Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Wellcome Connecting Science Learning and Training @eventswcs.bsky.social · 13d

Showcase advances in infection and respiratory immunology at our 2026 conference!

Share your insights on respiratory infection, host-microbiome interactions, and immune cell dynamics with field leaders.

🗓️ #AIR2026 dates: 11-13 February
📩 Submit an abstract by 17 November

📎 bit.ly/46T6uJB

AIR: Genomic and Systems Approaches to Respiratory Infection, Microbiomes and Immunity
Dates: 11-13 February 2026
Location: Hinxton Hall Conference Centre, UK, and online,

Bursary application deadline: 3 November 2025
Abstract submission deadline: 17 November 2025
In-person registration deadline: 12 January 2026

1 2

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Dr Claire Smith @drclairesmith.bsky.social · 7d

Interested in respiratory infections? who isn't! Then register for this fab conference with a fantastic line-up of speakers and sessions @sangerinstitute.bsky.social Abstract submission open until 17th Nov!! @eventswcs.bsky.social

coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/air-20...

1 3 4

Josie Bryant @josiebryant.bsky.social · 7d

featuring @duncan-ng.bsky.social @pathogenomenick.bsky.social @emmanuel-saliba.bsky.social @resp-micro.bsky.social @asthmaandlung.org.uk @ewanharrison.bsky.social @ryanthwaites.bsky.social and many many more I can't find on bluesky

1 1

Josie Bryant @josiebryant.bsky.social · 7d

New respiratory 🫁 infection and microbiomes conference in Hinxton with stellar line up of speakers.

🚨 Submit your abstracts now! 🚨

Please RT

coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/air-20...

AIR 2026: Genomic and Systems Approaches to Respiratory Infection, Microbiomes and Immunity — 20260211

Course exploring how genomics, microbiome profiling, and systems biology reshape our understanding of respiratory infections and immune dynamics.

coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org

3 9 13

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Alan McNally @alanmcn1.bsky.social · 8d

After being with the journal since its very inception, the time has come for me to step back from Microbial Genomics. This is a wonderful opportunity to have a leadership role in one of the leading journals for microbial genomics research

microbiologysociety.org/news/society...

<i>Microbial Genomics </i> Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Call for Expressions of interest

microbiologysociety.org

1 24 26

Reposted by Josie Bryant

James Hell Brooks @kleinman.bsky.social · 13d

RIP Jane Goodall, by all accounts a wonderful woman who loved this Far Side cartoon

27 730 3.2K

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Conor (Conchúr) Meehan @conmeehan.bsky.social · 14d

BBSRC Fellowships 2025 Triage Outcome Decisions were today. 277 applications, 42 put through to peer review and interview. A fellow I was supporting didn't get selected and BBSRC now offer *no feedback*.
Months of work and not a single iota of feedback for the applicant. Honestly, disgraceful.

1 2 1

Josie Bryant @josiebryant.bsky.social · 14d

Proud to see my lab's work on M. tuberculosis and P. aeruginosa highlighted in this blog post

Mat Beale @typemat12.bsky.social · 14d

sangerinstitute.blog/2025/10/01/t... @sangerinstitute.bsky.social #microsky

Ten ways the Sanger Institute is tackling the global fight against AMR - Wellcome Sanger Institute Blog

Our scientists and collaborators are working together to tackle one of the biggest public health threats: antimicrobial resistance. We are using cutting-edge genomics to hunt down drug-resistant micro...

sangerinstitute.blog

1 7

Reposted by Josie Bryant

John Lees @bacpop.org · 16d

Now published, our tool to run (almost) all biological models interactively in your web browser

Paper: academic.oup.com/bioinformati...
Website: biomodels.bacpop.org
Code: github.com/bacpop/SBMLt...

1 10 18

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Zeynep Baharoglu @zeynepbaharoglu.bsky.social · 19d

Synthetic lethal TN-seq! #microsky 🦠

Sarah Svensson @campy-bara.bsky.social · 19d

Dual transposon sequencing profiles the genetic interaction landscape in bacteria | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Dual transposon sequencing profiles the genetic interaction landscape in bacteria

Gene redundancy complicates systematic characterization of gene function as single-gene deletions may not produce discernible phenotypes. We report dual transposon sequencing (dual Tn-seq), a platform...

www.science.org

5 7

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Zamin Iqbal @zaminiqbal.bsky.social · 19d

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols.
Thread 1/n

14 150 300

Josie Bryant @josiebryant.bsky.social · 19d

Congratulations zam! Great to see this out

1

Reposted by Josie Bryant

KamilSJaron.bsky.social @kamilsjaron.bsky.social · 27d

It's that time of the year again... Soon the applications for 12 PhD positions at @sangerinstitute.bsky.social will open. Interested in genomics and thinking about doing a PhD? Join us at Sanger. www.sanger.ac.uk/about/study/...

4-Year PhD Programme

The Wellcome Sanger Institute have a 4-year PhD programme and a Clinical PhD programme in genomics and genetics, registered with the University of Cambridge, which are open to UK and overseas applican...

www.sanger.ac.uk

10 7

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Hall Lab @halllab.bsky.social · Sep 11

Excited to share our @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social led by Magda showing how Bif has co-evolved with different animal hosts 🐒🐭🐷🐦

Key takeaways:
🔹 Host ancestry + diet shape Bif evolution
🔹 Mammals enriched for carb-busting enzymes
🔹 Untapped diversity in non-human hosts = new probiotic potential

Cell Host & Microbe @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social · Sep 11

Bifido adaptations across hosts

@halllab.bsky.social survey insects, reptiles, birds & mammals to uncover how Bifidobacterium adapts to hosts. Bifidobacterium & host exhibit strong co-phylogenetic associations, driven by vertical transmission & dietary selection
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Host-specific microbiome and genomic signatures in Bifidobacterium reveal co-evolutionary and functional adaptations across diverse animal hosts

Bifidobacterium are beneficial members of the microbiota across animal hosts. Kujawska et al. demonstrate that bifidobacteria have likely co-evolved more closely with mammals, particularly primates, a...

www.cell.com

24 51

Josie Bryant @josiebryant.bsky.social · Aug 20

Closing soon. Great opportunity to do spatial transcriptomics on pre-antibiotic TB

Josie Bryant @josiebryant.bsky.social · Jul 16

⭐ Excellence fellowships accepting applications ⭐ for Black ECRs who have a degree from the UK. sanger.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Wellco...
I have an amazing spatial transcriptomics project available on the world's most important pathogen, TB: www.sanger.ac.uk/wp-content/u...
Please reach out!

www.sanger.ac.uk

5

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Kate Baker @ksbakes.bsky.social · Jul 31

Was great to put the dream team back together for a commentary on this with @alisonmather.bsky.social very cool study on AMR flow through food production chains in Europe www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1 8 20

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Nicola Lorè @nicolaivan.bsky.social · Jul 31

Super interesting. Does it work for NTM?

Nature @nature.com · Jul 31

Nature research paper: SuFEx-based antitubercular compound irreversibly inhibits Pks13

go.nature.com/40JdOnN

SuFEx-based antitubercular compound irreversibly inhibits Pks13 - Nature

A preclinical covalent compound, CMX410, contains a aryl fluorosulfate warhead that targets the acyltransferase domain of Mtb Pks13, an essential enzyme in cell-wall biosynthesis, making it a promising candidate for tuberculosis treatment regimens.

go.nature.com

1 3

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Respiratory Microbiomes @resp-micro.bsky.social · Jul 21

Be thAIR or be squAIR

(My second entry into the organising committee pun competition. A winner there I think).

1 2

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Respiratory Microbiomes @resp-micro.bsky.social · Jul 21

Early notice of NEW Wellcome Conference -
AIR 2026: Genomic and Systems Approaches to Respiratory Infection, Microbiomes and Immunity 11th-13th February, sign up below for notifications

coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/our-events/c...

It's immunulogy AND it's microbiology 🫁

Conferences

coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org

1 5 6

Josie Bryant @josiebryant.bsky.social · Jul 16

⭐ Excellence fellowships accepting applications ⭐ for Black ECRs who have a degree from the UK. sanger.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Wellco...
I have an amazing spatial transcriptomics project available on the world's most important pathogen, TB: www.sanger.ac.uk/wp-content/u...
Please reach out!

www.sanger.ac.uk

4 1

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Moritz Kraemer @mugkraemer.bsky.social · Jul 7

BEAST X for Bayesian phylogenetic, phylogeographic and phylodynamic inference

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

BEAST X for Bayesian phylogenetic, phylogeographic and phylodynamic inference - Nature Methods

BEAST X advances Bayesian phylogenetic, phylogeographic and phylodynamic analysis by incorporating a broad range of complex models and leveraging advanced algorithms and techniques to boost statistica...

www.nature.com

25 52

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Muzz Haniffa @mhaniffa.bsky.social · Jul 7

Great faculty opportunities within the Cellular Genomics Programme @sangerinstitute.bsky.social

Please share with your networks and do contact me if you would like to find out more

sanger.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Wellco...

Group Leaders- Cellular Genomics

Do you want to help us improve human health and understand life on Earth? Make your mark by shaping the future to enable or deliver life-changing science to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenge...

sanger.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com

16 9

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Ran Blekhman @blekhman.bsky.social · Jul 3

New paper that looked at 15 million biomedical abstracts and found specific words that abruptly increased in frequency in 2024, likely due to the authors using LLMs.

Take home message: don't use the word "Delve"

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

9 16 58

Reposted by Josie Bryant

Jesse Shapiro @bjesseshapiro.bsky.social · Jul 1

One of my favourite serendipitous results from the lab came about because we were long-read sequencing bacterial:

Vibrio cholerae, which is "supposed to" have TWO circular chromosomes (3 + 1 million base pairs) often has just ONE fused chromosome (4 Mbp).

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

(1/n)

Prevalent chromosome fusion in Vibrio cholerae O1 - Nature Communications

The pathogenic bacterium Vibrio cholerae typically has two circular chromosomes. Here, Cuénod et al. analyse 467 clinical isolates and identify several independent chromosome fusion events that are li...

www.nature.com

4 53 140

Josie Bryant @josiebryant.bsky.social · Jun 18

I did loads of writing and panic applied to loads of awards at the end of both my pregnancies. Didn't get any of the awards and all the writing was crap

1 1