Asaf Levy
@asaflevylab.bsky.social
Interested in computational biology, microbial toxins, plant microbiome, and microbial adaptation to different hosts.
PI at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
https://www.asaflevylab.com/
Expressing my personal opinions.
PI at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
https://www.asaflevylab.com/
Expressing my personal opinions.
Pinned
Asaf Levy
@asaflevylab.bsky.social
· Oct 22
Systematic discovery of antibacterial and antifungal bacterial toxins - Nature Microbiology
Genome sequence mining and computational analyses lead to the discovery and functional characterization of conserved bacterial toxins with activity against bacteria and fungi.
www.nature.com
Several years of work with several great collaborators, that combined computational biology, molecular microbiology, biochemistry, structural biology and mycology assay culminated in today's publication on discovery of novel bacterial toxins:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
When I grow up I promise to beocme the guy who is the 1st to fill out a doodle form with 200 scheduling options
(and not the last one, who selects from 3 consensus options)
(and not the last one, who selects from 3 consensus options)
November 19, 2025 at 5:21 PM
When I grow up I promise to beocme the guy who is the 1st to fill out a doodle form with 200 scheduling options
(and not the last one, who selects from 3 consensus options)
(and not the last one, who selects from 3 consensus options)
Me to the students in the seminar course:
divide a multi-panel figures to several simple slides (a paper and a talk are not the same), use only large fonts also for people in the back (axes included), clear titles.
Me in conferences: I wish I could recruit professors to attend my undergrad seminar
divide a multi-panel figures to several simple slides (a paper and a talk are not the same), use only large fonts also for people in the back (axes included), clear titles.
Me in conferences: I wish I could recruit professors to attend my undergrad seminar
November 10, 2025 at 4:47 AM
Me to the students in the seminar course:
divide a multi-panel figures to several simple slides (a paper and a talk are not the same), use only large fonts also for people in the back (axes included), clear titles.
Me in conferences: I wish I could recruit professors to attend my undergrad seminar
divide a multi-panel figures to several simple slides (a paper and a talk are not the same), use only large fonts also for people in the back (axes included), clear titles.
Me in conferences: I wish I could recruit professors to attend my undergrad seminar
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@soreklab.bsky.social Sorek lab does it again! Such a cool signal to specifically detect the event of genome degradation by a phage
@soreklab.bsky.social Sorek lab does it again! Such a cool signal to specifically detect the event of genome degradation by a phage
Bacteria sense virus-induced genome degradation via methylated mononucleotides
Phages often degrade the genome of their bacterial host to individual nucleotides and use these nucleotides to build their own genome. In this study, we describe a bacterial defense system that direct...
www.biorxiv.org
November 8, 2025 at 5:22 PM
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@soreklab.bsky.social Sorek lab does it again! Such a cool signal to specifically detect the event of genome degradation by a phage
@soreklab.bsky.social Sorek lab does it again! Such a cool signal to specifically detect the event of genome degradation by a phage
November 7, 2025 at 11:42 AM
@sheilaroitman.bsky.social from Detlef Weigel's lab @plantevolution.bsky.social presents a cool and innovative talk on the uncharacterized members of the plant microbiome: phages!!
So many bacterial 16S studies but very few people study the plant phagome
#PMS2025
So many bacterial 16S studies but very few people study the plant phagome
#PMS2025
November 7, 2025 at 11:13 AM
@sheilaroitman.bsky.social from Detlef Weigel's lab @plantevolution.bsky.social presents a cool and innovative talk on the uncharacterized members of the plant microbiome: phages!!
So many bacterial 16S studies but very few people study the plant phagome
#PMS2025
So many bacterial 16S studies but very few people study the plant phagome
#PMS2025
Reposted by Asaf Levy
Elisa Korenblum, The root microbiome of wild grass populations from arid to Mediterranean regions as a Reservoir for Drought-Adapted Bacteria
#TreesOfInterest TOI
#PMS2025
#TreesOfInterest TOI
#PMS2025
November 6, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Elisa Korenblum, The root microbiome of wild grass populations from arid to Mediterranean regions as a Reservoir for Drought-Adapted Bacteria
#TreesOfInterest TOI
#PMS2025
#TreesOfInterest TOI
#PMS2025
Thanks Akos.
It would be great if other labs will follow up on this to decipher why plant microbiota are depleted from mobile genetic elements and defense aystem.
Do plants protect the microbes from MGEs?
It would be great if other labs will follow up on this to decipher why plant microbiota are depleted from mobile genetic elements and defense aystem.
Do plants protect the microbes from MGEs?
OK, that was not finishing yet, Asaf now switches to insect connected microbes and the yellow pigmented Chryseobacterium isolate and in vivo virulence of the strain (in hemolymph)
= new model to study (insect) virulence of plant microbiota
#PMS2025
= new model to study (insect) virulence of plant microbiota
#PMS2025
November 6, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Thanks Akos.
It would be great if other labs will follow up on this to decipher why plant microbiota are depleted from mobile genetic elements and defense aystem.
Do plants protect the microbes from MGEs?
It would be great if other labs will follow up on this to decipher why plant microbiota are depleted from mobile genetic elements and defense aystem.
Do plants protect the microbes from MGEs?
@finkel-lab.bsky.social and I went on a beautiful morning run in hilly Antequera (south Spain).
Too much cerveza and jamon iberico made us heavy.
#plantmicrobesymposium
Too much cerveza and jamon iberico made us heavy.
#plantmicrobesymposium
November 5, 2025 at 8:35 AM
@finkel-lab.bsky.social and I went on a beautiful morning run in hilly Antequera (south Spain).
Too much cerveza and jamon iberico made us heavy.
#plantmicrobesymposium
Too much cerveza and jamon iberico made us heavy.
#plantmicrobesymposium
Looking forward to the plant microbiome symposium starting close to beautiful Malaga
November 3, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Looking forward to the plant microbiome symposium starting close to beautiful Malaga
Zuckerman Postdoctoral Scholarships supports postdoctoral researchers from universities in the US and Canada who wish to conduct research at Israeli universities.
Two years scholarships, $60,000 is provided by the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program+$3,000 annually by the Israeli supervisor.
Two years scholarships, $60,000 is provided by the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program+$3,000 annually by the Israeli supervisor.
November 2, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Zuckerman Postdoctoral Scholarships supports postdoctoral researchers from universities in the US and Canada who wish to conduct research at Israeli universities.
Two years scholarships, $60,000 is provided by the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program+$3,000 annually by the Israeli supervisor.
Two years scholarships, $60,000 is provided by the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program+$3,000 annually by the Israeli supervisor.
Queen released Bohemian Rhapsody on this day, half a century ago.
October 31, 2025 at 4:47 AM
Queen released Bohemian Rhapsody on this day, half a century ago.
R.I.P Hamilton Smith, 1978 Nobel Laureate for the discovery of type II restriction-modification systems (HindII).
October 26, 2025 at 6:54 PM
R.I.P Hamilton Smith, 1978 Nobel Laureate for the discovery of type II restriction-modification systems (HindII).
Is there any biologist with 1M citations?
October 25, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Is there any biologist with 1M citations?
We are interested in proteins, we do some AI, and I still could not understand what this paper is about based on the abstract.
I am starting the MARA movement:
Make Abstracts Readable Again
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I am starting the MARA movement:
Make Abstracts Readable Again
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Odyssey: reconstructing evolution through emergent consensus in the global proteome
We present Odyssey, a family of multimodal protein language models for sequence and structure generation, protein editing and design. We scale Odyssey to more than 102 billion parameters, trained over...
www.biorxiv.org
October 20, 2025 at 6:32 AM
We are interested in proteins, we do some AI, and I still could not understand what this paper is about based on the abstract.
I am starting the MARA movement:
Make Abstracts Readable Again
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I am starting the MARA movement:
Make Abstracts Readable Again
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Some people tend to think that life nowadays is worse than in the past.
Objectively (statistically) speaking this is just wrong.
HDI measures education, life expectancy and purchasing power. In some countries (e.g. US) the improvement is mild, in others (e.g. China, India) it's dramatic.
Objectively (statistically) speaking this is just wrong.
HDI measures education, life expectancy and purchasing power. In some countries (e.g. US) the improvement is mild, in others (e.g. China, India) it's dramatic.
October 16, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Some people tend to think that life nowadays is worse than in the past.
Objectively (statistically) speaking this is just wrong.
HDI measures education, life expectancy and purchasing power. In some countries (e.g. US) the improvement is mild, in others (e.g. China, India) it's dramatic.
Objectively (statistically) speaking this is just wrong.
HDI measures education, life expectancy and purchasing power. In some countries (e.g. US) the improvement is mild, in others (e.g. China, India) it's dramatic.
If you're lucky you can reverse transcribe it with a polyT primer
October 14, 2025 at 12:16 PM
If you're lucky you can reverse transcribe it with a polyT primer
כמה טוב שבאתם הביתה.
בית זה אומר כבר הכל.
בית זה אומר כבר הכל.
October 13, 2025 at 7:57 AM
כמה טוב שבאתם הביתה.
בית זה אומר כבר הכל.
בית זה אומר כבר הכל.
Today my wife and I sat on a beautiful day in Rashta, an excellent Arabic restaurant close to Jerusalem, and the Chef, Ganem, went out from the kitchen to raise a toast of Hibiscus juice (he's muslim) with the attendants to Kushner and Witkoff who promoted the cease fire agreement.
To peace!
To peace!
October 10, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Today my wife and I sat on a beautiful day in Rashta, an excellent Arabic restaurant close to Jerusalem, and the Chef, Ganem, went out from the kitchen to raise a toast of Hibiscus juice (he's muslim) with the attendants to Kushner and Witkoff who promoted the cease fire agreement.
To peace!
To peace!
Very well deserved prize for Prof. Vorholt, one of my favorite productive and humble scientists! and what a great meating it was!
Just returning from a fantastic symposium celebrating my former postdoc mentor, Julia Vorholt, on receiving the Novonesis Biotechnology Prize! Huge congratulations to Julia — and to the Novo Nordisk Foundation on an outstanding choice!
October 9, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Very well deserved prize for Prof. Vorholt, one of my favorite productive and humble scientists! and what a great meating it was!
Paper is under revisions in Wikipedia
October 9, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Paper is under revisions in Wikipedia
This is hilarious for Nobel week.
The headstones of two late Yale chemists who shared the department at the same period.
One has his CV written on the headstones
The other: Nobel Laureate etc.
And the funny story about Onsager's son adding "* ETC" after many years:
freakonomics.com/2009/09/etc-...
The headstones of two late Yale chemists who shared the department at the same period.
One has his CV written on the headstones
The other: Nobel Laureate etc.
And the funny story about Onsager's son adding "* ETC" after many years:
freakonomics.com/2009/09/etc-...
October 8, 2025 at 12:38 PM
This is hilarious for Nobel week.
The headstones of two late Yale chemists who shared the department at the same period.
One has his CV written on the headstones
The other: Nobel Laureate etc.
And the funny story about Onsager's son adding "* ETC" after many years:
freakonomics.com/2009/09/etc-...
The headstones of two late Yale chemists who shared the department at the same period.
One has his CV written on the headstones
The other: Nobel Laureate etc.
And the funny story about Onsager's son adding "* ETC" after many years:
freakonomics.com/2009/09/etc-...
Two years into this bloody war that caused so much pain and loss.
October 7, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Two years into this bloody war that caused so much pain and loss.
RFK Jr. should definitely get a Nobel in economics for reducing housing prices in the US
BREAKING: The 2025 Noble Prize for Medicine has been awarded to RFK Jr. for “taking bold action to reduce life expectancies in the USA”. By undermining the health system, RFK Jr. has led the charge to combat the USA's aging population and prevent a pension crisis.
October 6, 2025 at 9:15 AM
RFK Jr. should definitely get a Nobel in economics for reducing housing prices in the US
40 years ago Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn reported about a new enzyme in the protozoon Tetrahymena called "telomere terminal transferase"
Known today as telomerase.
They received the 2009 Nobel in physiology and medicine.
The same organism also 'contributed' to science the 1st ribozyme.
Known today as telomerase.
They received the 2009 Nobel in physiology and medicine.
The same organism also 'contributed' to science the 1st ribozyme.
October 4, 2025 at 3:58 PM
40 years ago Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn reported about a new enzyme in the protozoon Tetrahymena called "telomere terminal transferase"
Known today as telomerase.
They received the 2009 Nobel in physiology and medicine.
The same organism also 'contributed' to science the 1st ribozyme.
Known today as telomerase.
They received the 2009 Nobel in physiology and medicine.
The same organism also 'contributed' to science the 1st ribozyme.