Tami Lieberman
@contaminatedsci.bsky.social
4.8K followers 810 following 510 posts
Associate Professor, MIT Still thinking about the 10^9 mutations generated in your microbiome today. Website: http://lieberman.science
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contaminatedsci.bsky.social
Our paper demonstrating that within-species warfare interactions are ecologically important on human skin is now published in Nature Micro! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
contaminatedsci.bsky.social
We did not explicitly do that, but our assumption of varying local selective pressures is quite similar to some types of frequency dependent selection.
contaminatedsci.bsky.social
Indeed it may be the same claim. We were cautious to restrict ourselves to species for which we have the most evidence, but perhaps this is generalizable.
contaminatedsci.bsky.social
Yes, thats our hypothesis. Its comes from observations of frequent in-person adaptive evolution involving stop codons in key genes (potentially phage receptors).
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
raflynn5.bsky.social
We found that csDNA is not restricted to cultured cells, but in health donors, B cells and monocytes had clear csDNA accumulation while T cells and NK cells did not.
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
raflynn5.bsky.social
We’re excited to report work led by postdoc Jennifer Porat in the lab, finding that DNA accumulates on the surface of living cells and that the secreted extracellular protein DNASE1L3 can modulate its levels on B and T cells. With a new twist for ATAC-seq as well www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
DNASE1L3 surveils mitochondrial DNA on the surface of distinct mammalian cells
The extracellular space is a critical environment for discriminating self versus non-self nucleic acids and initiating the appropriate immune responses through signaling cascades to relay information ...
www.biorxiv.org
contaminatedsci.bsky.social
The response from the senator was quite bad-- talking only about policy and paperwork, when there was the opportunity to refute her claims about caring for the state and talk about freedoms.
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
erikbakkeren.bsky.social
Note it in your calendars! Aug 3-5, 2026. Excited to bring back MEEHubs to a hub near you (Switzerland, USA, Canada, Mexico, UK, Ukraine, or virtual only)‼️
meehubs.bsky.social
We’re back! ✨ The next #MeeHubs26 is coming with 7 hubs across the globe and incredible lineups at each. Can’t wait to share more soon! meehubs.org
Home
meehubs.org
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
maddyseale.bsky.social
Wonderful to see this beautiful image on the cover of Science this week highlighting a paper that uses high resolution imaging to show the spatial patterns of bacterial attraction to glutamine from roots.
Paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Perspective here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
surtlab.bsky.social
Here’s published version of our manuscript using GWAS to investigate tailocin sensitivity in Pseudomonas syringae. TL:DR pretty clear LPS is tailocin receptor but also that P.syringae often completely swaps out its entire O antigen biosynth pathway w/ recombination

academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...
Genomic correlates of tailocin sensitivity in Pseudomonas syringae
Abstract. Phage-derived bacteriocins, also referred to as tailocins, are structures encoded by bacterial genomes and deployed into the extracellular enviro
academic.oup.com
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
brockhurstlab.bsky.social
Rosanna designed a high-throughput evolutionary screen with ~20k populations comparing CRISPR+ vs CRISPR- Pseudomonas against 351 phage treatments

Benefit of CRISPR varied among phages and increased 📈 as surface receptor resistance mutations supply decreased 📉
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
brockhurstlab.bsky.social
New preprint!

Ever wondered why only a fraction of genomes encode CRISPR immunity? 🧬 🦠

Turns out CRISPR is rarely beneficial against virulent phages, being most beneficial against those for which resistance mutations are rare!

An epic effort by Rosanna Wright

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Resistance mutation supply modulates the benefit of CRISPR immunity against virulent phages
Only a fraction of bacterial genomes encode CRISPR-Cas systems but the selective causes of this variation are unexplained. How naturally virulent bacteriophages (phages) select for CRISPR immunity has...
www.biorxiv.org
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
oschwengers.bsky.social
Unbelievable, Bakta reached its 1,000th citation!

A huge shout out and thank you to all Bakta users, bug reporters, those sharing ideas and suggesting features...

...just the entire incredibly supporting binfie community!

Without you, Bakta wouldn't be the same.

Thank you!
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
enirenberg.bsky.social
This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was just announced:
www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medic...

This seems like a good opportunity for me to explain a bit about peripheral immune tolerance and where the prizewinners' work comes in 🧵
6 October 2025

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has decided to award the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to:

Mary E. Brunkow
Institute for Systems Biology,
Seattle, USA

Fred Ramsdell
Sonoma Biotherapeutics,
San Francisco, USA

Shimon Sakaguchi
Osaka University,
Osaka, Japan

“for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance”
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
erinrgreen.bsky.social
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
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
couchmicroscopy.bsky.social
Rutgers Newark is hiring multiple new profs who work in microbial pathogenesis, structural bio, human/microbial genetics, genomics, biochemistry, or computational biophysics. I loved doing my PhD at Rutgers and I LOVE New Jersey. Reach out if you’re applying and have questions about the school/area.
Open Rank Faculty Position on the Tenure Track - Newark, New Jersey (US) job with Rutgers | 12844885
MULTIPLE TENURE-TRACK FACULTY POSITIONS AVAILABLE The Dept. of Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Genetics at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
www.nature.com
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
vscooper.micropopbio.org
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...
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
katecavanaugh.bsky.social
See this? This = implanting mouse embryo. Usually this happens inside its mother and is invisible to us, but we can actually watch implantation ex vivo with the hope of understanding why implantation goes awry in embryos of older women. A 🧵...
Reposted by Tami Lieberman
sciencevs.bsky.social
This moment from our latest episode with science writer @edyong209.bsky.social is 🔥

We asked Ed — how do we talk up the benefits of science in the face of government cuts? He told us that's the wrong approach. 🧪

Listen wherever, or watch on Spotify 👇

open.spotify.com/episode/7Evh...