A. Murat Eren (Meren)
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merenbey.bsky.social
A. Murat Eren (Meren)
@merenbey.bsky.social
2.5K followers 240 following 130 posts
Professor of Ecosystem Data Science at @hifmb.bsky.social studying the ecology and evolution of microbes through high-resolution 'omics and #anvio
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
daanspeth.bsky.social
Our paper describing the GlobDB is now published in @bioinfoadv.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1093/bioa...

The GlobDB is the largest species dereplicated genome database currently available, containing 306,260 species representatives.
More information on globdb.org 1/5
🖥️🧬🦠
GlobDB: a comprehensive species-dereplicated microbial genome resource
AbstractMotivation. Over the past years, substantial numbers of microbial species’ genomes have been deposited outside of conventional INSDC databases.Resu
doi.org
November 21, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
innovativegenomics.bsky.social
Out today in Science Magazine — First author Veronika Kivenson and PIs Jill Banfield (The Banfield Lab) and Alanna Schepartz team up to reveal a new genetic code in #archaea, with implications for #methane and #climate, and #bioengineering! Learn more: https://ow.ly/Kuem50Xurh0
Headshots of Veronika, Jill, and Alanna
November 20, 2025 at 7:20 PM
merenbey.bsky.social
Are you are working with seqeunces? Does diversity matter to you? Well, then you will love #anvio 🥲
November 20, 2025 at 7:05 PM
merenbey.bsky.social
We have a date for the free-to-attend #anvio workshop and ECR Symposium for 2026, and we look forward to meeting you at the @hifmb.de in Oldenburg, Germany!

Please find more information on the venue, program, and the application form here, and spread the word 😇

anvio.org/workshops/20...
November 20, 2025 at 6:42 PM
merenbey.bsky.social
Starting this week, I set aside one hour each week to meet ECRs outside my group who want to discuss career development, mentorship, or any non-technical professional questions.

Here is a blog that explains my motivation for this and how to schedule a meeting:

merenlab.org/2025/11/16/E...
ECR connection: Meet Meren when you need to
A means for ECRs to get advice from a senior scientist outside of their support network
merenlab.org
November 16, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
deemteam.bsky.social
This paper has been a must! Great collaboration with @mkrupovic.bsky.social and @yifanzhou.bsky.social, a N&V by a legend of halophilic archaea tinyurl.com/yc3dcv72, and one picture of one of our expeditions to Dallol making the cover of the November issue of @natmicrobiol.nature.com

rdcu.be/eLtCH
November 2, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
tsbschm.bsky.social
Great to see this finally published!

Metalog: curated and harmonised contextual data for global metagenomics samples

now out in @narjournal.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
Metalog: curated and harmonised contextual data for global metagenomics samples
Abstract. Metagenomic sequencing enables the in-depth study of microbes and their functions in humans, animals, and the environment. While sequencing data
academic.oup.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:16 PM
merenbey.bsky.social
I wrote a new tutorial on competitive metagenomic read recruitment (and profiling of the results with #anvio), for those of us nerds who would like to get their hands dirty with data:

anvio.org/tutorials/co...
Competitive metagenomic read recruitment explained
A tutorial on the nuts and bolts of competitive read recruitment
anvio.org
October 25, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
elife.bsky.social
Evidence from 14 research funding programmes confirms that early winners tend to keep winning (Matthew effect). But the idea that an early setback makes you stronger later doesn’t replicate widely.
buff.ly/UEtcRd4
eLife Assessment This important study reports the results of efforts to replicate two phenomena of significant interest to early-career scientists and scientific policymakers: the Matthew effect and the early-career setback effect. Several previous studies of these effects have focused on early-career researchers with grant proposals that fell just below or just above a funding threshold. Those just above the threshold were more likely to be successful when they applied for funding later in the career (an example of the well-known Matthew effect), while those just below were more likely to go on to have stronger publication records (the early-career setback effect). In this study the Matthew effect was found to be robust across funders, and to generalize from those close to the funding threshold to the whole population. The early-career setback effect was not robust across funders and did not generalize to the whole population. The evidence reported is convincing.
October 24, 2025 at 8:21 AM
merenbey.bsky.social
Read the annual report from @elife.bsky.social:

elifesciences.org/inside-elife...

I welcome that eLife is no longer indexed by SCIE. And I admire that they have not backed away from their innovative model, which makes me even more motivated to send our best work to eLife.
Annual Report: 2024 in review
In 2024, eLife continued with its efforts to make peer review and publishing better for science and scientists.
elifesciences.org
October 23, 2025 at 1:37 PM
merenbey.bsky.social
Please share this with anyone who may be interested in a post-doc in Germany:

jobs.awi.de/Vacancies/20...

This is quite an exciting opportunity to push the boundaries of what is known regarding the molecular basis of the formation and demise of photosymbiotic relationships in marine habitats.
October 22, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
sjtucker.bsky.social
I'm delighted our paper is out: doi.org/10.1093/isme...
With new SAR11 isolate genomes and time-series metagenomes, we reveal coastal and offshore SAR11 ecotypes, identify associated metabolic traits, and pinpoint selective gene sweeps as a likely evolutionary driver to niche partitioning. 🌊🦠
Habitat-specificity in SAR11 is associated with a few genes under high selection
Abstract. The order Pelagibacterales (SAR11) is the most abundant group of heterotrophic bacteria in the global surface ocean, where individual sublineages
doi.org
October 20, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
marumunibremen.bsky.social
A new review study shows the invisible transport pathways for #iron through #hydrothermal plumes.
More on Iron’s Irony here ➡️ www.marum.de/en/Iron-sIro...
@icbm-uol.bsky.social #ConstructorUniversity @geomarkiel.bsky.social @awi.de @marumunibremen.bsky.social
A hydrothermal vent on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Hot, mineral-rich fluids are distributed throughout the ocean via the dispersion cloud, known as the plume. The photo was taken during the M190 research expedition with the MARUM-QUEST4000 remotely operated vehicle. The arm of the robot holds a temperature lance into the plume to measure the temperature there. Photo: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen.
October 20, 2025 at 11:51 AM
merenbey.bsky.social
One of the things I find hardest to get used to in science is seeing how scientists can completely mischaracterize approaches developed by others just to justify their own. Here is a fresh example in which the highlighted statements are 100% objectively wrong about what PlasX or MobMess does
October 10, 2025 at 8:03 AM
merenbey.bsky.social
TL;DR: "I use AI myself to do things that would have required expertise and training I didn't have, such as making sense of my blood work or writing faster & better, but do not like to see that it is being used for things for which I have expertise and training".

theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_ar...
A cartoonist's review of AI art - The Oatmeal
This is a comic about AI art.
theoatmeal.com
October 9, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
radecker.bsky.social
🪸🧪 We’re hiring! Join our ERC-funded group at the @hifmb.de in Oldenburg, Germany to explore the cellular origins of photosymbiosis:⁣
⁣
𝟏 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐝𝐨𝐜 + 𝟐 𝐏𝐡𝐃𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬.⁣
Deadlines: Oct 29 & Nov 5. Links below. ⁣

Questions: [email protected]⁣
#Photosymbiosis #HIFMB #ERC #AcademicJobs
October 6, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
microbiomevif.bsky.social
💫 #MVIF Season 5 💫

Feel free to join the keynotes by presenting your work–abstract submission is open:
www.microbiome-vif.org/en-US/how-to...

#MVIF is proudly supported by #illumina @corundumsb.bsky.social
and our non-commercial co-organizing partners Seerave Foundation @cunysph.bsky.social
MVIF Season 5 program
October 6, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
mmarbout.bsky.social
You like phages ? In this publication, we use metaHiC and our new version of the MetaTOR pipeline to challenge the traditional view of phages with a narrow host range.
@rkoszul.bsky.social @natmicrobiol.nature.com @cnrs.fr @institutpasteur.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Phages with a broad host range are common across ecosystems - Nature Microbiology
Proximity-ligation-based sequencing from 111 samples and 5 environments reveals that a substantial proportion of phages infect multiple species.
www.nature.com
September 19, 2025 at 9:32 AM
merenbey.bsky.social
Have you ever looked at some differentially occurring gene clusters in a microbial #pangenome and thought to yourself "I wonder if they contribute to any metabolic modules"?

With the most recent changes, the answer is a few clicks away in #anvio 😇
September 18, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
bioinf.bsky.social
How do you long-read sequence metagenomes? I would argue it starts with the right sample storage & DNA extraction, to enable efficient @nanoporetech.com /@pacbio.bsky.social sequencing, which we investigated in our new paper: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Massive thanks to Klara for driving this
September 9, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
hifmb.de
Congratulations to HIFMB colleague Kim de Luca, who was selected by MIT Technology Review as one of the 35 Innovators Under 35.
www.technologyreview.com/innovator/ki...
Kim de Luca
She tracks DNA damage to improve cancer treatments and save corals.
www.technologyreview.com
September 9, 2025 at 9:04 AM
merenbey.bsky.social
A blog post that covers my visit to Barhal, the village where my family comes from:

merenlab.org/2025/09/01/b...

No science this time, just life and personal reflections.
The Weight of a Honey Pot: Memory, Belonging, and the Passage of Time
Meren's pilgrimage to Barhal
merenlab.org
September 1, 2025 at 9:17 AM
merenbey.bsky.social
PSA: This is what the real male loneliness syndrome looks like.
July 31, 2025 at 1:24 PM
merenbey.bsky.social
I was a PhD student when this paper came out. I printed it out with excitement and brought it to the lab next morning.

My advisor Michael Ferris skimmed through the supplementary material and said "this is cryptic growth with As resistance".

I was shocked and learned something essential that day.
jeremymberg.bsky.social Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Jul 27
Why I didn't retract this paper when I was Editor-in-Chief at Science (THREAD 🧵)
science.org Science Magazine @science.org · Jul 24
Science is retracting the December 2010 Research Article, “A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus.” (THREAD 🧵) scim.ag/4lGQ9g7
July 27, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by A. Murat Eren (Meren)
epcrocha.bsky.social
Here's our new broad review on the extended mobility of plasmids, about all mechanisms driving and limiting their transfer. From conjugation to conduction, phage-plasmids to hitchers, molecular to evolutionary dynamics, ecology to biotech. The state of affairs. 1/9 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...
graphical abstract of the article the extended mobility of plasmids
July 23, 2025 at 7:35 AM