Craig MacLean
@craigmaclean.bsky.social
Scientist working on antibiotic resistance, evolution, and mobile genetic elements. Prof at U.Oxford and Fellow of All Souls College
Next up: Chance and Necessity by Jacques Monod.
November 25, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Next up: Chance and Necessity by Jacques Monod.
What would Jacob make of the reductionist approaches that have come to dominate microbiology?
November 25, 2025 at 7:28 PM
What would Jacob make of the reductionist approaches that have come to dominate microbiology?
This paper gives an interesting example of in vivo fitness effects of resistance and helps to explain why mgrB mutation is the dominant mechanism of Colistin resistance in Klebs!
November 6, 2025 at 12:13 PM
This paper gives an interesting example of in vivo fitness effects of resistance and helps to explain why mgrB mutation is the dominant mechanism of Colistin resistance in Klebs!
Can't believe that paper made it into PNAS. Another potential follow up is "Dog shit in parks as a major source of one health AMR".
October 29, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Can't believe that paper made it into PNAS. Another potential follow up is "Dog shit in parks as a major source of one health AMR".
I also enjoy this ritual. The sound of the coffee machine and the ticking of the clock...
October 27, 2025 at 8:20 AM
I also enjoy this ritual. The sound of the coffee machine and the ticking of the clock...
This is first paper from a new line of research in my lab, with more to come soon. If interested in PDPs I highly recommend this @baym.lol paper www.nature.com/articles/s41... and this classic from Matti Jalasvuori royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Diverse and abundant phages exploit conjugative plasmids - Nature Communications
Some phages use plasmid-encoded conjugation proteins as receptors to infect their bacterial hosts, making their host range dependent on horizontal transfer of the plasmid. Here, the authors present a method for identification of new plasmid-dependent phages, and find that they are common and abundant in wastewater and their genetic diversity is largely unexplored.
www.nature.com
October 9, 2025 at 10:07 AM
This is first paper from a new line of research in my lab, with more to come soon. If interested in PDPs I highly recommend this @baym.lol paper www.nature.com/articles/s41... and this classic from Matti Jalasvuori royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Our key finding is that complex trade-offs between conjugative ability and PDP resistance shape the response of the RP4 plasmid to the PRD1 phage. The mutations that drive PRD1 adaptation in the lab are common in IncP plasmids, suggesting that PDBs impose an important constraint on plasmid transfer
October 9, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Our key finding is that complex trade-offs between conjugative ability and PDP resistance shape the response of the RP4 plasmid to the PRD1 phage. The mutations that drive PRD1 adaptation in the lab are common in IncP plasmids, suggesting that PDBs impose an important constraint on plasmid transfer
Builds on pre-print posted earlier this week and gratuitously reposted here
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#Phagesky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#Phagesky
Evolutionary rescue accelerates competitive exclusion in a parasite community
Environmental stress drives biodiversity loss by altering competitive hierarchies and pushing taxa towards extinction. Parasites and their communities are particularly vulnerable to stress due to envi...
www.biorxiv.org
September 30, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Builds on pre-print posted earlier this week and gratuitously reposted here
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#Phagesky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#Phagesky