Will Smith
@willpjsmith.bsky.social
I love science! I study toxin interactions in microbes. Dad of two @wellcometrust Sir Henry Wellcome Fellow | All views my own | he/him | 🏳️🌈
EDIT: I was wrong, I was poster 070! 🤦♂️
November 27, 2025 at 9:24 AM
EDIT: I was wrong, I was poster 070! 🤦♂️
LOL wet! I don't think it's stopped raining for the last 24h ^^
September 17, 2025 at 4:00 PM
LOL wet! I don't think it's stopped raining for the last 24h ^^
YES! Amazing news, big congrats Rachel! 🎉
September 16, 2025 at 10:40 AM
YES! Amazing news, big congrats Rachel! 🎉
Thanks for reading this thread! We hope the paper is interesting and useful Huge thanks to my coauthor @prokaryota.bsky.social for a really cool and enjoyable collab, Elisa is the best :-)
16/16
16/16
August 31, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Thanks for reading this thread! We hope the paper is interesting and useful Huge thanks to my coauthor @prokaryota.bsky.social for a really cool and enjoyable collab, Elisa is the best :-)
16/16
16/16
If your lab does competition assays where microbial antagonism is (or may be!) involved, it might be worth doing a ground-truth check for biases like these. Also, some assays won't be affected e.g. if you use colorimetric killing assays that don't rely on a selection step or c.f.u. counting.
15/n
15/n
August 31, 2025 at 10:24 PM
If your lab does competition assays where microbial antagonism is (or may be!) involved, it might be worth doing a ground-truth check for biases like these. Also, some assays won't be affected e.g. if you use colorimetric killing assays that don't rely on a selection step or c.f.u. counting.
15/n
15/n
What's our take-away? Competitive interactions are very common (see e.g. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and we've shown they can be hard to quench in a killing assay. This can lead to over-estimation of strong competitive interactions.
14/n
14/n
Bacterial species rarely work together
Competition is prevalent and could be harnessed as an alternative to antibiotics
www.science.org
August 31, 2025 at 10:24 PM
What's our take-away? Competitive interactions are very common (see e.g. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and we've shown they can be hard to quench in a killing assay. This can lead to over-estimation of strong competitive interactions.
14/n
14/n
Conversely, when Susceptible cells are rare (e.g. if they *didn't* do well in the competition assay), few dilutions are required to count Susceptible c.f.u.s. and there will be proportionally more contact with T6SS-armed Attackers. More T6SS contact, more residual killing, fewer c.f.u.s.
13/n
13/n
August 31, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Conversely, when Susceptible cells are rare (e.g. if they *didn't* do well in the competition assay), few dilutions are required to count Susceptible c.f.u.s. and there will be proportionally more contact with T6SS-armed Attackers. More T6SS contact, more residual killing, fewer c.f.u.s.
13/n
13/n