Freya Harrison

Research Associate:Clifton Campus

Interested in bacteriocins targeting Gram-negative bacteria causing UTIs? Come and work with me and PI @davidnegus.bsky.social as a research assistant on a 12-month project, funded by The Urology Foundation. #UTIsky

🧪🦣🏺 Who wants to hear a story about biotech billions, unscientific claims, and shoddy smear tactics attacking women in science*?

Thread 🧵

*which, for legal clarity, are totally denied as being connected

New Microbial Primer published by the @microbiologysociety.org on agr-mediated quorum sensing in Gram-positive pathogens. Explore the full Primer collection here www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/micr...

Outreach and Engagement Grant Eligible members can apply for up to £1000 to support relevant science outreach or public engagement initiatives that engage new audiences in the art and science in any aspect of microbiology.…

Applications for Outreach and Engagement grant are now open. Eligible members can apply for up to £1000 to support science outreach or public engagement initiatives. Check your eligibility and apply before 01 Oct 25 at 23.59 BST. microb.io/OutreachandE....

Four hand-made posters on a wall. Two are about cystic fibrosis, one is about Duchenne muscular dystrophy and one about diagnosis of genetic diseases.

Superb posters from life & health sciences @suttontrust.bsky.social summer school students on their week's work. A pleasure to work with such a bright, motivated and chatty group! #SciComm Thanks to our teaching lab team @warwicklifesci.bsky.social & my co-lead Anthony Lyons @warwickmed.bsky.social

Good luck! 🤞

Today will be fun - I’ll be hosting 16 @suttontrust.bsky.social summer school students at @warwicklifesci.bsky.social for a day of lab work. They’ll be looking at cystic fibrosis lung biopsies with light microscopes, then doing some molecular diagnostics for CF gene mutations.

It is awesome! I missed out on a recent trip to the exhibition that some friends made, it's on my must-see list 💜

#MicroSky job alert: Senior Research Technician in the Mausz Lab at Warwick, on responses of marine microbes to nutrient limitation & environmental changes. warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/appcentre...

If you were alive in the 1980s, this is among the most wonderful & truly incredible things you have ever witnessed in your lifetime.

A badger cranium, three jaw bones and assorted loose teeth.

You know it’s been a great party when the host sends you home with badger bones.

The influence of different SCFM media on the growth of four laboratory H. influenzae strains. Laboratory H. influenzae strains were grown in either SCFM1, SCFM2 or SCFM2.SA alone or supplemented with either FBS or NAD and haemin. (a) Carrying capacity and (b) growth rate were calculated from three independent experiments (demonstrated by different shapes), with the mean and sd shown by the solid circle. Significance was defined as P≤0.05.

Optimizing synthetic cystic fibrosis sputum media for growth of non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae. Find out more in #AccessMicro:
doi.org/10.1099/acmi...

*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...

Folklore needs to be told. It needs to be transmitted. It desires to jump from pub to pub, playground to post office queue. It has a. Intrinsic dislike of stasis, of being trapped in the ink cages of of books. Folklore wants to be in our conversations and in our shivers. - #CLNolan #FolkloreSunday

A shieldbug on a blue cornflower. The bug is a dusty purple colour, and its “shield” is a shiny gold colour. Its antennae have horizontal black and white stripes.

I found the most beautiful shieldbug in the garden yesterday! Opulent purple and gold, accessorised with bold stripes. Apparently it’s a hairy shieldbug.

Proteomic characterization of Aspergillus fumigatus – host interactions using the ex-vivo pig lung (EVPL) model Aspergillus fumigatus is an opportunistic fungal pathogen of the human airway that can cause a variety of chronic infections, typically in the context of pre-existing lung damage. The interaction o...

Delighted to share our latest publication from @medmycology.bsky.social adapting the EVPL model to study A. fumigatus virulence, made possible through collaboration with @friendlymicrobe.bsky.social. Many thanks to @researchireland.ie for funding this work

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

And @aaroncurtismicro.bsky.social is on bluesky so I can tag him! Aaron came to our free workshop on using the EVPL model and our collaboration grew out of that.

The PCA shows clear separation of clusters from infected and uninfected tissue, and a change in proteome over time.

Aaron used cell culture medium in this first experiment, as we wanted to see what was possible re: keeping the host tissue alive. The next big step will be seeing what happens with synthetic CF mucus#MicroSky Image: PCA & clustering of pig proteins at 24-96h pi

New paper! Dual proteomics of Aspergillus fumigatus #infection of ex vivo pig lung. Aaron Curtis & Kevin Kavanagh at Maynooth used fresh (immediately post-slaughter) lungs to show changes in fungal metabolism and host tissue remodelling over 96 hours #MicroSky www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

👍

The bull is my favourite part of this carpet page, he ended up looking so cute. Red ochre ink sketching, with egg tempera / glair mineral paints.

Exclusive: NIH to dismiss dozens of grant reviewers to align with Trump priorities The move would undo years of work, leaving advisory councils understaffed, and without the full expertise needed for reviews.

NEW: In an unprecedented move, the NIH will soon disinvite dozens of scientists about to take positions on advisory councils that make final decisions on grant funding.

NIH staff were told to select others aligned with the Trump administration and told to expect placements by political appointees.

Two women holding certificates and smiling.

The team is killing it at the Warwick Open Research Awards - first and second place in the STEM category to me and @phoebesilva.bsky.social for our open approach work using the ex vivo pig lung model of #CysticFibrosis infection @warwicklifesci.bsky.social #MicroSky

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

Reminder: We're hiring a technician to support pivotal research on using probiotic bacteria to fight #UTI, explored in our human urothelial model system. Work with my friendly team in Bloomsbury, London alongside our great collaborator @gpollara.bsky.social ! #UTISky www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

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...

Gut bacteria have the ability to accumulate PFAs, and the potential to help facilitate PFA excretion by their host: www.nature.com/articles/s41... #MicroSky

Independent Fellowship in Plant-Associated Microbial Interactions | John Innes Centre An exciting opportunity for an Independent Fellowship in Plant-Associated Microbial Interactions has arisen at the John Innes Centre. To read the full job description for this role…

New Independent Fellowship position in Microbiology to launch your lab in our department @johninnescentre.bsky.social (UK). We are conducting a broad search in the area of plant-associated microbial interactions. Message me if you have any questions.

Apply here: www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/in...

I’m not sure tbh 😄

Happy birthday, Tiff! Still hard as nails 😄

How to grow shrubs by Christoph — Exactly eight years ago today, we introduced you to the 'Hedgehogs In Your Garden'. No, we had not turned our backs on the Small Things and became gardeners instead. Again today, it is ...

...and also of their subsequent study, in which they show how 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘯𝘦𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘮 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘶­𝘤𝘩𝘰­𝘵𝘪𝘪 lays the foundation for the shrubs.

schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2...

@jmarkwelch.bsky.social showing one of the most visually and scientifically beautiful images in microbiology: a microbiome “hedgehog” in dental plaque
(Just made it to KCL #Biofilm hub symposium in time to hear this talk 😮) #MicroSky