Great news: I have been awarded a BBSRC Discovery Fellowship to work on the role of horizontal gene transfer in bacterial warfare at the University of Oxford. Exciting times ahead!
New paper in Current Biology
Out now: we show that Escherichia coli bacteria undergo mass cell suicide to release toxins during competitions, and that this behavior is restricted to cells that are going to die from the competitor’s attack.
The Evolution of Mass Cell Suicide in Bacterial Warfare (Open Access)
Watch a video summary of the paper:
New paper on Biorxiv
Out now on bioRxiv: We looked at bacteria that lyse themselves en masse (!) to release toxins & found that they only do that when they’re bound to die anyway. So smart!
The Evolution of Mass Cell Suicide in Bacterial Warfare (preprint)
Talk at ESEB
I presented my work on suicidal warfare in bacteria at the ESEB2019 conference in Turku, Finland.
New review paper in Current Biology
Out now: we reviewed the literature on ecological and evolutionary aspects of bacteria killing each other. With cool figures!
New paper in The ISME Journal
Our new paper now out in ISME!
A cool story on observing bacterial pathogens do their thing in see-through nematodes.
New paper on Biorxiv
Our new paper is on bioRxiv!
Pathogens competing for worm guts, surprising results, and christmas-colored nematodes – this one’s got it all!
Bacterial World
The Natural History Museum in Oxford is hosting an amazing exhibition on bacteria. Featuring a giant inflatable E. coli cell, a browser game on bacterial gladiators &Â several microscopy images from our group.
Check it out:
Twitter microbiology lectures
!OUTREACH!
This October/November, 21 scientists from all over the world came together to give Twitter lectures on Microbiology, using the hashtag #EUROmicroMOOC. I contributed a lecture on Bacterial Cooperation, one of my favorite topics! These lectures are aimed at a general audience, and it was tons of fun to answer to questions live on Twitter.
Check out my lecture: EUROmicroMOOC- Bacterial Cooperation
ISME poster
Had a blast at the ISME17 conference in Leipzig (Germany) and came back wowed and inspired by all the amazing science!