Gabriel Birzu

I am seeking a postdoc to join my group at UCLA -- ideally the candidate would have some experience in either population genetics or microbes/microbiome (computational background needed). We have a range of projects and are happy to tailer to your interests. Please dm/email me if interested.

Here, we find that many Genomic islands have origins of transfer (oriT) mobilisable by conjugation, incl. known Pathogenicity & defense islands. iOriT use only an oriT for transfer by hitching on conjugative elements: they make abundant, diverse, ancient families of mobile genetic elements. See🧵

Remixing the gene pool Microbes might behave less like distinct species and more like constantly interbreeding communities.

Bacteria swap DNA far more than we thought. This study shows recombination between species can blur genetic boundaries, with up to 95% of diversity coming from hybrid DNA in some microbes.

Hybridization breaks species barriers in long-term coevolution of a cyanobacterial population Analysis of hundreds of single-cell genomes from Yellowstone National Park shows bacterial species are less cohesive than previously thought.

Happy that our work on the evolution of Yellowstone cyanobacteria is now published in @elife.bsky.social: doi.org/10.7554/eLif...! Did a lot of work in revision—many thanks to the anonymous reviewers for great suggestions! Also see the eLife digest for a summary: elifesciences.org/digests/9084...

Extensive recombination, selection, and asexual blooms shape the diversity of the dominant clade of Prochlorococcus The tiny and enormously abundant marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus marinus contains many levels of population structure, with sequenced isolates spanning four orders of magnitude of diversity. It ...

New preprint to close out the year! Led by Alana Papula and together with Daniel Fisher, we used single-cell genomes to infer the evolution of Prochlorococcus—one of the most abundant and genetically diverse bacteria on Earth. Check it out here: doi.org/10.64898/202...