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Reposted by Valerie Soo

Imperial MRC DTP @imperialmrcdtp.bsky.social · 13d

Applications for @ukri.org Medical Research Council funded MRes+PhD studentships in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences at @imperialcollege will open on Tuesday 7 October.
www.imperial.ac.uk/multisci-mrc...

#PhD #Interdisciplinaryhealthscience #Scholarships

How to apply

Applications for 2026 entry will open on Tuesday 7 October 2025 at midday (BST) and close at 23:59 (GMT), Tuesday 18 November 2025.

www.imperial.ac.uk

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Reposted by Valerie Soo

Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · Aug 27

The 2024 rankings of bacterial threats

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Reposted by Valerie Soo

Romain Strock @romainstrock.bsky.social · Aug 15

This first-author publication is my… first! Archaea kill bacteria by targeting their Achilles’ heel: peptidoglycan. Big shoutout to @ahocher.bsky.social‬, @valeriesoo.bsky.social‬, Pauline Misson, @tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social‬ and MRC LMS Proteomics. A thread 🔽
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Archaea produce peptidoglycan hydrolases that kill bacteria

Archaea regularly interact with bacteria but reports of archaea killing bacteria are very rare. This study shows that many archaea encode peptidoglycan hydrolases, which specifically target bacterial ...

journals.plos.org

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Reposted by Valerie Soo

PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · Aug 15

Archaea-on-bacteria action! @romainstrock.bsky.social @tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social &co show that many #archaea encode #peptidoglycan hydrolases, which specifically target #bacterial cell walls, experimentally confirming the killing capacity of 2 of these enzymes @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4lrJBBa

$Left: Results of spotting various supernatants onto lawns of Halalkalibacterium halodurans, Phycicoccus endophyticus, and Virgibacillus salexigens. a,b: top fraction (>3 kDa) of supernatant from Haloferax volcanii expressing an intact (a) or catalytic mutant (b) version of Woldo; c,d: bottom fraction (<3 kDa) of supernatant from H. volcanii expressing an intact (c) or catalytic mutant (d) version of Woldo; e: unfiltered supernatant from Halogranum salarium B-1; f,g: top fraction (>3 kDa) of supernatant from H. volcanii expressing (f) Danwoldo or (g) and empty plasmid control; h,i: bottom fraction (<3 kDa) of supernatant from H. volcanii expressing (h) Danwoldo or (i) and empty plasmid control. Top right: Structural overlay of zoocin A from Streptococcus zooepidemicus (UniProt ID: O54308) and Woldo, a candidate PGH from Halogranum salarium B-1 (UniProt ID: J2ZZK6), highlighting homologous M23 domains but divergent cell wall binding domains. TRD: target recognition domain. PG: peptidoglycan. Bottom right: Images of bacterial cells following exposure to H. volcanii supernatants expressing Woldo, Danwoldo or the control (as above). Bacteria are stained using LIVE/DEAD BacLight bacterial viability staining kit with ingress of red dye into bacterial cells indicative of cells with terminally compromised cell wall integrity.$

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Valerie Soo @valeriesoo.bsky.social · Aug 15

Very happy to see this work published + getting the recognition it deserves! Archaea are very cool + understudied organisms and we are only scratching the surface! Since the preprint last year, we (@romainstrock.bsky.social) have included more evidence of bacteria getting killed by archaeal arsenal.

Tobias Warnecke @tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social · Aug 14

Archaea are often surrounded by bacteria. But is there ever active conflict between the two? Can archaea kill bacteria? If so, how do they do it?

Work by @romainstrock.bsky.social shows that some archaea can kill bacteria by secreting peptidoglycan hydrolases. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Archaea produce peptidoglycan hydrolases that kill bacteria

Archaea regularly interact with bacteria but reports of archaea killing bacteria are very rare. This study shows that many archaea encode peptidoglycan hydrolases, which specifically target bacterial ...

journals.plos.org

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Valerie Soo @valeriesoo.bsky.social · Jul 12

Putting our deductive, problem-solving, and team-working skills to good use - we had so much fun at the Sherlock Escape Room aaand we escaped in 53 minutes! #teampbp #escaperoom

Reposted by Valerie Soo

Antoine Hocher @ahocher.bsky.social · Mar 22

The MIMIC lab is hiring a Postdoctoral Research Associate to join my team at @Cambridge_Uni!
Exploration and engineering DNA-mimicking proteins (wet-lab position.) 🧬
Details: www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/50652/
Please get in touch / circulate !

Research Associate (Fixed Term) - Job Opportunities - University of Cambridge

Research Associate (Fixed Term) in the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge.

www.jobs.cam.ac.uk

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Reposted by Valerie Soo

Tiago Costa @tcostalab.bsky.social · Feb 20

With @jrpenades.bsky.social, we challenged Google AI co-scientist to generate hypotheses. In just 2 days, it recapitulated our unpublished, experimentally confirmed mechanism for how cf-PICIs spread between bacterial species! @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/3byyaeh2

AI mirrors experimental science to uncover a novel mechanism of gene transfer crucial to bacterial evolution

AI models have been proposed for hypothesis generation, but testing their ability to drive high-impact research is challenging, since an AI-generated hypothesis can take decades to validate. Here, we ...

tinyurl.com

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Valerie Soo @valeriesoo.bsky.social · Dec 12

I hope I managed to convince the families that scientists nowadays can look very different than what is typically portrayed. For instance, I lead an all-girls group now and I am enjoying it! [2/2]

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Valerie Soo @valeriesoo.bsky.social · Dec 12

I volunteered at the half-term workshops focused on microbes and the immune system at the Invention Rooms, and I had great conversations with kids and families. Some parents asked sharp questions about why we wanted to become scientists in the first place! www.imperial.ac.uk/news/258715/... [1/2]

Inspiring the next generation of microbiologists at the Invention Rooms | Imperial News | Imperial College London

Workshops at Imperial's White City campus Invention Rooms have inspired youngsters from the local community to become the microbiologists of tomorrow.

www.imperial.ac.uk

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Valerie Soo @valeriesoo.bsky.social · Dec 9

Wow, that looks amazing! 🤩

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