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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Chrystal Starbird @drstarbird.bsky.social · 19d

I’m reading abstracts for ABRCMS and seeing over and over again where students comment about what a transformative experience ABRCMS was for their peers and mentors.

We cannot let this conference disappear because what we will lose will be tremendous. Funders, I hope you are listening.

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Benjamin Wolfe @benwolfe.bsky.social · 27d

Such a delight to share our work on the evolution of a cheese rind fungus in @currentbiology.bsky.social.

This is the fantastic PhD work of @nicolasleonlouw.bsky.social and resulted from amazing collaborations, a wedding proposal(!), an undergrad course, & more!

🧵

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Long-term monitoring of a North American cheese cave reveals mechanisms and consequences of fungal adaptation

Using a unique longitudinal sampling approach, Louw et al. demonstrate how a cheese-associated Penicillium population has adapted in an artisan cheese production facility in Vermont, USA. Adaptation i...

www.cell.com

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Michael Baym @baym.lol · Sep 1

What was antibiotic resistance like before we ever used antibiotics? How did we change what antibiotic resistance genes looked like over 100 years?

Our paper looking at resistance genes from a century of NCTC historical isolates now out in mGen:
www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Genomic resistance in historical clinical isolates increased in frequency and mobility after the age of antibiotics

Antibiotic resistance is frequently observed shortly after the clinical introduction of an antibiotic. Whether and how frequently that resistance occurred before the introduction is harder to determin...

www.microbiologyresearch.org

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Chrystal Starbird @drstarbird.bsky.social · Aug 21

Join me in donating to ABRCMS. For many of us early in our careers (and for many of us now), this is THE conference. Let’s make sure future generations get the same experience.

I was told if each poster judge donated $25, their goal would be quickly met, but I think we can do better! 🙏🏾💪🏾

Katie Wilkinson @drkwilkinson.bsky.social · Aug 21

Calling all @apsphysiology.bsky.social members: let’s help raise some money to support ABRCMS student presentation awards! Goal is $1200/discipline to support 12 awards by Sept 30th! 🧪 abrcms.org/donate/stude...

ABRCMS Fundraising - Student Presentation Awards - ABRCMS

Judges – Help Us Raise Funds for Student Presentation Awards Thank you for your service as a judge at ABRCMS. Your dedication has helped shape the future of countless student scientists, and we’re dee...

abrcms.org

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Nadine Ziemert @nadineziemert.bsky.social · Jul 8

Check out the Ziemert Lab’s new YouTube channel
m.youtube.com/@ZiemertLab
We’ve uploaded short tutorial videos on how to use our tools for genome mining and natural product discovery.
Thanks Semih, @martinaadamek.bsky.social @turgutmesut.bsky.social ! #GenomeMining #SecMet #naturalproducts

ZiemertLab

The Ziemert lab is interested in the evolution and distribution of bacterial secondary metabolites. These bioactive compounds are especially important in human medicine as the chemical scaffolds are t...

m.youtube.com

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Monica McCallum @memccallum.bsky.social · Jul 2

Congratulations!!!

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · Jun 5

"Philly, we're listening! Share your ideas with the Free Library. We are reimagining the future of public libraries in our city, and we want to hear from you." Library townhalls in Philly. You should all go [SERIOUSLY]: libwww.freelibrary.org/about/strate...

Charting our Future Together: Community Engagement

libwww.freelibrary.org

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Ming Tommy Tang @tommytang.bsky.social · May 28

1/"I have a presentation tomorrow."
If you've ever collaborated with wet lab scientists as a bioinformatician…
you’ve heard this. And died inside a little.

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Michael Baym @baym.lol · May 24

I appreciate the offers from other scientists to help Harvard (students, labs, etc) through this attack, but what would be most helpful is for you to use your position to contact your elected representatives and make it clear this fight isn't just Harvard, it will affect you, and their districts too

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Mingxun Wang @mingxunwang.bsky.social · May 12

I am thrilled to share after years of work/procrastination that the MassQL manuscript is finally published in @natmethods.nature.com - "A universal language for finding mass spectrometry data patterns". This was an team effort from all co-authors that helped shape MassQL and how it could be used.

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

José Vargas-Muñiz @mycorican.bsky.social · May 6

Recently, we found out that our R01 funded through PAR-22-241 was withdrawn by NIAID as the NIH no longer prioritizes research programs related to DEI. This has been devastating news for our young research group, and we are now trying to scram together for a path forward 🧵1/12

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Julian R. Silverman @manhattanscientist.bsky.social · Jan 22

What excitement, instead of one book I got five.

Excited to explore the science behind Victorian mauve with my students this semester.

The 1931 color card of America with dyed swatches for evaluation

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Christina McBride @cmayemcbride.bsky.social · Mar 28

Preprint alert!! 🎉 Ever struggle to activate a carrier protein? Led by Kenneth Hsu (Haverford '25), the Charkoudian Lab unearthed a novel PPTase from Dictyobacter vulcani 🌋 with remarkable promiscuity (in our case, better than Sfp & AcpS)!

Grateful to be an alum of this phenomenal research team 💗

A Phosphopantetheinyl Transferase from Dictyobacter vulcani sp. W12 Expands the Combinatorial Biosynthetic Toolkit

The value of microbial natural product pathways extends beyond the chemicals they produce, as the enzymes they encode can be harnessed as biocatalysts. Microbial type II polyketide synthases (PKSs) ar...

www.biorxiv.org

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Monica McCallum @memccallum.bsky.social · Mar 27

I HAVE done*

Monica McCallum @memccallum.bsky.social · Mar 27

I done that with a multiple sequence alignment of representative target sequences and Geneious, but I am sure there are many ways to go about it! help.geneious.com/hc/en-us/art...

How do I design degenerate primers based on an alignment?

Using the Design New Primers operation Geneious Prime can design degenerate primers based on an alignment using the Design New primers tool under the Primers menu. For example, if you want a degen...

help.geneious.com

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Monica McCallum @memccallum.bsky.social · Mar 27

It is possible to design and order so-called "degenerate primers" for amplifying highly similar genes from a variety of sources. That might be the sort of thing you're looking for?

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Annika Barber @annikabarber.bsky.social · Feb 27

A whopping 26 study sections are not meeting today: AI, BDE, BTEN, CMAD, CMBG, CPSS, DHMI, EDIT, GVE, HBPP, IHD, ISD, MAI, MCTC, MFSR, NMBH, NPAS, ODCS, ODHS, PN, SMN, SSPB, THI, VID, ZRG1 F02A D 20, ZRG1 MCST U 55*

Annika Barber @annikabarber.bsky.social · Feb 24

Wondering if your study section cancelled? I update this sheet daily. As of today, 56/124 study sections that should have met since Jan 2, 2025 have "not met as scheduled." docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

2025 Study section tracking

docs.google.com

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

José Vargas-Muñiz @mycorican.bsky.social · Feb 26

🚨 new preprint 🚨
Here we report that deleting the Septin aspB results in cidal activity of the static anti cell wall drug Caspofungin. This wasn’t only in vitro as 🐭 infected with the mutant and treated had 70% survival compared to 30% of the wild-type 1/2

Deletion of core septin gene aspB in Aspergillus fumigatus results in fungicidal activity of caspofungin

Septins are a family of GTP-binding proteins found in many eukaryotic lineages. Although highly conserved throughout many eukaryotes, their functions vary across species. In Aspergillus fumigatus, the...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Ele Willoughby @minouette.bsky.social · Feb 24

For #BlackHistoryMonth pharmaceutical #chemist Alice Ball (1892-1916) who developed 1st effective treatment for leprosy. 🧪🐡👩🏾‍🔬 #histsci Though her life was cut tragically short, her research saved 1000s from exile & painful, ineffective lifelong treatment for leprosy, & she was a trailblazer for 🧵

My linocut portrait of pharmaceutical chemist Alice Ball, a young Black woman in a lab coat, printed in indigo. Below her is the chemical reaction for Ball’s Process in violet. Above and around her is a branch of chalmoogra with green leaves and yellow fruit.

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · Feb 22

Chemical inhibition of a bacterial immune system https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.20.638879v1

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Monica McCallum @memccallum.bsky.social · Feb 5

Super stoked to share this pre-print covering our work on some sulfotransferase enzymes with surprising stereoselectivity!

doi.org/10.26434/che...

Specificity and Stereoselectivity of Cryptic Sulfotransferases

Sulfotransferases (STs) are ubiquitous enzymes found in all living organisms. These enzymes convert amines to sulfamates, and alcohols to sulfates, on a wide variety of biologically relevant molecules...

doi.org

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Monica McCallum @memccallum.bsky.social · Feb 6

Thanks Bill! I am curious to see if we'll someday find cryptic sulfations standing in for cryptic halogenations in some biosyntheses...

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Monica McCallum @memccallum.bsky.social · Feb 5

Super stoked to share this pre-print covering our work on some sulfotransferase enzymes with surprising stereoselectivity!

doi.org/10.26434/che...

Specificity and Stereoselectivity of Cryptic Sulfotransferases

Sulfotransferases (STs) are ubiquitous enzymes found in all living organisms. These enzymes convert amines to sulfamates, and alcohols to sulfates, on a wide variety of biologically relevant molecules...

doi.org

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Patrick Lutz @patricklutz.bsky.social · Jan 29

Has the ACS put out a statement or done anything (apart from great reporting in C&EN) in response to the current state of *gestures at everything*? Really questioning what my membership dues are going towards if they won't play ball here, given the huge implications for chemists nationwide.

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Reposted by Monica McCallum

Pieter Dorrestein @pieterdorrestein.bsky.social · Jan 8

Here are the papers covering those tools. Classical MN www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... FBMN www.nature.com/articles/s41... IIMN www.nature.com/articles/s41... FBMN-stats chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr... gnps dashboard www.nature.com/articles/s41... modifinder pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... 3/4

Mass spectral molecular networking of living microbial colonies | PNAS

Integrating the governing chemistry with the genomics and phenotypes of microbial colonies has been a “holy grail” in microbiology. This work descr...

www.pnas.org

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