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Frank Santoriello

@fsantoriello.bsky.social

740 followers 370 following 49 posts

Microbial geneticist 🧬🧫| Princeton MolBio Postdoc with Bonnie Bassler Artist 🎨🖊️ | I like to draw bacteria and dead things Likes loud music, sci-fi/fantasy/horror, tattoos, and fermented foods. he/him https://www.franksantorielloart.com

www.franksantorielloart.com

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Reposted by Frank Santoriello

Julie Johnston @queermsfrizzle.bsky.social · Aug 21

Finally got my dissertation artwork tattooed (art by @fsantoriello.bsky.social)

They're super adorable, based on the Ramones and the colors are the seasons since my work was seasonal changed in wastewater microbiome (red-summer, orange-fall, blue-winter spring-green)

4 microbes acting all moody like they are on cover of an album. two have some pilli, one has a big flagella, and they all have vacant eyes. they are on my left wrist.

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Jul 31

New short story from my postdoc in the Bassler lab is up on bioRxiv!

Turns out our favorite quorum sensing responsive phage VP882 is a member of a larger family of phages that is distributed across multiple bacterial species and can eavesdrop on a universally conserved autoinducer.

#PhageSky 🦠🧫

bioRxiv Microbiology @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · Jul 30

A family of linear plasmid phages that detect a quorum-sensing autoinducer exists in multiple bacterial species https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.30.667625v1

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Reposted by Frank Santoriello

Andrew Perfors @andyperfors.bsky.social · Dec 16

This is a very good essay if you, like me, have been grappling with the changing world and what it all means and where we're going. Despite the title and heavy topic, it's actually more hopeful than most things (while still being real).

rojospinks.substack.com/p/how-i-beca...

How I became 'collapse aware'

And started to imagine what comes next

rojospinks.substack.com

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Reposted by Frank Santoriello

Tory Hendry @thendry.bsky.social · Dec 6

We’re excited to advertise the Microbial Friends and Foes REU program! Please share info with your undergrads, for 10 weeks paid research experience at Cornell. Apps due on Feb 1. @heatherfeaga.bsky.social

cihmid.cornell.edu/academics-pr...

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Nov 13

I’m so bummed that building was just being finished when I graduated. Always wanted to go inside.

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Nov 13

As an undergrad in micro lab class, I aspirated bacteria into a micropipette. We were taught to flame sterilize things that touched bacteria, so my child brain thought “why not flame sterilize the micropipette?”. And that’s how I melted a micropipette and learned to ask before I do.

Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Nov 5

Civic duty done! Now I guess I run a gel and dissociate or something.

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Reposted by Frank Santoriello

Dor Salomon @drdorsalomon.bsky.social · Oct 23

Happy to share our work that's now online in Nature Microbiology: Gamma-Mobile-Trio systems are mobile elements rich in bacterial defensive and offensive tools.

If you're interested in Anti-phage, T6SS, Vibrio, or MGE then this is for you. 🦠

rdcu.be/dXMwQ

Gamma-Mobile-Trio systems are mobile elements rich in bacterial defensive and offensive tools

Nature Microbiology - GMT-containing genomic islands in Vibrio parahaemolyticus and other diverse bacteria serve as a stockpile of immune and anti-phage defence systems, antibiotic-resistance genes...

rdcu.be

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Oct 23

Today I will be doing my first western blot since 2020 (which is when I did my first ever western blot). Pray for me.

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Reposted by Frank Santoriello

Crawford Kilian @crof.bsky.social · Oct 22

Fun fact: We have been in the seventh cholera pandemic since 1961, and it's still going strong. Global cholera deaths are surging, WHO says www.cidrap.umn.edu/cholera/glob...

Global cholera deaths are surging, WHO says

www.cidrap.umn.edu

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Oct 22

Trippy phage

#sciart #MicroSky 🦠

A phage particle with multiple eyes in the capsid surrounded by laurels made of two yellow flowers and DNA strands.

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Oct 21

Another one.

Dagger phage

#sciart #MicroSky 🦠

Green bacterium being stabbed by a tailed bacteriophage.

Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Oct 19

Artist, QRP your 2 sides.

A tiny monster contemplating how to cross a gaping maw.

Four cartoon archaea dressed as Norse gods.

Reposted by Frank Santoriello

Patrick R. Secor @prsecor.bsky.social · Oct 19

🚨We are also hiring a postdoc to work on our newly funded Lyme disease phage project at Montana State!

Are you a spirochetologist interested in phage biology? Come work with us in beautiful Bozeman, MT!
Apply here:
jobs.montana.edu/postings/43811
🧫🧪🦠

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Reposted by Frank Santoriello

Joe James @tallcuppajoe.bsky.social · Oct 17

Welcome refugees from X! Follow microbiologists and more in the @binningsingletons.com and Friends Starter Pack!

go.bsky.app/H5k2p2g

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Oct 19

It’s been a couple months, but I never posted about it. The final form of my first postdoc paper is out! Really excited to keep digging into this whacky phage that we love so much. #MicroSky 🦠

journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

The LuxO-OpaR quorum-sensing cascade differentially controls Vibriophage VP882 lysis-lysogeny decision making in liquid and on surfaces

Author summary Bacteria in nature often exist in surface-associated communities including sessile biofilms and highly motile swarms. Thus, bacteriophages can encounter their hosts in structured commun...

journals.plos.org

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Oct 19

Let’s keep it going.

Death head phage #2

#sciart

Flash-tattoo style phage with skull capsid.

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Oct 18

If anyone is feeling like an imposter today…I present you with this thing.

I am a postdoc who has been doing PCR for 12 years. Sometimes it just be like that.🧪

A gel image from a horribly failed PCR experiment.

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Oct 18

It’s been a year since I’ve posted new art on the internet. Let’s get back at it.

Death head phage #1

Flash-tattoo-style bacteriophage with a human skull capsid.

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Reposted by Frank Santoriello

Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · Jun 21

New! a couple of cool bacteriophages in ink on yupo (poly paper) artologica.etsy.com 🧪🐡🦠

ink painting of bacteriophage in purple and blue

ink painting of bacteriophage in black and blue

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · May 22

Nobody tells you just how sweaty Lexapro is gonna make you.

Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Apr 3

New preprint from my postdoc with Bonnie Bassler! We show that phage VP882 responds to different host factors depending on the environmental context of the infected host, highlighting the need to study phage-bacteria interactions in relevant contexts to get the full picture. #MicroSky 🦠

Diagram of the quorum-sensing-dependent lifestyle decisions of vibriophage VP882.

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Feb 13

If you see this, post something toothy

(Some oldies of mine)

Black ink and marker drawing of human skull with NYC skyline in the eye sockets.

Ink drawing of small monster attempting to cross a chasm formed by a large mouth.

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Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Feb 13

Hi Erik. Could you please add me to the Science feed? I’m a postdoc at Princeton with Bonnie Bassler.

orcid.org/0000-0002-30...

basslerlab.scholar.princeton.edu/people/frank...

Frank Santoriello @fsantoriello.bsky.social · Jan 4

The Genewiz pickup person is the molbio equivalent of the tooth fairy.