Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · 1d

Quite the variety of 🦠 🧫 my son’s homemade play dough generated!

Yellow play dough with a variety of microbial colonies

Yellow play dough with a variety of colonies

Yellow play dough with a range of microbial growth

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · 6d

DYK most P. aeruginosa carry filamentous phage(s) that don't need to kill the cell to reproduce?

We 👉🏻@nanamikubota.bsky.social show that these Pf phages can go ROGUE.

"Filamentous cheater phages drive bacterial and phage populations to lower fitness"

🔗 authors.elsevier.com/c/1lt5I3QW8S...

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

Elizabeth Warren @warren.senate.gov · 8d

If things weren’t bad enough already, Republicans in control of Congress are shutting down the government.

Why? Because Donald Trump opposes making health care more affordable for millions of Americans.

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

STCmicrobeblog @stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social · 9d

thanks, jeremy, for pointing this out 👇
(already, when this was a hot issue a few month ago, europmc.org was mentioned here on 🔵bsky as a possible safety belt) #MicroSky

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

Emmanuele Severi @emmseveri.bsky.social · 8d

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#microsky

Polymyxin B lethality requires energy-dependent outer membrane disruption - Nature Microbiology

The antibiotic polymyxin B requires bacterial metabolic activity to cause sufficient damage to the outer membrane to access the inner membrane, which it permeabilizes via an energy-independent mechanism to kill the cell.

www.nature.com

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · 9d

Ligation based RNA-seq prep kits? Like the NEB kits: www.neb.com/en-us/produc...

NEBNext Multiplex Small RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina (Index Primers 1-48) | NEB

NEBNext Multiplex Small RNA Library Prep Set for Illumina (1-48) workflow has been optimized to minimize adaptor-dimers while producing high-yield, high-diversity libraries.

www.neb.com

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · 21d

Come join us in Knoxville! 🧫🧪🦠

utkmicrobiology.bsky.social @utkmicrobiology.bsky.social · 22d

We’re hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Microbial Drivers of Chronic Disease, starting Fall 2026!

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

Tiffany Lowe-Power 🌱🦠 @tlowepower.bsky.social · 16d

Please repost -- The Univ. California Davis dept of Plant Pathology is hiring a Fungal biologist / Mycologist

Applications due Dec 1

Application portal: recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07339

Screenshot shows part of the job posting (with alt-text of the same text)

he Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis is seeking applications for a fulltime, tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Mycology, with a focus on plant pathogenic, symbiotic,
or mycotoxigenic fungi and fungal-like organisms (e.g., oomycetes). We are looking for a highly
motivated and creative scientist with a strong background in mycology and/or the biology of fungi and
fungal-like organisms that interact with plants. The successful candidate will be expected to develop a
world-class, externally funded research program that integrates both fundamental and applied aspects
of fungal biology within the context of plant pathology. We welcome applicants pursuing a wide range
of research topics related to plant-associated fungi, including but not limited to mechanisms of fungal
pathogenesis or symbiosis with plants, population genomics and evolution of fungal plant pathogens,
plant-associated fungal microbiomes and plant-microbe interactions, and/or one health approaches to
fungal diseases and antifungal resistance. Applicants working in other relevant research areas involving
pathogenic, symbiotic, or mycotoxigenic fungi or fungal-like organisms that affect plant health are also
encouraged to apply. The successful candidate will have significant opportunities for collaboration with
faculty in plant pathology, microbiology, genomics, and agricultural sciences, and to contribute to
addressing issues of importance to California’s agricultural and natural ecosystems.
The appointee primary teaching responsibilities will be teaching Introductory Mycology, an upperdivision lab class, and SAS 30, Mushroom, Molds & Society, a general education class for non-majors.
Additional graduate and undergraduate teaching responsibilities may be assigned based on
departmental needs and the candidate’s expertise. The department offers modern instructional
facilities, including a newly renovated teaching laboratory.

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

Tominaga K. (tomiken) @pacyc184.bsky.social · 13d

Dual transposon sequencing profiles the genetic interaction landscape in bacteria | Science https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adt7685?af=R

Dual transposon sequencing profiles the genetic interaction landscape in bacteria

Gene redundancy complicates systematic characterization of gene function as single-gene deletions may not produce discernible phenotypes. We report dual transposon sequencing (dual Tn-seq), a platform for assaying the fitness of a comprehensive double ...

www.science.org

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · 21d

Come join us in Knoxville! 🧫🧪🦠

utkmicrobiology.bsky.social @utkmicrobiology.bsky.social · 22d

We’re hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Microbial Drivers of Chronic Disease, starting Fall 2026!

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

utkmicrobiology.bsky.social @utkmicrobiology.bsky.social · 22d

We’re hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Microbial Drivers of Chronic Disease, starting Fall 2026!

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

utkmicrobiology.bsky.social @utkmicrobiology.bsky.social · 22d

We’re hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Quantitative Microbe–Plant–Environment Interactions, starting Fall 2026!

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 21d

More from our #SCIMaP effort, including projections and state level report cards of what is at stake given the White House projected FY26 budget for NIH

scienceimpacts.org/fy26

SCIMaP - Impacts of Federal Cuts to Science and Medical Research

View Projected Impact of the FY2026 Budget Cuts to the NIH

scienceimpacts.org

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · 22d

My department at UTK is hiring! 🧪🧫 We are hiring two Assistant Professors, one in Microbial Drivers of Chronic Disease and one in Quantitative Microbe-Plant-Environment Interactions! Come join our growing department of microbiologists. Knoxville is a great place to live!

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 @helenbranswell.bsky.social · 23d

Former surgeon general Jerome Adams pulls no punches in his assessment of health secretary Kennedy and the risk he poses to vaccine policy. www.statnews.com/2025/09/15/j...

Why Trump’s former surgeon general wants Kennedy removed: ‘An absolute failure of leadership’

Jerome Adams on RFK Jr.: "An absolute failure of leadership."

www.statnews.com

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

bioRxiv Microbiology @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 29d

Phase separation and coexistence in spatial coordination games between microbes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.09.675176v1

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Reposted by Carolyn Ibberson

bioRxiv Microbiology @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 26d

Revealing Community Dynamics in Polymicrobial Infections through a Quantitative Framework https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.12.675334v1

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · 25d

Further, we think this approach can be applied to any system to build improved experimental models that allow for improved translation of lab findings.

Check it out and we welcome feedback!

Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · 25d

Interestingly, we found this framework allowed us to validate if known microbe-microbe interactions were occurring in situ & build a highly accurate polymicrobial synthetic community.

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · 25d

We made iterative improvements to a polymicrobial wound model along two axes: community composition and host environment and gained key insights into the microbial dynamics of our system.

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · 25d

We set out to ask the question: how accurate are our polymicrobial experimental models in capturing microbial in situ physiology? This was inspired by work led by @ginalewin.bsky.social , Marvin Whiteley, and Dan Cornforth. We expanded their framework to look at overall community function.

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · 25d

Excited to share our latest preprint is up: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... led by @aanuoluwaduro.bsky.social ! 🧪🧫

Revealing Community Dynamics in Polymicrobial Infections through a Quantitative Framework

Laboratory models provide tractable, reproducible systems that have long served as foundational tools in microbiology. However, the extent to which these models accurately mimic the biological environ...

www.biorxiv.org

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · Sep 8

I had an August 1 start date and August 4 NOA

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · Sep 8

But also Ive been plotting it by week and it’s not just that the newest NOAs get added to the end. Usually it is the most recent couple weeks, but there are some weeks where a small number appear from a few weeks before. Mine was MYF so I haven’t looked closely enough to see if that’s the quirk.

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Carolyn Ibberson @cbibberson.bsky.social · Sep 8

I originally noticed because mine didn’t post with a few others with the same early Aug NOA dates, but then came in a later update.

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