Sonny T M Lee
@sonnytmlee.bsky.social
Associate Professor K-State - everything microbe. Getting a sneak peek into host-microbes interaction. Outside of the microbial world, I do cave diving, running
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics
From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...
www.science.org
November 20, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Proud to be part of this incredible multidisciplinary team uncovering why some people are NOT infected by Salmonella. This new Wellcome Trust @wellcometrust.bsky.social funding will allow us to uncover why some people naturally resist infection and colonisation by Salmonella Typhimurium.
NEWS | Professor @jayhinton.bsky.social and an international team have been awarded £4.56M Wellcome Discovery Award to investigate natural human resistance to Salmonella
🔗 bit.ly/4hujsRG
@livuninews.bsky.social | #TeamLivUni
🔗 bit.ly/4hujsRG
@livuninews.bsky.social | #TeamLivUni
October 30, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Proud to be part of this incredible multidisciplinary team uncovering why some people are NOT infected by Salmonella. This new Wellcome Trust @wellcometrust.bsky.social funding will allow us to uncover why some people naturally resist infection and colonisation by Salmonella Typhimurium.
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Why can our farts ignite? Time to find out (and quite a bit more) in our new paper in Nature Microbiology led by the amazing Dr Cait Welsh. Integrating atomic-to-ecosystem level insights. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A widespread hydrogenase supports fermentative growth of gut bacteria in healthy people - Nature Microbiology
A previously uncharacterized microbial enzyme is responsible for the production of molecular hydrogen in the gut, which drives the growth of other bacteria and has implications for human health.
www.nature.com
October 24, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Why can our farts ignite? Time to find out (and quite a bit more) in our new paper in Nature Microbiology led by the amazing Dr Cait Welsh. Integrating atomic-to-ecosystem level insights. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
New paper: Dried soil bacteria enter dormancy with "frozen" RNA & metabolite profiles—but water vapor alone can wake them up!
#Microbiology #SoilScience #Dormancy #ClimateChange #MicroSky
#Microbiology #SoilScience #Dormancy #ClimateChange #MicroSky
Transcriptional and metabolic stasis define desiccation-induced dormancy in a soil bacterium until water vapor initiates resuscitation. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.16.681527v1
October 17, 2025 at 3:37 AM
New paper: Dried soil bacteria enter dormancy with "frozen" RNA & metabolite profiles—but water vapor alone can wake them up!
#Microbiology #SoilScience #Dormancy #ClimateChange #MicroSky
#Microbiology #SoilScience #Dormancy #ClimateChange #MicroSky
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Very excited to share the latest work from our lab, which was published today in Nature!
nature.com/articles/s41...
PhD graduate and now post-doc Sofia Dahlman, along with co-senior author Sam Forster from The Hudson and other researchers from our lab and others.
nature.com/articles/s41...
PhD graduate and now post-doc Sofia Dahlman, along with co-senior author Sam Forster from The Hudson and other researchers from our lab and others.
Isolation, engineering and ecology of temperate phages from the human gut - Nature
Human host-associated cellular products may act as induction agents for bacteriophages.
nature.com
October 15, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Very excited to share the latest work from our lab, which was published today in Nature!
nature.com/articles/s41...
PhD graduate and now post-doc Sofia Dahlman, along with co-senior author Sam Forster from The Hudson and other researchers from our lab and others.
nature.com/articles/s41...
PhD graduate and now post-doc Sofia Dahlman, along with co-senior author Sam Forster from The Hudson and other researchers from our lab and others.
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Good news: a grant I submitted got selected for an interview out of ~150 apps. Only 2 others got interviews!
Bad news: @skypeascientist.bsky.social was not selected in the end 😞
I will keep trying.
In the meantime, consider supporting our work with $5-10/month?
givebutter.com/SupportSAS25
Bad news: @skypeascientist.bsky.social was not selected in the end 😞
I will keep trying.
In the meantime, consider supporting our work with $5-10/month?
givebutter.com/SupportSAS25
Support Skype a Scientist!
By Skype a Scientist
givebutter.com
October 13, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Good news: a grant I submitted got selected for an interview out of ~150 apps. Only 2 others got interviews!
Bad news: @skypeascientist.bsky.social was not selected in the end 😞
I will keep trying.
In the meantime, consider supporting our work with $5-10/month?
givebutter.com/SupportSAS25
Bad news: @skypeascientist.bsky.social was not selected in the end 😞
I will keep trying.
In the meantime, consider supporting our work with $5-10/month?
givebutter.com/SupportSAS25
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Becket Lab representing at @csucoast.bsky.social annual meeting! 💪
October 3, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Becket Lab representing at @csucoast.bsky.social annual meeting! 💪
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
☕🍏 Coffee break time at 'The human microbiome' symposium! #EESMicrobiome
Microbes never sleep, but scientists definitely need their coffee 😅 A perfect chance to recharge, chat, and maybe spark the next big collaboration over a fresh cup ✨
Microbes never sleep, but scientists definitely need their coffee 😅 A perfect chance to recharge, chat, and maybe spark the next big collaboration over a fresh cup ✨
September 18, 2025 at 9:12 AM
☕🍏 Coffee break time at 'The human microbiome' symposium! #EESMicrobiome
Microbes never sleep, but scientists definitely need their coffee 😅 A perfect chance to recharge, chat, and maybe spark the next big collaboration over a fresh cup ✨
Microbes never sleep, but scientists definitely need their coffee 😅 A perfect chance to recharge, chat, and maybe spark the next big collaboration over a fresh cup ✨
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Big day for multiple lab members who celebrated a promotion! Congrats to Apoorva Uboveja for promotion to Staff Scientist and Aidan Cole for starting as a postdoc! I am now a full professor too 🤓 Want to learn more about our science or join the lab? Visit Airdlab.com
Aird Lab
Airdlab.com
September 3, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Big day for multiple lab members who celebrated a promotion! Congrats to Apoorva Uboveja for promotion to Staff Scientist and Aidan Cole for starting as a postdoc! I am now a full professor too 🤓 Want to learn more about our science or join the lab? Visit Airdlab.com
The weather held up for our lab shrimp boil. We gorged on delicious food, chatted leisurely over fire. I am fortunate to have these awesome trainees 🥹
September 1, 2025 at 2:33 PM
The weather held up for our lab shrimp boil. We gorged on delicious food, chatted leisurely over fire. I am fortunate to have these awesome trainees 🥹
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
The Zahn lab is transitioning into the TIDAL Lab this Fall and moving to the Appl. Sci. Department at William & Mary.
Would love to chat with students interested in doing a PhD at the nexus of microbial ecology and data science (starting 2026).
RP please!
gzahn.github.io
Would love to chat with students interested in doing a PhD at the nexus of microbial ecology and data science (starting 2026).
RP please!
gzahn.github.io
March 20, 2025 at 12:54 AM
The Zahn lab is transitioning into the TIDAL Lab this Fall and moving to the Appl. Sci. Department at William & Mary.
Would love to chat with students interested in doing a PhD at the nexus of microbial ecology and data science (starting 2026).
RP please!
gzahn.github.io
Would love to chat with students interested in doing a PhD at the nexus of microbial ecology and data science (starting 2026).
RP please!
gzahn.github.io
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
The goal of a PhD is not to learn some facts or read a few papers or learn a bunch of techniques. The goal of a PhD is to learn independence, problem solving, how to finish things you start, resilience, & gain the ability to adapt & think creatively. Learning these things is hard.
August 13, 2025 at 5:28 PM
The goal of a PhD is not to learn some facts or read a few papers or learn a bunch of techniques. The goal of a PhD is to learn independence, problem solving, how to finish things you start, resilience, & gain the ability to adapt & think creatively. Learning these things is hard.
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
At a symposium where I'm one of the only PUI faculty and I've just been playing therapist to super kind and well-meaning R1 faculty to get them to not 👏take👏mentee👏behavior👏personally👏. 1/n
August 1, 2025 at 5:22 AM
At a symposium where I'm one of the only PUI faculty and I've just been playing therapist to super kind and well-meaning R1 faculty to get them to not 👏take👏mentee👏behavior👏personally👏. 1/n
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
This week we said farewell to the amazing @caitlinkowa.bsky.social as she moves to start her new lab at Dartmouth. So grateful for all her leadership and mentoring the last few years.
If you’re interested in all things skin microbes (especially fungi) check out her lab! I can’t recommend enough.
If you’re interested in all things skin microbes (especially fungi) check out her lab! I can’t recommend enough.
HOME
Visit the post for more.
caitlinkowalski.com
August 1, 2025 at 12:05 AM
This week we said farewell to the amazing @caitlinkowa.bsky.social as she moves to start her new lab at Dartmouth. So grateful for all her leadership and mentoring the last few years.
If you’re interested in all things skin microbes (especially fungi) check out her lab! I can’t recommend enough.
If you’re interested in all things skin microbes (especially fungi) check out her lab! I can’t recommend enough.
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
How are bacterial transport machineries regulated by external cues? @brochadolab.bsky.social &co identify environmental chemicals that regulate #transporter transcription, identifying the TF Rob as a key modulator of #EffluxPump expression in #Ecoli #AMR @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/46pUM9Q
July 23, 2025 at 1:43 PM
How are bacterial transport machineries regulated by external cues? @brochadolab.bsky.social &co identify environmental chemicals that regulate #transporter transcription, identifying the TF Rob as a key modulator of #EffluxPump expression in #Ecoli #AMR @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/46pUM9Q
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
The Summit on Microbiome Stewardship is happening this week!!!
Program details and free registration can be found here. Please note, the webinars and the workshop each require registration to help us manage attendance. Who should attend? Students, and professionals from any discipline, are…
Program details and free registration can be found here. Please note, the webinars and the workshop each require registration to help us manage attendance. Who should attend? Students, and professionals from any discipline, are…
The Summit on Microbiome Stewardship is happening this week!!!
Program details and free registration can be found here. Please note, the webinars and the workshop each require registration to help us manage attendance. Who should attend? Students, and professionals from any discipline, are encouraged to attend! The summit is highly interdisciplinary and we welcome diverse perspectives: research presentation and workshop activities represent microbiome, ethics, health, food systems, ecology, and environmental sciences, and more!
sueishaqlab.org
July 8, 2025 at 12:55 PM
The Summit on Microbiome Stewardship is happening this week!!!
Program details and free registration can be found here. Please note, the webinars and the workshop each require registration to help us manage attendance. Who should attend? Students, and professionals from any discipline, are…
Program details and free registration can be found here. Please note, the webinars and the workshop each require registration to help us manage attendance. Who should attend? Students, and professionals from any discipline, are…
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
What determines who a phage can infect?
We tackled this question for temperate phages of Klebsiella — a bacterial pathogen — using a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and a massive protein testing effort.
👇 A thread!
We tackled this question for temperate phages of Klebsiella — a bacterial pathogen — using a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and a massive protein testing effort.
👇 A thread!
June 26, 2025 at 7:13 AM
What determines who a phage can infect?
We tackled this question for temperate phages of Klebsiella — a bacterial pathogen — using a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and a massive protein testing effort.
👇 A thread!
We tackled this question for temperate phages of Klebsiella — a bacterial pathogen — using a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and a massive protein testing effort.
👇 A thread!
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Manuscript/resource alert #microsky 🦠 My lab offers the community a collection of 30 E. coli (CloneFISH) cultures, each carrying a plasmid for the heterologous expression of a (near) full-length 16S rRNA gene from one of 30 lineages of archaea, including 19 yet uncultured ones.
June 24, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Manuscript/resource alert #microsky 🦠 My lab offers the community a collection of 30 E. coli (CloneFISH) cultures, each carrying a plasmid for the heterologous expression of a (near) full-length 16S rRNA gene from one of 30 lineages of archaea, including 19 yet uncultured ones.
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
I think it's important to be able to say: I'm keeping it together but I'm not ok. I can manage, I can laugh, I can live and appreciate life, but I'm not ok. Feelings don't need to be simple.
June 12, 2025 at 5:20 AM
I think it's important to be able to say: I'm keeping it together but I'm not ok. I can manage, I can laugh, I can live and appreciate life, but I'm not ok. Feelings don't need to be simple.
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Big day for the Gurney lab, first paper from the lab is now published. @sczerwinski.bsky.social led this work and answered a simple question does phage steering work when other bacteria are around? Tldr: yes! journals.asm.org/doi/epub/10....
Phage steering in the presence of a competing bacterial pathogen
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journals.asm.org
June 10, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Big day for the Gurney lab, first paper from the lab is now published. @sczerwinski.bsky.social led this work and answered a simple question does phage steering work when other bacteria are around? Tldr: yes! journals.asm.org/doi/epub/10....
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
I'm happy to announce the latest release of the GlobDB, available at globdb.org.
The GlobDB is a database of "species dereplicated" microbial genomes, and as of release 226 contains twice the number of species-representative genomes (306,260) than the latest GTDB release.
The GlobDB is a database of "species dereplicated" microbial genomes, and as of release 226 contains twice the number of species-representative genomes (306,260) than the latest GTDB release.
home | GlobDB
globdb.org
June 10, 2025 at 11:20 AM
I'm happy to announce the latest release of the GlobDB, available at globdb.org.
The GlobDB is a database of "species dereplicated" microbial genomes, and as of release 226 contains twice the number of species-representative genomes (306,260) than the latest GTDB release.
The GlobDB is a database of "species dereplicated" microbial genomes, and as of release 226 contains twice the number of species-representative genomes (306,260) than the latest GTDB release.
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
📣 Happy to share our review on host-microbiome genomics!
We synthesize the growing field exploring interactions between human genetics and the microbiome, building a roadmap for mapping the dialogue between our genes and microbes
Out now in Nature Reviews Genetics👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We synthesize the growing field exploring interactions between human genetics and the microbiome, building a roadmap for mapping the dialogue between our genes and microbes
Out now in Nature Reviews Genetics👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
June 4, 2025 at 11:02 PM
📣 Happy to share our review on host-microbiome genomics!
We synthesize the growing field exploring interactions between human genetics and the microbiome, building a roadmap for mapping the dialogue between our genes and microbes
Out now in Nature Reviews Genetics👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We synthesize the growing field exploring interactions between human genetics and the microbiome, building a roadmap for mapping the dialogue between our genes and microbes
Out now in Nature Reviews Genetics👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
We have a new 3-year postdoc position in our group at the @hifmb.de to study plasmids and plasmids systems of the marine environment to survey their utility in microbial responses to environmental change.
Please see the official job ad here, and spread the word:
jobs.awi.de/Vacancies/20...
Please see the official job ad here, and spread the word:
jobs.awi.de/Vacancies/20...
PostDoc in ecology and evolution of plasmids in polar waters at HIFMB (f/d/m)
Layout AWI HIPP extern, englisch
jobs.awi.de
June 5, 2025 at 8:09 AM
We have a new 3-year postdoc position in our group at the @hifmb.de to study plasmids and plasmids systems of the marine environment to survey their utility in microbial responses to environmental change.
Please see the official job ad here, and spread the word:
jobs.awi.de/Vacancies/20...
Please see the official job ad here, and spread the word:
jobs.awi.de/Vacancies/20...
Reposted by Sonny T M Lee
Officially TENURED! 🥳
Grateful to those who supported me along the way – colleagues, collaborators, mentors, students, postdocs and friends. It takes a village and I’m lucky to have mine.
Grateful to those who supported me along the way – colleagues, collaborators, mentors, students, postdocs and friends. It takes a village and I’m lucky to have mine.
June 3, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Officially TENURED! 🥳
Grateful to those who supported me along the way – colleagues, collaborators, mentors, students, postdocs and friends. It takes a village and I’m lucky to have mine.
Grateful to those who supported me along the way – colleagues, collaborators, mentors, students, postdocs and friends. It takes a village and I’m lucky to have mine.