Ainsley Beaton

The 2026 Barkley Marathons began with one of the strongest fields ever. The starting field came from 15 Counties as well as 15 States, and included ten women. The course seemed not to care. Over 70% of the field is done. #BM100

The world’s first fully 3D-printed microscope blew up in 2025 A microscope that cost less than £50 and took under 3 hours to build using a common 3D printer could be transformative for students and researchers with limited funding

A microscope that cost less than £50 and took under 3 hours to build using a common 3D printer could be transformative for students and researchers with limited funding

Exceptional young performers reached their peak quickly but narrowly mastered only one interest.

By contrast, exceptional adults reached peak performance gradually with broader, multidisciplinary practice.

However, elite programs are designed to nurture younger talent.

MtrAB activates ectoine production and triggers sporulation in response to osmotic stress in Streptomyces venezuelae The MtrAB two-component system is a master regulator of antibiotic biosynthesis in Streptomyces species. MtrA is also required for sporulation under certain growth conditions, which means that on some...

New preprint. Work led by @ainsley-beaton.bsky.social & Rebecca Devine.

They show the highly conserved Streptomyces MtrAB two component system activates ectoine production and triggers sporulation in response to osmotic stress in Streptomyces venezuelae

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

bioRxiv by @ainsley-beaton.bsky.social from @matthutchings.bsky.social on the role of MtrAB in Streptomyces venezuelae

Delighted to see the main work from my PhD finally published in @mbio.bsky.social! It all started with the observation that deleting the cutRS two-component system in S. venezuelae caused this amazing explorer phenotype in the presence of glucose. But what was going on?! (1/n)

It is an even tighter turnaround if knowing whether or not you are presenting at the conference is important, since that information isn't available yet. As you say, it is great that the grants exist, but the timings for AC-related things this year have been a bit tricky

Very happy to see this remarkable work published. Led by @tommclean.bsky.social and @ainsley-beaton.bsky.social. We show how Streptomyces bacteria sense & respond to misfolded secreted proteins. A great collaboration with @barriewilks.bsky.social

#microsky

1/2

journals.asm.org/doi/epub/10....

PhD opportunity to come and work in Glasgow, developing advanced tissue culture models to study Staphylococcus aureus colonisation and infection #microsky #PhD #DTPprogram

Enquiries from potential applicants are welcome.

www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate...

www.findaphd.com/phds/program...

It can only be a last day when there are this number of primers in the bin

Don’t know why I’d never thought of a commute coffee before now

It’s more like a “Ainsley can’t be trusted to carry things” trolly. But aye, it’s really good. It has baskets that you can use as well. Very handy. Can’t fit a lot of plates. It also folds. 10/10

Two in one day really is ridiculous. I don’t think I’ve ever had this many glassware breakages in a year before never mind a day!

8 am on a Monday. Do I just go home?

Were you wearing the same jumper though?

After a great week at #microbio25 I’m set up on the train with a good book and a coffee which is the perfect way to travel 📚. That’s if the last few nights of missing my 9pm bed time in favour of the pub don’t mean that I immediately fall asleep 🤣

@liam-rooney.bsky.social gave an incredibly interesting talk about novel imaging techniques for infection biology and that’s great BUT look at the tiny wee sad face inside this digitally cross sectioned and optically clear galleria is! It looks like how I feel in the mornings

What do you like more, the jumper or the GUS assay data?

And so begins a very long train journey from Norwich to Liverpool via every stop in between for Microsoc 2025

Why one Glaswegian is marketing SPF to Scotland's wettest city Meet the 30-year-old entrepreneur behind dussl, the Glasgow skincare brand selling sunscreen to the UK city where it rains nearly 200 days a year.

dussl's making headlines! 🌞

Why one Glaswegian is marketing SPF to Scotland's wettest city.

heraldscotland.com/news/25028013.one-glaswegian-marketing-spf-scotlands-wettest-city/?ref=li

Extracellular redox sensors control the protein secretion stress response in Streptomyces Translocating unfolded polypeptides across membranes is essential in all domains of life and in bacteria requires the conserved Sec machinery and ATP. Bacterial Sec substrates fold outside the cell an...

Very happy to share this work led by @tommclean.bsky.social and @ainsley-beaton.bsky.social. The conserved Streptomyces sensor kinase CutS senses disulphide bond formation outside the cell. If it fails CutS activates CutR which switches on production of foldase HtrA3

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

Further insight into how CutRS functions in Streptomyces and some thoughts on how its redox state detection via conserved dual cysteine residues in the extra cellular domain of a sensor kinase may be present in almost all bacteria
@tommclean.bsky.social
@matthutchings.bsky.social

Redox control of antibiotic biosynthesis Streptomyces bacteria make diverse specialised metabolites that form the basis of ~55% of clinically used antibiotics. Despite this, only 3% of their encoded specialised metabolites have been matched ...

Redox control of antibiotic biosynthesis in Streptomyces.

Remarkable work led by @katienoble241.bsky.social and Rebecca Devine demonstrates why antibiotic biosynthesis is often switched on in solid cultures and off in liquid.

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

There are some signs near the pond that can be opened during toad crossing times but most people don’t seem to pay much attention to them. The stars and Dougs’ head torch looked cool in this picture of it though

Also got a fun snap of these frogs tonight too!
In the past I’ve have only seen one or two frogs per evening so finding 8 tonight was a bit of a surprise

First #toadwatch of the season and it was busy! 28 toads and 8 frogs were given a lift to the pond 🐸
Toads return to the pond they spawned in each year to breed, often covering great distances to do so. Due to habitat fragmentation they are increasingly killed by cars whilst on their journey

It’s official @tommclean.bsky.social and I have peaked in terms of our scientific writing 📄

😂

It’s not as useful as you might think, the amount of money spent on pipettes is astronomical