Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · Jul 14

⚠️For everyone at @lenagroup4resp.bsky.social #WBConf25, come check out my poster on Tuesday evening #52 on the incidence of #NTM in #FirstNationsPeople in #Australia. 🧫🦠🇦🇺🪃

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Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · Jul 1

🧫🦠Only 2 weeks left to submit abstracts (July 15) for @amiposts.bsky.social's #MSCW Conference! Connect with leading scientists, policymakers, and #EMCRs across the #AsiaPacific.

#Microbiology, #PublicHealth, #Climate & the #Environment.

Poster advertising Microbial Solutions for a Changing World conference with a QR code and highlighting the 9 Keynote Speakers from across the Asia Pacific Region.

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Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · Jun 25

⚠️Join us for @amiposts.bsky.social EMCR conference #MSCW25: Microbial Solutions for a Changing World (Melbourne, Australia). Focusing on: #GreenhouseGases, #PathogenControl, & #EnvironmentImpacts.

⏰Abstracts close July 15!

#Microbiology #ClimateChange

appliedmicrobiology.org/ems-event-ca...

Poster for the Applied Microbiology International's Microbial Solutions for a Changing World conference on 25-27 November 2025, at Monash University, Melbourne Australia showing the 9 keynote speakers.

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Applied Microbiology International @amiposts.bsky.social · Jun 9

The latest feature in #TheMicrobiologist dives into the emerging threat of nontuberculous mycobacteria, and explores diagnostic options. #NTM @brukercorporation.bsky.social
www.the-microbiologist.com/features/the...

The growing threat of nontuberculous mycobacteria infections

Once overlooked, NTM are now drawing increased attention as their infections pose significant and complex diagnostic challenges. Advances in diagnostic technologies offer the potential to overcome the...

www.the-microbiologist.com

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Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · May 27

Great data visualisations! I love when genomics and epidemiology intersect!

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Ben Vezina @bananabenana.bsky.social · May 27

Our new paper on the global epi of IMP carbapenemases. We originally called this paper: ‘Planet of the IMPs’ as IMPs are now everywhere. We found IMP variant-specific distributions across species, plasmids, mobile elements and geography
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

#amr #amrsky #IDsky

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Rhys White @rhystwhite.bsky.social · May 21

One patient, two samples

Weeks apart, E. faecium picked up vancomycin resistance

By sequencing vancomycin-susceptible strains on-site, we caught this early & avoided unnecessary, disruptive interventions #Genomics

Proud to share at #nanoporeconf!
@nanoporetech.com

🖥️🧬💻
#AcademicSky
#MicroSky
🧪🧫🦠

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Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · May 21

My partner says this about our cat all the time. She definitely displays some non-cat-like behaviours haha.

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Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · May 21

My supervisor, Prof. Rachel Thomson, head of the NTM Research Group at UQ (medical-school.uq.edu.au/research/ntm...), has recently published excellent work on the role of drinking water in MABS transmission.
#NTM #GenomicEpidemiology #Abscessus #IDSky #IDEpi

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Cathy Gao-Howard MD MS @catgaohow.bsky.social · May 18

Northwestern has not received any NIH funds since March. No written communication about why or what can be done. Thank you Ben Singer for raising awareness at #ATS2025

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Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · May 15

Check out the MOVERR function in the pairwiseCI package for R.

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Trevor Lithgow @trevor-lithgow.bsky.social · May 1

"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 ‘telocin’ wheedles its way into unsuspecting bacterial neighbors”

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

Telomere bacteriophages are widespread and equip their bacterial hosts with potent interbacterial weapons

Klebsiella host strains infected with telomere phages can grow to be the dominant lineage in mixed populations.

www.science.org

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Marit Hetland @genomarit.bsky.social · Apr 30

🦠Happy to share that our paper studying >3000 Klebsiella pneumoniae genomes in a #OneHealth perspective is now published in Genome Medicine! #MicroSky 🎉

@irenlohr.bsky.social @katholt.bsky.social

genomemedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

A genome-wide One Health study of Klebsiella pneumoniae in Norway reveals overlapping populations but few recent transmission events across reservoirs - Genome Medicine

Background Members of the Klebsiella pneumoniae species complex (KpSC) are opportunistic pathogens that cause severe and difficult-to-treat infections. KpSC are common in non-human niches, but the cli...

genomemedicine.biomedcentral.com

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Grant Jacobs BioinfoTools/NotJustDNA 🔬🧬🖥️✍️📚 @notjustdna.bsky.social · Mar 29

From @retractionwatch.com -

His manuscript was rejected. Then he saw it published by other authors
retractionwatch.com/2025/03/06/p...

His manuscript was rejected. Then he saw it published by other authors

A chemist at a university in Pakistan found a surprise when he opened an alert from ResearchGate on a newly published paper on a topic related to his own work. When Muhammad Kashif, a chemist…

retractionwatch.com

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Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · Mar 30

Its an excellent question because several other countries have been reducing the amount of money they invest in R&D. I know that here in Australia, funding to our 2 major grant bodies (ARC and NHMRC) has dropped, and there are fewer PhDs and postdoc positions available as a result.

Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Torsten Seemann @torstenseemann.bsky.social · Mar 4

🦘✂️ Thanks to @cziscience.bsky.social , @wytamma.bsky.social and I are writing the next version of the Snippy bacterial variant calling pipeline. We want your input on what features s it will have. Please fill out this (longish) survey to help make Snippy great again!
forms.gle/YJP6WQjsk8KK...

Snippy: Microbial Variant Calling Community Survey

Help us drive the next wave of innovation in Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) discovery and genome analysis by sharing your valuable experiences and insights. This in-depth survey aims at understa...

forms.gle

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Ryan Wick @rrwick.bsky.social · Mar 3

New preprint is out!
We investigate how well you can call variants directly from genome assemblies compared to traditional read-based variant calling.

Read it here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Data & code: github.com/rrwick/Are-r...
(1/8)

Are reads required? High-precision variant calling from bacterial genome assemblies

Accurate nucleotide variant calling is essential in microbial genomics, particularly for outbreak tracking and phylogenetics. This study evaluates variant calls derived from genome assemblies compared...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Australian Society for Antimicrobials @ausantibiotics.bsky.social · Feb 21

Plenary 3 -Prof Rachel Thomson
#NTM infection risk influenced by various #environmental factors, house dust, rainfall, temperature, aerosolisation from water to the air etc … so pretty much everywhere 😅
#antimicrobials2025 #IDsky #AMSSky

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Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · Feb 21

For everyone at #Antimicrobials2025 check out my supervisor Prof. Rachel Thomson's Plenary talk on Saturday, February 22 at 9:00 AM on Nontuberculous Mycobacteria #NTM Pulmonary Disease: Epidemiology, Clinical Disease and Natural History.

medical-school.uq.edu.au/research/ntm...

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Katie Sandlin @kmsandlin.bsky.social · Feb 16

Strong background in genomics and bioinformatics education and community engagement.

Currently located in Bethesda, MD.

Updated CV: app.box.com/s/hg5g6z05cz...

Katie Sandlin_ CV_v4.pdf | Powered by Box

app.box.com

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Rachel Thienprayoon, MD, MSCS @rthienprayoon.bsky.social · Jan 29

Advice from my therapist:

Limit media exposure.

Do good works.

That’s it.

Protect your mental health, friends.

🩷🧡💛💚💙💜

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Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · Jan 24

That sounds awful! 😬 I hate that NTM infections can be so difficult to treat!

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Reposted by Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Corey Holt @coreyholt.bsky.social · Jan 21

Interested in protist parasites? Want to learn some fun bioinformatics? Think this apicomplexan looks cool? Great! Come and do some protist genomics at @uniofbath.bsky.social!

We're advertising a fully-funded PhD studentship open to UK & International applicants!

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

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Melinda Ashcroft (PhD) @biominnie.bsky.social · Jan 21

Thank you!