Come do a PhD with me and @trevor-lithgow.bsky.social at @monashuniversity.bsky.social ! We’re at the leading edge of pathogen biology using cutting edge Cryo-EM and AI-driven genetic screens to uncover the mysteries of outer membrane biology. Reach out to me for a chat!
macsys.org/phd-scholars...
Enjoy all the BBQing from your desk!!
24.01.2026 10:38 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Yay huge congrats Tom and everyone involved!
16.12.2025 09:08 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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)
16.12.2025 02:40 — 👍 42 🔁 18 💬 1 📌 2
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....
And lots more to unpack! Find the preprint here!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵 7/7 Despite this, both SCP1 ParBs behave like canonical CTPase ParBs, and have exquisite DNA-binding specificity for their parS sites, highlighting how these systems can coexist on one plasmid. But, when put to the test, only the ParB1 protein, not the ParB2 protein, contributed to SCP1 stability.
11.12.2025 13:33 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0🧵 6/7 However, the SCP1 ParBs had less conserved CTPase domains, suggesting they may deviate in their ability to bind/hydrolyse CTP. Are both the SCP1 ParBs bona fide ParB partitioning proteins? And moreover, do they actually play a role in maintaining SCP1 in its multicellular Streptomyces host?!
11.12.2025 13:33 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
🧵 5/7 Enter SCP1! It’s a fascinating plasmid for many reasons. Historically, it’s been so important for our understanding of Streptomyces genetics, it encodes an antibiotic biosynthetic gene cluster, it’s linear, but most interestingly of all, it has not one but two type I HTH-ParB systems.
11.12.2025 13:32 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0🧵 4/7 The most common combo was two type I HTH-ParB systems. These systems have a CTP-dependent molecular switch, ParB, which binds CTP through a highly conserved CTPase domain. To investigate how two type I HTH-ParB systems can coexist on a single plasmid, we needed a plasmid to study!
11.12.2025 13:31 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
🧵 3/7 We set out to identify diverse plasmids encoding partition systems and found many plasmids didn’t just have one system, they had multiple! And they often had multiple of the same partition system type. In theory, this could actually disrupt plasmid partition if these systems overlapped!!
11.12.2025 13:30 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
🧵 2/7 But what about their distribution across wider bacterial diversity? And how do these systems maintain plasmids in bacteria that do not divide by binary fission, such as Streptomyces, which have a complex filamentous life cycle?
11.12.2025 13:29 — 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
🧵 1/7 Plasmid partition systems segregate plasmid copies during cell division. There are several evolutionarily distinct partition system types and we understand (relatively) well the distribution of these types and how they function in unicellular bacteria, namely in enterobacteria such as E. coli.
11.12.2025 13:28 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
📄 Delighted to share that the preprint of my main PhD work is out now!
👏 A huge thank you to everyone involved, @tommclean.bsky.social, Govind Chandra, Ngat Tran (both not on BlueSky) and especially my PhD supervisor @tunglejic.bsky.social 👏
🧵 below!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Professor Mark Buttner
NEWS - Professor Mark Buttner receives Marjory Stephenson Prize 2026
Professor Buttner, one of our Emeritus Fellows, has received the @microbiologysociety.org Marjory Stephenson Prize for 2026. Congratulations Mark! 👏
Read about his exceptional research and career: www.jic.ac.uk/news/profess...
Our preprint is now published in PNAS! This came together thanks to a great collaboration with Antoine Hocher and a strong team effort from the Le Lab. Thank you to the reviewers and to everyone who helped improve it. I hope ParB aficionados will enjoy it.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Bacteriologists - save the date for the next BacNet meeting in September 2026 #BacNet26 organised by @lalouxlab.bsky.social
20.11.2025 08:58 — 👍 22 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0
We have a PhD opportunity available in our group @johninnescentre.bsky.social through the NRP Doctoral Training Partnership. Help us uncover the Hidden Diversity of Bacterial NLRs.
Start date: October 2026. For more information and how to apply👉 biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/bey...
new preprint from our group & Antoine Hocher: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A fantastic collaboration with Antoine, with Jovana Kaljevic' initiated the collaboration and drives the project.
Finally published! Many thanks to the reviewers and editor whose comments & suggestions improved this work significantly more than the first preprint version!!!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
1/ Excited to share our latest work on gene transfer agents (GTAs) in Caulobacter crescentus, led by Emma Banks in collaboration with Pavol Bardy and Mai Nguyen from York!!! See a brief thread below.
shorturl.at/o6S1w
