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cresslab.bsky.social
The Cress Lab | Innovative Genomics Institute @ UC Berkeley | Microbiome Editing | Microbiome Delivery Technologies | Phage and MGE Functional Genomics | Hiring! https://www.cresslab.bio/
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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....

1/6 πŸ§¬πŸ“Š Curious about the buzz around NLP in biology? Feeling overwhelmed by the rapid developments? We've got you covered! Our review on NLP applications in genomics, by the wonderful Ella Rannon, is now out as a pre-print! #NLP #Bioinformatics arxiv.org/abs/2506.02212

πŸŽ‰ Congratulations to David Bikard @pasteur.fr on his 2025 @embo.org Gold Medal win! 🧬 He's pioneering phage-CRISPR tools to edit gut #bacteria in vivo, reshaping the #microbiome from within and opening the door to targeted therapies. πŸ‘‰ europa.eu/!HQbHTw πŸ‘‰ europa.eu/!KtWf33 @dbikard.bsky.social

This is such an amazing honor!!! I'm so grateful to all the people in my lab @institutpasteur.bsky.social and at Eligo Bioscience who made it possible πŸ™

our lab is blessed to have 3 new postdoctoral fellow positions. we would welcome scientists interested in...

πŸš€ Excited to release BoltzDesign1! ✨ Now with LogMD-based trajectory visualization. πŸ”— Demo: rcsb.ai/ff9c2b1ee8 Feedback & collabs welcome! πŸ™Œ πŸ”—: GitHub: github.com/yehlincho/Bo... πŸ”—: Colab: colab.research.google.com/github/yehli... @sokrypton.org @martinpacesa.bsky.social

Phage people: Rich Losick and I are combing the world looking for T4 rIIB mutant FC0 (also known as P13). FC0 was the starting point for Francis Crick's beautiful 1961 paper on the triplet nature of the genetic code. We want to sequence it. Anyone have it in an ancient stock collection?

Can phage treat infection AND vaccinate? We found that phage treatment protects mice against re-infection by the same pathogen. Out today in PNAS. @tailor-labs.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Our work on the facial skin microbiome of non-human primates is out in mSystems! We show there is no close relative of Cutibacterium on the faces of gorillas and chimps at the Lincoln Park Zoo, furthering the mysterious origin of the dominant human skin colonizer. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Prophage induction - nice study, inducers other than MitC, but also that inducer concentration matters. Search for optimum needed to get highest titers ☝️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

✨ Berkeley Lab's @nersc.bsky.social, @delltechnologies.bsky.social, and NVIDIA announce new public-private partnership for game-changing US Dept. of Energy Doudna supercomputer, (NERSC-10, strengthening U.S. capabilities, accelerating discovery, and powering future science. πŸ§ͺ

Phage DisCo! Our targeted phage discovery method in press today: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... Perfectly timed with our four summer undergrad's first successful phage hunt... disco lights in the lab to mark the occasion πŸ•Ί

The latest work from my lab, Phage Disco, a method @ellie-rand.bsky.social developed for targeted discovery of bacteriophages based on the bacterial receptor, defense system, or other component they interact with, is now live in mSystems journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

We're thrilled to share the published version of our DRT9 story, online today @nature.com! Congratulations to all authors! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great collaboration with Suzanne Warring, Hazel Sisson @peterfineran.bsky.social and others to combat kiwifruit canker via an endolysin-lipase chimera, grateful to be involved, check it out here: www.jbc.org/article/S002...

πŸ§¬πŸ„ NEW PREPRINT: Really happy to finally share the last big piece of work from my PhD! Spoiler: Cows are great and so are their viromes 🧡1/13 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Architecture and mechanism of a dual-enzyme retron system in prokaryotic immunity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.23.655875v1

All the other dinos are jealous of DNA-saur.

πŸŽ‰ So proud of our PhD student, Ryuichi ONO, who submitted his first first-author paper from his undergrad research @utokyoofficial.bsky.social about plasmid survival tactics influencing ARG spread! Now just wait to see what he’s been cooking up in our lab 🀩 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#Fungal infections are hard to treat due to #DrugResistance. @blakebillmyre.bsky.social &co use a high-throughput #TNseq system in #Cryptococcus neoformans to identify >1400 essential genes & reveal a role for #mitochondrial genes in #fluconazole sensitivity @plosbiology.org πŸ§ͺ plos.io/4dz3iVm

Prevalence of Group II Introns in Phage Genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.22.655115v1

Victoria Gray, the first individual to be cured of sickle cell disease with a CRISPR-based treatment, and Jennifer Doudna, #CRISPR pioneer, at the Liberty Science Center Genius Gala! πŸ‘‘πŸ‘‘

Exciting news!! Our latest paper is out in Nat. Microbiol. @natmicrobiol.nature.com We show that a sub-lineage of 7th pandemic V. cholerae has acquired mobile genetic elements packed with phage defense systemsβ€”rendering it multi-phage resistant 😳 ..... 1/3 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I will be recruiting new postdocs with start dates end 2025 - early 2026. If you'd like to work at the Pasteur Institute in the heart of Paris surrounded by amazing scientists, reach out to discuss possible projects on SynBio / Bacterial Immunity!

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

πŸ§«πŸ¦ πŸ”¬πŸ§¬ @science.org Mobile integrons encode phage defense systems | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @jaescudero.bsky.social @albertohca.bsky.social et al. #microbiology #phage #immunity #phagesky #MicroSky

πŸ§«πŸ¦ πŸ”¬πŸ§¬ @science.org Sedentary chromosomal integrons as biobanks of bacterial antiphage defense systems | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @baptistedarracq.bsky.social @eloilittner.bsky.social @celineloot.bsky.social @epcrocha.bsky.social et al. #microbiology #phage #immunity #phagesky #MicroSky

Our paper on how integrons are biobanks of novel minimal defense systems is now out www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Two main conclusions on this excellent work led by @eloilittner.bsky.social @baptistedarracq.bsky.social 1/n

πŸ§ͺ Finally out after peer review, our work showing that "Mobile #Integrons carry Phage Defense Systems" is now published in Science πŸŽ‰ Short 🧡 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Very excited to share a manuscript at the heart of my PhD! We added an RNA-memory device (RAM) to phage P1 to identify transduction hosts in synthetic and wastewater microbial communities in high throughput. Also, I am on the post-doc market, so please reach out if interested! 1/6 t.ly/a8k9O

Hidden in plain sight: Bacterial genomes reveal thousands of lytic phages with therapeutic potential https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.06.652010v1

🧬🧫🦠 @science.org Bacterial reverse transcriptase synthesizes long poly-A–rich cDNA for antiphage defense | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #microbiology #bacteriophage #antiphage #immunity #DNA #RNAsky #RT #Cryo-EM #DRT9

I got hit by some rather sudden and extreme financial hardship so if anyone is in need of remote wetlab contract research, strictly BSL1, do let me know. Currently scrambling for gigs. Plant, Bacterial, Archaeal Non-model Bioeng Custom Lab Hardware Turn Key Genetic Design Please repost for reach πŸ’š

"That telomere phages are so prevalent means that they are a selective force, one that we know little about. We now want to understand how the telomere-toxin is secreted and also understand how this β€˜telocin’ wheedles its way into unsuspecting bacterial neighbors” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A big congratulations to our research assistant, Angela Voelker, for committing to Montana State University for graduate school!

So glad to have been a part of the Immune System of Bacteria conference along with many other great scientists 🦠 @institutpasteur.bsky.social

Excited to share my PhD work in the Kranzusch Lab published in @nature.com! Two key discoveries: - Nucleotides can act as negative regulators of antiviral immunity - Ion channel activation is gated by DNA Thank you to our all collaborators! @soreklab.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Genomes from long-read metagenomic assemblies contain rampant errors, highlighting the pressing need for stricter evaluation methods in long-read assembly algorithms. Read more in our paper with the Eren group. @floriantrigodet.bsky.social @merenbey.bsky.social

Fresh in @NatureBiotech! We developed a synthetic biology tool for tracking gene transfer in microbial communities and applied it to study plasmid hosts in a wastewater microbiome. Awesome collab with James Chappell & @joffsilberg.bsky.social and incredible students. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

AFESM: a metagenomic guide through the protein structure universe! We clustered 821M structures (AFDB&ESMatlas) into 5.12M groups; revealing biome-specific groups, only 1 new fold even after AlphaFold2 re-prediction & many novel domain combos. 🧡 🌐 afesm.foldseek.com πŸ“„ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We're delighted to announce our sponsorship of Corundum Systems Biology! Together, we're committed to advancing global, free knowledge sharing in microbiome science. Here's to a successful partnership!

Join the Blokesch lab (@EPFL) as a postdoc in Molecular Microbiology 🀩 Study Vibrio cholerae defense systems (phage/plasmid) in a dynamic, collaborative environment in Lausanne close to Lake Geneva in πŸ‡¨πŸ‡­! Please visit my lab's webpage for details about the position and how to formally apply.

Sabrina Green @motherofphage.bsky.social writes about her journey communicating the importance of life-saving phage treatments in the era of antimicrobial resistance. #MicroSky 🦠 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our lab had a wonderful time talking science, enjoying nature, and making new friends at the Banfield lab retreat last weekend. Thanks to Jill and @banfieldlab.bsky.social for the invitation and for organizing an amazing event!

New postdoc position in our lab (2 y+): evolutionary genomics of integrons and MGEs with focus on vibrio-phage interactions. Great environment @pasteur.fr for science, career building. Super collaborators @celineloot.bsky.social @amazeld.bsky.social @fredoleroux.bsky.social 3 weeks to apply!

I'm happy to share the first publication from my lab @hoerlab.bsky.social, now out in @narjournal.bsky.social! I take a look at the biology of RNA phages, focusing on how meta-omics methods are discovering new RNA phage families and bacterial defense strategies. #PhageSky doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

New paper @isme-microbes.bsky.social : Among a sample of 1044 vibrio phages, we found 17 new Schizotequatrovirus with large genomes (>250kb), a broad host range, and yet a low frequency in our samples (?!). #MicroSky #PhageSky