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Microbial Biotechnology (MBT) @microbiotech.bsky.social · 14d

#MicroSky: CLEAN ENVIRONMENT! Glekas et al built a Pseudomonas putida strain with an optimized dsz operon to strip sulfur from fuels. The new strain, DS006, shows high efficiency in removing DBT—paving the way for cleaner & greener energy. doi.org/10.1111/1751...

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pglekas.bsky.social @pglekas.bsky.social · 13d

Happy to participate in such interesting experience! Welcome to bluesky!

pglekas.bsky.social @pglekas.bsky.social · 16d

You made us feel valued, supported, and confident that with the right guidance we can achieve anything. A special thank-you to my instructor, Daniel Volke, for sharing his expertise and techniques with our team and for celebrating even our smallest wins. 100% recommended! Lifetime experience

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pglekas.bsky.social @pglekas.bsky.social · 16d

Grateful to the organizers @vdlorenzo.bsky.social @pabnik.bsky.social, instructors, and host @cshlaboratory.bsky.social of the CSH-Asia workshop. It was an incredible experience for young scientists diving into synthetic biology and the metabolic engineering of Pseudomonas. (1/n)

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Victor de Lorenzo (CNB, Madrid) @vdlorenzo.bsky.social · 26d

Bio-desulfurization of fossil fuels has been a classic env biotech challenge for decades, but the field became stagnant for a while … until @pglekas.bsky.social et al leveraged SynBio tools to develop superior whole-cell catalysts enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 😱

Boosting Dibenzothiophene Biodesulfurization Through Implantation of a Refactored DBT Pathway in a Tailored Pseudomonas putida Chassis

This study engineered a Pseudomonas putida strain to efficiently remove sulfur from dibenzothiophene (DBT) by reordering and optimising the dsz operon from Rhodococcus qingshengii IGTS8, enhancing ca...

enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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pglekas.bsky.social @pglekas.bsky.social · Jul 14

Congratulations!!!!

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Angel Goñi-Moreno @angelgm.bsky.social · Jul 9

Next in Lab's conference agenda: FEMS @femsmicro.org! @vdlorenzo.bsky.social and myself are running a session on bacterial computation. Talks by @yschaerli.bsky.social, @manishmicrobe.bsky.social, Sangram Bagh & organisers. Very looking forward to it! #biocomputation #synbio

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Victor de Lorenzo (CNB, Madrid) @vdlorenzo.bsky.social · Jul 9

Deadline for applications extended to July 22 🔔! An unique opportunity to engage with cutting-edge science in a highly interactive format 👇

Victor de Lorenzo (CNB, Madrid) @vdlorenzo.bsky.social · Jun 11

Dear Pseudomonas aficionados: just a few weeks left to apply for this milestone CSH-Asia hands-on Course on Pseudomonas SynBio & Biotech in Suzhou www.csh-asia.org?content/2645. The experiments run there will be the basis of a dedicated CSHL protocol book on our fav microorganism!

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Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · Jun 5

Carl Sagan in 1986 on the problems with media and science literacy.

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Angel Goñi-Moreno @angelgm.bsky.social · May 30

We are offering a #PhD candidate position (Spanish FPI) to work with us at the @cnb-csic.bsky.social in Madrid. The project you would be part of: establish a #biofoundry at our institution, to optimize #synbio experiments from #design to #test. If interested, get in touch!

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Victor de Lorenzo (CNB, Madrid) @vdlorenzo.bsky.social · May 26

Today by 12 h @cnb-csic.bsky.social our Tomás Aparicio will share his latest insights & genetic tools on how to accelerate evolution without stress in individual bacteria and communities—what we call *hit-and-run mutagenesis* 🤩 thereby revisiting the discussion of what is a GMO 😱

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pglekas.bsky.social @pglekas.bsky.social · May 24

Thanks for the amazing talk @aemonten.bsky.social!

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Victor de Lorenzo (CNB, Madrid) @vdlorenzo.bsky.social · May 22

Is there life in the bioscience research landscape other than being a PI? Find out with @aemonten.bsky.social, who will give a talk in the @cnb-csic.bsky.social this Fri on his experiences as Executive Editor CSH Protocols & Head of the Integrity in Publishing Group of the CSHL Press

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pglekas.bsky.social @pglekas.bsky.social · May 6

The Secretary of Education just went full OP-ed in a letter to Harvard. Foreign chaos, remedial math, and Bill Ackman as fiscal Yoda. Somewhere in there was a point about grants? When academia meets political fanfic....

Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · May 6

🚨🚨 Deranged letter from Education Secretary Linda McMahon to Harvard’s president, cutting off federal funding for any new grants.

Worth reading in full. It is NUTS.

THE SECRETARY OF EDUCATION
WASHINGTON, DC 20202
May 5, 2025
Dr. Alan Garber
Office of the President
Harvard University
Massachusetts Hall
Cambridge, MA 02138
Dr. Garber,
The Federal Government has a sacred responsibility to be a wise and important steward of American taxpayer dollars. Harvard University, despite amassing a largely tax-free $53.2 billion dollar endowment (larger than the GDP of 100 countries), receives billions of dollars of taxpayer largess each year. Receiving such taxpayer funds is a privilege, not a right. Yet instead of using these funds to advance the education of its students, Harvard is engaging in a systemic pattern of violating federal law. Where do many of these "students" come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country—and why is there so much HATE? These are questions that must be answered, among many more, but the biggest question of all is, why will Harvard not give straightforward answers to the American public?
Harvard University has made a mockery of this country's higher education system. It has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America, to its campus. In every way, Harvard has failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor. It had scrapped standardized testing requirements and a normalized grading system. This year Harvard was forced to adopt an embarrassing "remedial math" program for undergraduates.
Why is it, we ask, that Harvard has to teach simple and basic mathematics, when it is supposedly so hard to get into this "acclaimed university"? Who is getting in under such a low standard when others, with fabulous grades and a great understanding of the highest levels of mathematics, are being rejected?
Harvard has even been embroiled in humiliating plagiarism scandals, exposed clearly and plainly in the media, with respect to your then…

$running the institution in a totally chaotic way. Harvard alumnus and highly successful hedge fund manager Bill Ackman noted that, under her leadership, Harvard has become "a political advocacy organization for one party." Ackman has called for the resignation of Pritzker, concluding that the "[t)he mismanagement here is Penny Pritzker" and noting that any serious corporation would have removed her after a litany of recent failings and the fact that, incredibly, "Harvard is not in a good financial position." According to Ackman, one of the world's foremost finance experts, Harvard's so-called S53 billion endowment is "massively overstated as far as what it's really worth," and Harvard has irresponsibly taken out $8 billion in debt. If this is true, it is concerning evidence of Harvard's disastrous mismanagement, indicating an urgent need for massive reform-not continued taxpayer investment. If Harvard prefers not to change, then Harvard should have no problem using its overflowing endowment to fund its bloated bureaucracy. At its best, a university should fulfill the highest ideals of our Nation, and enlighten the thousands of hopeful students who walk through its magnificent gates. But Harvard has betrayed this ideal. Perhaps most alarmingly, Harvard has failed to abide by the United States Supreme Court's ruling demanding that it end its racial preferencing, and continues to engage in ugly racism in its undergraduate and graduate schools, and even within the Harvard Law Review itself. Our universities should be bastions of merit that reward and celebrate excellence and achievement. They should not be incubators of discrimination that encourage resentment and instill grievance and racism into our wonderful young Americans. The above concerns are only a fraction of the long list of Harvard's consistent violations of its own legal duties. Given these and other concerning allegations, this letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the fede…$

Federal Agencies. The Administration's priorities have not changed and today's letter marks the end of new grants for the University.
These requests will advance the best interests of Harvard University, so it can reclaim its status as a respected educational institution for the future leaders of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Sincerely,
Linda E. McMahon
Secretary of Education

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Victor de Lorenzo (CNB, Madrid) @vdlorenzo.bsky.social · Apr 30

Dear Pseudomonas aficionados: Please check this hands-on Cold Spring Harbor Asia Course on the sexiest science and technology of our favourite bug. All info in the QR code 👇

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Carlos Briones @brionesci.bsky.social · Mar 26

“No existe el cambio climático. Siempre ha llovido en Europa durante febrero y marzo.”

Ya, pero:

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Pablo Ivan Nikel @pabnik.bsky.social · Mar 19

A call for action by Ken Timmis — Academic institutions worldwide must welcome de-funded US researchers · Read the statement here 👇
iums.org/kenneth-timm...

Academic institutions worldwide must welcome de-funded US researchers

iums.org

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Victor de Lorenzo (CNB, Madrid) @vdlorenzo.bsky.social · Mar 19

Keep an eye out for the Special Sessions of the European Academy of Microbiology this July at FEMS2025 fems-microbiology.org/eam-sessions... ! Do not miss the one on bacterial computation, featuring top experts @angelgm.bsky.social, Manish Kushwaha, Yolanda Schaerli, and Sangram Bagh!

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Trish Greenhalgh @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · Mar 4

The most extraordinary thing about James Harrison, who donated his rare plasma every 2 weeks for over 60 years and saved the lives of an estimated 2.4 million babies, is that he had to overcome a FEAR OF NEEDLES.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

James Harrison, whose rare blood helped save millions of babies, dies at 88

By donating blood over 1,100 times, James Harrison helped develop Anti-D, a life-saving treatment for newborns at risk of Rhesus disease

www.independent.co.uk

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Santiago Elena @sfelena.bsky.social · Feb 20

Experimental evolution of evolvability | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Experimental evolution of evolvability

Evolvability—the capacity to generate adaptive variation—is a trait that can itself evolve through natural selection. However, the idea that mutation can become biased toward adaptive outcomes remains...

www.science.org

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ASM @asm.org · Feb 15

ASM stands firm in its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, as such efforts are critical to advancing the microbial sciences for everyone. Read our statement: asm.org/Press-Releas...

ASM’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

The American Society for Microbiology stands firm in its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, as such efforts are critical to advancing the microbial sciences for everyone.

asm.org

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pglekas.bsky.social @pglekas.bsky.social · Feb 16

IMHO, words shape how we see things. ‘Synthetic’ can mean both creating something new and something artificial. In SynBio, this mix isn’t a flaw, it just makes us rethink what’s natural, what’s designed, and where the line between them really is (or should be).

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pglekas.bsky.social @pglekas.bsky.social · Feb 14

Congratulations!

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