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Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · 10d

You can also stop reviewing for that journal and not publish there yourself.

Of course there will be real scientific disagreements that an editor will need to make a judgement call for the appropriate course of action. Yours doesn’t sound like such a case.

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Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · 13d

Beautiful!

Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · 14d

Good question. It is a cycle. Ticks feed on an infected animal and acquire the bacteria (from ingesting the blood), and then pass it on to other animals/humans.

Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · 14d

Absolutely! In general, motile bacteria can literally swim circles around phagocytes...

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Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · 14d

I am sure it is complicated and situation dependent, but this study covers some of those topics:

journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Borrelia burgdorferi initiates early transcriptional re-programming in macrophages that supports long-term suppression of inflammation

Author summary Lyme disease, caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), is a long-term infection whose inflammatory manifestations are primarily due to an exuberant immune response to the pat...

journals.plos.org

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Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · 15d

Unfortunately (as I am sure you know) many people are affected - a great reason for us to keep investigating potential new and more effective treatments.

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Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · 15d

The video captures frames every 1 s over a few minutes. The attached image shows a 'max' projection over 30 minutes that illustrates the path of their movement similar to a time-lapse.

An image that shows white wiggly lines that illustrate the paths of swimming bacteria.

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Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · 15d

You’ve heard of #Lymedisease, but have you ever seen the bacteria that causes it? 🦠 Borrelia burgdorferi, the spiral-shaped culprit transmitted by ticks, swims with a creepy wriggling motion and uses #chemotaxis to navigate. Both fascinating... and disgusting #Microsky 🧪 #IDsky @shawlab.bsky.social

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Reposted by Baylink Lab

Ariane Briegel @arianebriegel.bsky.social · 26d

Registration is open! Come join us at the sensory transduction in microorganisms GRC! Spread the word! www.grc.org/sensory-tran...

2026 Sensory Transduction in Microorganisms Conference GRC

The 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Sensory Transduction in Microorganisms will be held in Ventura, California. Apply today to reserve your spot.

www.grc.org

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Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · Sep 7

🚨 Postdoctoral Position 🚨

Investigate molecular mechanisms of protein homeostasis in Salmonella during infection! Strong background in biochemistry/molecular biology encouraged.

📩 Send CV, publications, and statement to Eduardo A. Groisman at Yale:

[email protected]
🧪 #microsky 🦠 #BLAST

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Reposted by Baylink Lab

Dan Jagger @auditorynerves.bsky.social · Aug 28

Link to new article in Nature:

Extreme armour in the world’s oldest ankylosaur
🧪🦖🦕
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Extreme armour in the world’s oldest ankylosaur - Nature

The ankylosaurian dinosaur Spicomellus afer possessed a tail weapon and uniquely elaborate dermal armour.

www.nature.com

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Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · Aug 21

I’m Arden, and my lab is trying to develop new antibiotics to treat bacterial infections!

The lab is based at Washington State University in Pullman - Go Cougs!

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Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · Aug 12

Lots of new-to-protein-structure folks are using AF3, which is great! However, non-experts might be inclined to feed AF3 incorrect information, such as modeling a monomer when the biologically-relevant state is a dimer. We found this can decrease model accuracy due to missing tertiary interactions.

Impact of erroneous user input on AlphaFold 3 modeling of variant sites. Overlays show variant sites between the KatASS1 crystal structure (yellow) and AlphaFold three models generated with: (A–D) single-site mutations (green); (E–H) a single distant Trp insertion at the N-terminus (light purple) or C-terminus (dark purple); and (I–L) the correct sequence modeled with incorrect oligomeric states: monomer (light orange), dimer (orange), and trimer (dark orange). (M–P) Root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) calculations for all heavy atoms when comparing the AlphaFold three models to the crystal structure.

Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · Aug 12

Antibiotic resistance and immunogenicity are impacted by small variations in protein sequence but it isn't feasible to experimentally determine structures for the many thousands of variants that exist in nature. In this particular system AF3 generated extremely accurate models for variant sites.

Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · Aug 12

We had a crystal structure of Helicobacter catalase collecting dust, so decided to turn it into an Alphafold test case for modeling natural protein variants, i.e. proteins with small sequence differences.

Study published here: journals.asm.org/eprint/J45UR...

AlphaFold 3 accurately models natural variants of Helicobacter pylori catalase KatA | Microbiology Spectrum

Experimental structure determination is rarely performed for natural protein variants possessing only minor amino acid differences from published structures, even though small substitutions can signif...

journals.asm.org

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Baylink Lab @baylinklab.bsky.social · Aug 12

Wonderful how Alphafold has opened up protein structure prediction to non-experts but you still have to feed it correct information (like oligomeric state!). A small test case shows AF3 makes excellent guesses on natural variants but inaccuracies occur from dubious user inputs.

#microsky #IDsky 🧪🦠

Comparisons of crystal structure and AlphaFold 3 models of KatASS1. (A) Overlay of crystal structure KatASS1 (two chains, yellow) and crystal structures of KatA26659 (light gray, four chains). Variant sites are noted in pink. (B–E) Poses of variant residues within KatASS1, as indicated. KatASS1 crystal structure chains are shown in yellow and KatA26995 crystal structure chains in light gray. Green mesh is mFo-DFc omit map electron density at 3.5 σ averaged over the two non-crystallographic symmetry (NCS) chains, and dark blue mesh is 2mFo-DFc NCS-averaged electron density at 1.0 σ of the final model. (F) Overlay of the KatASS1 crystal structure (yellow) with three AlphaFold 3 models (light blue, blue, and dark blue) using native sequence and tetramer oligomerization as input parameters. (G–J). Overlay of each variant residue comparing crystal structure (yellow) positions to AlphaFold three predictions (blue). (K). Global root-mean-square-deviation (RMSD) values for each structure and model in relation to crystal structure KatASS1 chain A.

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Reposted by Baylink Lab

Christine Moissl-Eichinger @chmoei.bsky.social · Aug 5

🚨 2 funded #PhD positions (ERC Adv Grant) in the Moissl-Eichinger Lab, Graz! Study Methanobrevibacter as a keystone in the gut microbiome.
💡 Omics, modeling, synthetic consortia
📅 Deadline: Sept 10, 2025
🌍 Int’l applicants welcome!
Application link below.
#microbiomesky #archaeasky #microsky

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Reposted by Baylink Lab

Smriti Mallapaty @smritimallapaty.bsky.social · Jul 30

Talent recruitment programmes have enticed many researchers to return to China. But how successful have they been? I spoke with several researchers who have analysed these trends and assessed their impact on China's research ecosystem 🧪

How China’s bold talent recruitment has shaped science

Many Chinese researchers have received enviable benefits and positions after returning from training abroad.

www.nature.com

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