Rachel Darnell
rachel-darnell19.bsky.social
Rachel Darnell
@rachel-darnell19.bsky.social
Microbiologist and researcher at Newcastle University (UK). Interested in cell envelope stress responses and their regulatory role in antimicrobial tolerance and resistance in Gram-positive bacteria.
Reposted by Rachel Darnell
💼JOB OFFER: There is a great opportunity for #PDRAs to join the #KathrynLilley #UniversityofCambridge lab to work on an ancient set of effector proteins IM30 family, that promote membrane integrity. See: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc.... Apply by the 13th Feb
Research Associate - Lilley Group (Fixed Term)
Postdoctoral Research Associate to apply proteomics technologies to an ancient universal bacterial membrane effector system The post is a key part of an existing major 5-year BBSRC sLoLa award to
www.cam.ac.uk
January 13, 2026 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Rachel Darnell
Our paper on polymyxin interacting with the E. coli outer membrane is out! Simulations by the very talented @dheerajprakaash.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s42...

To scale outer membrane protein island simulated at coarse-grained resolution with portions refined at all atom resolution.
Polymyxins slow down lateral diffusion of proteins and lipopolysaccharide in the E. coli outer membrane - Communications Biology
Multi-scale molecular dynamics simulations reveal that polymyxins form polymyxin-protein aggregates upon associating with the E. coli outer membrane thereby reducing lateral mobility of outer membrane...
www.nature.com
December 5, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Rachel Darnell
I had a great time at the @bsacandjac.bsky.social ARM workshop! I met some wonderful scientists and had great discussions about my work! Also, I walked away with a poster prize!! Thanks for organising @friendlymicrobe.bsky.social @conmeehan.bsky.social
November 28, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Rachel Darnell
Two fully-funded PhD openings in my research group at the University of York.
If you’re excited about viromes, phage biology, Nanopore sequencing, soils and the odd bit of alpine or agricultural field sampling, we’d love to hear from you!
🌱🦠🏔️

tiny.cc/c4pv001
tiny.cc/e4pv001
A Farewell to Arms: The Trade-off Between Growth and Defence in Bacteria (York YBDTP Project) at University of York on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - A Farewell to Arms: The Trade-off Between Growth and Defence in Bacteria (York YBDTP Project) at University of York, listed on FindAPhD.com
tiny.cc
November 27, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Presenting a collection of projects spanning my time at the University of Otago and Newcastle University was a squeeze, but I think I managed! @avertproject.bsky.social @bsacandjac.bsky.social
November 27, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Just arrived at the BSAC Antibiotic Resistance and Mechanisms workshop in Birmingham, looking forward to some great talks and discussions over the next two days! @bsacandjac.bsky.social @neharamchandani.bsky.social @taylorwr.bsky.social
November 27, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Reposted by Rachel Darnell
Now properly published at @natcomms.nature.com with few additional experiments incl. demonstration of Daptomycin's ability to depolarise non-growing cells.
See the original preprint-thread for a summary of our findings.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#microsky
November 24, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Reposted by Rachel Darnell
Why does daptomycin resistance appear so fast in Enterococcus? We finally have a clue.

DAP resistance in enterococci pops up quickly. What’s been missing is why resistance-associated membrane changes look the way they do, and why the classic path of mutations is so predictable.
A two-component system signaling hub controls enterococcal membrane remodeling in response to daptomycin https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.16.688641v1
November 17, 2025 at 8:27 PM
New paper out in AAC looking at the development of hyper-tolerance and cross-tolerance to cell wall-targeting antimicrobials via mutations in the mevalonate and Epa biosynthesis pathways and the LiaFSR cell envelope stress response. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1128/aac....
Prolonged exposure to teixobactin generates cross-tolerance to other cell wall-targeting antimicrobials in Enterococcus faecalis | Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
Antimicrobial tolerance (AMT) is the ability of a microorganism to survive but not proliferate during high-dose antimicrobial treatment (1). Mechanisms of AMT have been linked to many different cellul...
doi.org
November 19, 2025 at 9:14 AM