Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Erin Green @erinrgreen.bsky.social · 5d

Job alert ‼️ UChicago Micro is hiring! Open to tenured/tenure track faculty at all levels in any area of microbiology. Come join our amazing and growing department. apply.interfolio.com/174404

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Susan Schlimpert @s-lab.bsky.social · Aug 21

There is still some time left to apply for these two Group Leader positions in Plant Biology and Microbe-Plant Interactions. Spread the word, apply & become our colleague @johninnescentre.bsky.social

John Innes Centre @johninnescentre.bsky.social · Jul 17

We’re pleased to announce two new vacancies for senior roles at our institute:

Group Leader in Discovery Plant Sciences: www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/gr...

🗓️ Closes 25 August

Independent Fellowship in Plant-Associated Microbial Interactions: www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/in...

🗓️ Closes 5 September

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Lauren Palmer @laurenpalmer.bsky.social · Aug 4

Super excited to share our paper online 🚨today🚨 in Cell Host & Microbe‬! Xiaomei Ren @xiaomeiren.bsky.social and Mason Clark @rmasonclark.bsky.social‬ co-led discovery of ecological factors for Acinetobacter baumannii carriage in the gut, a reservoir for pathogen spread. 🎉

tinyurl.com/443kfefk

Cell Host & Microbe @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social · Aug 4

Amino acid competition shapes A. baumannii gut carriage

Acinetobacter baumannii uses ornithine to compete w/ microbiota & persist in gut. Amino acid supplementation & differences in diet promote A. baumannii gut colonization in mice & humans
@laurenpalmer.bsky.social‬
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Amino acid competition shapes Acinetobacter baumannii gut carriage

Ren and Clark et al. show that Acinetobacter baumannii uses ornithine to compete with the resident microbiota and persist in the gut. Additional evidence demonstrates that amino acid supplementation a...

www.cell.com

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Lauren Palmer @laurenpalmer.bsky.social · Jul 25

And congratulations to @cp-cell.bsky.social Poster Award Winners Rachel Washburn (USF) and Jessica Aycock (Clemson) at 2025 GRC MAST!!! 🥳🎉👏🏼

Rachel Washburn and Jessica Aycock with their Cell Press poster awards at GRC Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction

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Lauren Palmer @laurenpalmer.bsky.social · Jul 25

Congratulations to 2025 GRC Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction Poster Award Winners!! 🎆🥂🙌 Thank you @cp-cell.bsky.social and @femsmicro.org for sponsoring!

From,
Your secret judges 🤫

Michael Patnode with Rachel Washburn, Jessica Aycock, and Mason Clark, winners of GRC MAST poster awards from Cell Press and FEMS

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Valeria Reyes Ruiz @reyesruiz.bsky.social · May 14

1/3 It’s official 🙌🏽
The Reyes Ruiz Lab is opening in 2026 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences. My lab will focus on host antibacterial effectors and adaptation of bacteria to host-imposed stress during S. aureus infections.

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Melanie Blokesch @mblokesch.bsky.social · Apr 25

Join the Blokesch lab (@EPFL) as a postdoc in Molecular Microbiology 🤩
Study Vibrio cholerae defense systems (phage/plasmid) in a dynamic, collaborative environment in Lausanne close to Lake Geneva in 🇨🇭!
Please visit my lab's webpage for details about the position and how to formally apply.

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Apr 23

ACTION ITEM-----ACTION ITEM

Implementation of Schedule F

This is what a lot of us have been worried about.

This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs.

BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD...

1/n

the word alert is in a purple circle

ALT: the word alert is in a purple circle

media.tenor.com

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Christie Wilcox @nerdychristie.bsky.social · Apr 8

How did life go from solo cells to many coordinating ones? Perhaps a bit of pressure. That story and more of the best from @science.org and science in this edition of #ScienceAdviser: www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪

When subjected to mechanical pressure, the salt-loving archaeon Haloferax volcanii grows bigger and bigger before fragmenting into a tissue-like, multicellular network. Rados et al./Science (2025)

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Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · Apr 8

I'm delighted to share a useful FREE web-based app portal of powerful bioinformatics tools for microbial genomes and shotgun microbiome sequences!

It's called Micromics and is built by Middle Author Bioinformatics, led by co-founder @ironark.bsky.social
omix.midauthorbio.com

Microbial Omics

A suite of bioinformatics tools for microbial genome and metagenome analysis.

omix.midauthorbio.com

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Valeria Reyes Ruiz @reyesruiz.bsky.social · Apr 5

So much joy to see everyone today coming together to celebrate 20 years of the Skaar Lab. Thank you to Eric for the leadership and mentorship over the years! 🥰

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Zach Lonergan @zrlon.bsky.social · Mar 31

I'm hoping to hire a full-time research technician to help with launching my research program here at Rutgers - if you know someone interested in gaining additional expertise in molecular microbiology, please send them my way!

jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/247...

Laboratory Researcher

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey is seeking a Laboratory Researcher for the Department of Biochemistry & Microbiology within the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.Among the ke...

jobs.rutgers.edu

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Patrick R. Secor @prsecor.bsky.social · Mar 20

🚨 The Department of Microbiology & Cell Biology at Montana State University invites applications for an Assistant Professor tenure-track faculty position in the field of environmental microbiology.

Happy to answer any questions!
🧫🧪🧬 #microsky

jobs.montana.edu/postings/45680

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Lauren Palmer @laurenpalmer.bsky.social · Mar 13

"’NIH staff internally are very worried that the mRNA grants will follow the outcome of the vaccine hesitancy grants and be terminated’”

It would be devastating to end this promising research that will save lives from infections and cancer

www.npr.org/2025/03/12/n...

NIH cuts funding for vaccine hesitancy research and may target mRNA research too

The National Institutes of Health is terminating dozens of studies examining why people are hesitant about vaccines and how to increase uptake. mRNA vaccine research may be on the chopping block, too.

www.npr.org

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Joe Zackular @joeyzacks.bsky.social · Mar 1

Excited to share our work with @pjplanet.bsky.social and @ahmedmicrobes.bsky.social tracking Staph aureus transmission across the NICU using genomics!!

This study was co-led by the amazing @qianxuan.bsky.social and Lakshmi Srinivasan, and made possible by the @centermicrobialmed.bsky.social

Transmission of Staphylococcus aureus in the neonatal intensive care unit predicts invasive infection

Background Staphylococcus aureus is a leading cause of healthcare-associated infection and is one of the most common pathogens causing serious invasive infection in the neonatal intensive care unit (N...

www.medrxiv.org

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Prof Cynthia Whitchurch FAA🏳️‍🌈 @cwhitch.bsky.social · Feb 28

I have an exciting opportunity to join my research team in Singapore @scelse.bsky.social as a PhD student to explore programmed cell death in biofilms. See below for more information and please share widely!

Unravelling the regulation of programmed cell death in Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms
One 4-year PhD Studentship in Professor Cynthia Whitchurch’s lab at the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore – starting January 2026. The studentship will be funded for 4 years which includes tuition fees and a bursary. Students can be from Singapore or overseas.
Project summary
Programmed cell death (PCD) pathways are genetically encoded programmes that lead to cell suicide. Whist it seems counter-intuitive that single-celled bacteria would maintain cell suicide pathways, PCD is beneficial to multicellular bacterial communities. We have determined that Pseudomonas aeruginosa has 3 PCD pathways that intersect to enable explosive cell lysis for the release of extracellular DNA and other matrix components required for biofilm formation. This project aims to understand how these complex pathways that lead to PCD in P. aeruginosa are regulated. The project will use a range of cutting-edge approaches including molecular microbiology, transcriptomics, bioinformatics, AI and advanced microscopy.
Requirements
Applications are invited from candidates with a Bachelors degree with Honours (2nd class upper division) or equivalent, or Masters degree in Microbiology, Biochemistry, Biomedical Sciences or a related discipline. Additionally, experience in molecular microbiology, microscopy and microbial genomics would be advantageous. However, in the absence of this additional experience the applicant should be keen to learn relevant skills in these areas.
Note that the following will be required of the candidate that is selected for this studentship (the application has to be submitted by the July 31st 2025):
1. Valid TOEFL/IELTS/GRE/GMAT/GATE scores (A valid GRE/GMAT score is required for applicants who are not graduates of the Autonomous Universities in Singapore, unless there is specific requirement state…

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Zach Lonergan @zrlon.bsky.social · Feb 20

The hits keep coming. Huge loss for my home state of West Virginia. WV-INBRE opened my eyes to a science career and changed my life.

Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · Feb 19

Source tells me that in at least one state, universities that get INBRE (IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence) money have been told not to expect any of those funds to come in “for at least six months.”

That will basically lock out poorer students from grad/med school.

INBRE states:

Map of the US with about half the states in green, including many red states from Montana to Louisiana

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Thomas P200 Burke @findmeinthelab.bsky.social · Feb 19

I'm just going to reiterate what many people are saying: if you are concerned about the state of science / NIH funding, etc, NOW IS THE MOMENT to pick up the phone and call your senators and reps

The federal govt continuing resolution budget expires in a month. They are deciding funding right now.

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CantlonLab @cantlonlab.bsky.social · Feb 18

Join us! Science Homecoming helps scientists reconnect with communities by writing about the importance of science funding in their hometown newspapers. We’ve mapped every small newspaper in the U.S. and provide resources to get you started. Help science get back home 🧪🔬🧬 🏠

sciencehomecoming.com

Science Homecoming

sciencehomecoming.com

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Maureen Barr @barrlab.bsky.social · Feb 17

Rutgers peeps: Wednesday noon in my building

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Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · Feb 17

No new NIH study sections have been announced in the Federal Register since Jan 21.

But I hear that colleagues have been asked to serve. Does your meeting appear in these announcements? If this applies to you, please check and reply here with info!

www.federalregister.gov/documents/se...

Document Search Results for 'center for scientific review'

Search, browse and learn about the Federal Register. Federal Register 2.0 is the unofficial daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as e...

www.federalregister.gov

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ᐯIᑕTOᖇ ᑎIᘔET, ᗰᗪ @nizet.bsky.social · Feb 14

Multiple faculty positions in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in association with the Center for Immunology, and the
Center for Antimicrobial Resistance at Cornell University

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Giedroc Lab @giedroclab.bsky.social · Feb 11

Our lab is seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral research associate to study zinc metallochaperones from the COG0523 superfamily of small GTPases. Apply here: shorturl.at/UmQYM or send application materials to Prof. Giedroc directly at [email protected]. Looking for strong biochemists; please share!

Postdoctoral Fellow (Zinc Metallochaperones)

The Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts + Sciences, consists of a well-rounded research community with cutting-edge expertise in a wide variety of modern disciplines including materials che...

indiana.peopleadmin.com

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Zach Lonergan @zrlon.bsky.social · Feb 8

In New Jersey —

NIH Funding:
$404M

Jobs Supported:
5,136

Economic Activity Supported:
$1.32B

@kim.senate.gov
@corybooker.com

Megan Ranney MD MPH @meganranney.bsky.social · Feb 8

In Connecticut -

NIH FUNDING:
$770M

JOBS SUPPORTED:
6609

ECONOMIC ACTIVITY SUPPORTED:
$1.68B

Stephen Patrick, MD, MPH @stephenwpatrick.bsky.social · Feb 8

In Georgia-

NIH FUNDING:
$780 M
JOBS SUPPORTED:
11,816
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY SUPPORTED:
$2.18 B

www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...

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Matt Barber @biobarber.bsky.social · Feb 8

Executive wants to frame the NIH indirects cut as $4B in savings.

But given that NIH returns $2.5 on every $1 investment, this would actually cost US economy a net $6 BILLION (per year!). Not to mention the human costs of wrecking education and research sectors and the communities they serve.

Direct Economic Contributions

NIH directly supports the economy through investments in research institutions and job formation.

www.nih.gov

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