Maggie Smith

Great to see this is out now. Congratulations to all the authors.

Thanks Emm. I saw a draft. Good to see it’s out there!

Alison Smith, Author and Emeritus Fellow at the John Innes Centre said, “We were inspired to write this book by the stimulating, creative and supportive environment provided by our JIC and TSL colleagues. It is intended to provide a new generation of plant scientists with an appreciation of the wealth and breadth of radically new knowledge and technologies in plant science. The book also reveals some of the exciting opportunities for fundamental discovery and innovation in plant science to help tackle global challenges including sustainable food production, environmental pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss.”

📢 New plant science textbook

Staff and alumni from our institute and @thesainsburylab.bsky.social have recently published Essential Plant Biology, a new textbook presenting current and comprehensive knowledge of plant biology 🌱

Our latest CRISPR ring nuclease paper focusses on Csx15 - which seems to act as of a sponge as well as a canonical phosphodiesterase. Great work led by @haotianchi.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Catch this if you can! Highly recommended.

Medieval Myths Bingo There is so much “fake history” going around about the Medieval Era that I decided to write this article and create this; There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about “The&#8…

Here's just a few about the middle ages...
fakehistoryhunter.net/2019/09/10/m...

Congratulations Mike! Well deserved. 👏👏👏

Manchester Institute of Biotechnology is looking for a new Professor. There are a few priority areas including microbial engineering (broadly defined, from pathways to cells to microbiomes). Closing 12 Jan.
Join us in the best city in the UK 😜
www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

So happy to see Mark recognised for his incredible work. Over a ~40 year career he and his group discovered ECF sigma factors, characterised many key developmental regulators of the Streptomyces lifecycle, and identified new mechanisms of bacterial gene regulation, antibiotic action and resistance.

Highlights from our recent participation!

Members of the Multi-Defence Consortium presented both talks and posters on phage defence systems — showcasing exciting progress across the field.

Great discussions, great science, and we’re excited to share more soon!
#MicroEvo25

Congratulations to all the Microbiology Society Prize winners!

Congratulations!

Exciting news! I have two positions open in my lab at the UoManchester: one PDRA and one Research Tech.
Join our team to study evolutionary mycology and help us understand antifungal resistance in fungal pathogens. A fantastic opportunity to join the brilliant Manchester Fungal Infection Group!

Improved LSRs for integrating DNA into the human genome. Great work!

Thanks Emm! Very interesting read! And soooo much work! Good to see progress on efficiency and specificity of LSRs as genome integration tools.

All the world’s a phage | PNAS A renewed interest in bacteriophages has emerged from the explosive discovery of the complex pan-immune bacterial defense system and a revival of t...

#microsky #phagesky
Mycobacterium #phage review by Graham Hatfull covering the state of the art

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

R.I.P Hamilton Smith, 1978 Nobel Laureate for the discovery of type II restriction-modification systems (HindII).

Expanding the Landscape of BREX Diversity: Uncovering Multi-Layered Functional Frameworks and Identification of Novel BREX-Related Defense Systems Despite extensive scrutiny of BREX systems, several overarching questions persist regarding the functional modalities of individual components and the collective mechanistic framework underlying their...

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

#phagesky on BREX #phage defence

CHRIS ADDISON'S INCOMPLETE GUIDE TO CHAMBER MUSIC CHRIS ADDISON'S INCOMPLETE GUIDE TO CHAMBER MUSIC - Music in the Round %

TONIGHT! Come along if you’re within reach of Sheffield and/or on a mercy dash from the south to get some Hendo’s. This is going to be fab. I’m (a) super excited; (b) on my way!

musicintheround.co.uk/events/chris...

Thanks Sheffield, that was a super fun evening!

This was really fun. See it if you can.

VOM-UK Conferences - NU-OMICS Viruses of Microbes UK (VoM-UK) Conference The Virus of Microbes UK (VoM-UK) Conference is hosted by Microbiome Excellence Peak of Excellence at Northumbria University. This two-day conference takes place annually at the end of January/beginning of February and is a chance for researchers to gather and share their knowledge. The VoM-UK conference is designed to […]

hosting.northumbria.ac.uk/nu-omics/vom...

#phagesky #phage #microsky

Come and join us for Viruses of Microbes UK 2026 at @northumbriauni.bsky.social ! Fantastic chance for ECRs to showcase their work 🙂

Huge congratulations to Emma Davis, the winner of 2025's Early Career Microbiologist of the Year prize! We agree with Emma that all of the finalists' talks were brilliant and a massive well done to everyone involved!

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

Congratulations! Good choice by REF.

Prophages block cell surface receptors to preserve their viral progeny - Nature Zip promotes the accumulation of free phages in bacterial lysogen communities, safeguarding phage progeny.

Nature research paper: Prophages block cell surface receptors to preserve their viral progeny

go.nature.com/3IwINxb

Ouch! Wishing a fast recovery!

My humble offering: Evolutionary relationships among diverse bacteriophages and prophages: all the world's a phage pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10051617/

Happy Birthday, mucker!! I hope you have a lovely day. You too Geertje!!

Super proud of amazing lab alumnus @mbottery.bsky.social who has been awarded a prestigious @wellcometrust.bsky.social fellowship to grow his lab @officialuom.bsky.social studying the evolution of fungal pathogens!

Mike has multiple postdoc positions available on his exciting project (details 👇)