses in the prokaryotic fraction academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #jcampubs

Polyphosphate: The “Dark Matter” of Bacterial Chromatin Structure Polyphosphate condensates and their contributions to nucleoid structure. Polyphosphate condensates form in the ribosome-depleted nucleoid region of bacterial cells, particularly under stress (in this...

Polyphosphate: The “Dark Matter” of Bacterial Chromatin Structure onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #jcampubs

De novo genome hybrid assembly and annotation of the endangered and euryhaline fish Aphanius iberus (Valenciennes, 1846) with identification of genes potentially involved in salinity adaptation - BMC ... Background The sequencing of non-model species has increased exponentially in recent years, largely due to the advent of novel sequencing technologies. In this study, we construct the Reference Genome...

New @mncn-csic.bsky.social @csic.es #Proyecto_Aphanius publication:
doi.org/10.1186/s128...