Sabina Leanti La Rosa

PhD scholarship within biotechnology (296538) | Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) Job title: PhD scholarship within biotechnology (296538), Employer: Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Deadline: Friday, April 3, 2026

PhD position available in our lab at NMBU in 🇳🇴 with focus on proteomics, enzyme discovery, applied enzymology and a touch of microbiology🐟🧪🧬💻🦠 Deadline for applying: April 04, 2026. RTs highly appreciated. For details, see the link below 👇
www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Oxygen metabolism in descendants of the archaeal-eukaryotic ancestor - Nature Sequencing of marine sediments finds 136 newly identified Heimdallarchaeia and several novel lineages, and indicates that Heimdallarchaeia evolved distinct metabolic capabilities from other Asgar...

#NatMicroPicks

Aerobic archaeal-eukaryotic ancestor? 🦠🫁

The ancestor of eukaryotes may have combined hydrogen metabolism with aerobic respiration, shaping early cellular complexity.

#MicroSky

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In the largest study of its kind, scientists in the Bork Group at EMBL have found that a small subset of microbes can carry and transfer genes across disparate habitats, creating a planet-wide, interconnected network of microbiomes 🌍 🦠

🔗 Read more here: www.embl.org/news/science...

I am pleased to share that our paper is now published in Cell!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
I am deeply grateful to all co-authors for making this possible.

This work was made possible through the guidance of Dr. Peer Bork. I share this in grateful memory and with deep respect for his mentorship.

A figure from the paper that provides an overview of available culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches for characterizing the human gut virome. Both culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches should be used to study the gut virome. At the bench, many protocols have been adapted to enrich viruses in a sample and isolate them using a sensitive host. Once a virus is isolated, various assays can be used to characterize how the virus interacts with its bacterial host. On the command line, viral genomes can be predicted and viral taxonomy can be identified within a sample. Once procured, multiple tools can be used to annotate viral genomes for predicted gene content and viral lifestyle and predict bacterial host taxonomy.

It's increasingly clear that commensal viruses play important roles in human health, but how do you study them?

Our review "Tools and approaches to study the human gut virome: from the bench to bioinformatics" is out today in mSystems! journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

@haleybiont.bsky.social

A Bacteroides synthetic biology toolkit to build an in vivo malabsorption biosensor
doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

Research Technologist - Life Sciences Advance Professional - Bordenstein Lab APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...

📢 JOB OPPORTUNITY We are hiring a Research Technologist (Advanced Professional) to design, implement, support, analyze, and report on rigorous research in genetics, entomology, and host-microbe interactions. Please consider and share with others in need.

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Staff/jo...

‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a ‘joke’

'High-profile studies reporting the presence of microplastics throughout the human body have been thrown into doubt by scientists who say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives.'

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Research Fellow - Department of Microbes, Infection and Microbiomes - 106849 - Grade 7 To create and contribute to the creation of knowledge by undertaking a specified range of activities as part of an Investigator project funded by Wellcome, focusing on understanding microbial and diet...

Happy New Year – new role! 🎉

We’re looking for a PostDoc to join us in @halllab.bsky.social @unibirmingham.bsky.social.

Full-time, fixed-term to March 2028. Note tight closing date: 11 Jan 2026. CV + cover letter (submit via portal).

Further details 👇

edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Bacteriophages are normally classified as either virulent or temperate. Reality is, of course, more complicated!
Here we show many bacterial isolates contain non-temperate phages that can persist through restreaking.
Thanks to all co-authors for such a great collaboration!

Merry X-SMASH!
My first first author paper is out on bioRxiv! 🖥

We present epsSMASH, a comprehensive and high-throughput tool for predicting exopolysaccharide (exoPS) biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) in bacterial genomes 🦠🧬🧫
1/8

Huge shout out to the amazing #Enzyclic team for making this research possible Gustav Vaaje-Kolstad Gordon Jacob Boehlich, Ørjan Dahl, Ravindra Reddy Chowreddy, Anton Stepnov 🎉

🦠Overall, soil microbial communities can only utilize small compounds such as alkanes and ketones derived from abiotic degradation of polyethylene, but they cannot transform the plastic polymer itself.

🔷 Through metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and proteomics, we show that soil microbes use a broad arsenal of monooxygenases that enable them to metabolize alkanes and ketones found in oxidized polyethylene substrates.

🎈 It is important to thoroughly characterize the substrate before and after microbial growth, before making claims of microbial degradation of polyethylene. Substrates may already contain small compounds “out of the box,” before any experimental treatment.

Microbial degradation of a widely used model polyethylene is restricted to medium- and long-chain alkanes and their oxidized derivatives Abstract. Plastics are widely used materials, yet their chemical stability hinders biodegradation, exacerbating pollution on a global scale. Contaminated s

Excited to share our recent work, led by the super talented PhD student @ronjasan.bsky.social, on how soil microbial communities interact with polyethylene-based plastics!🎉

academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Key takeaways below 🧵

Development of a GC-MS/MS method to quantify 120 gut microbiota-derived metabolites - Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry The gut microbiota produces metabolites that are important for host physiology and have critical roles in the development of diseases, such as metabolic disorders, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer....

📍Our paper is out!📍

Here, we show the development of a GC-MS/MS method for the quantification of 120 compounds produced by gut bacteria, including short-chain fatty acids, indols, nucleotides, organic acids, and amino acid derivatives.
Check it out!

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Protein Set Transformer: a protein-based genome language model to power high-diversity viromics - Nature Communications A genome language model, Protein Set Transformer, trained on viral datasets, uncovers evolutionary rules of protein content and organization driving precise virus identification, host prediction, and ...

Excited for our new paper on a genome language model for viruses in @natcomms.nature.com: "Protein Set Transformer: a protein-based genome language model to power high-diversity viromics"! Led by PhD student Cody Martin in collaboration with @anthonygitter.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Microbe–Diet Interactions and Personalized Nutrition Nutrition plays a fundamental role in shaping human health across the life course, influencing both host physiology and the composition and function of the gut microbiota. In turn, the gut microbiota ...

Delighted to share Magda's new review in Annual Review of Food Science and Technology 🎉

We explore how microbe-diet interactions shape health across the life course and the promise (and challenges!) of microbiome-informed precision nutrition 👇

doi.org/10.1146/annu...

We are recruiting a Lab Manager/Research Specialist
jobs.ncsu.edu/postings/225...
Please re-post, thank you

gutSMASH 2.0: Extended Identification of Primary Metabolic Gene Clusters From the Human Gut Microbiota Microbiota-derived metabolites serve as key messengers mediating host–microbe and microbe–microbe interactions, often through specialized primary meta…

Now available online: the new 2.0 version of gutSMASH, with capabilities to detect 12 new types of catabolic gene clusters relevant to gut microbiome ecology, as well as predictions of their regulation through transcription factor binding site detection. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Nationwide Clostridioides difficile population dynamics. at University of Birmingham on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Nationwide Clostridioides difficile population dynamics. at University of Birmingham, listed on FindAPhD.com

New PhD project, supervision by @alanmcn1.bsky.social and me.

'Nationwide Clostridioides difficile population dynamics'

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Deadline for applications 9 Jan 2026, UK students only.

Logo of Bin Chicken (Australian white ibis) on a rubbish bin, pulling out a strand of DNA

“Bin Chicken” is now published in Nature Methods! It substantially improves genome recovery through rational coassembly 🧬🖥️. Applied to public 🌍 metagenomes, we recovered 24,000 novel species 🦠, including 6 new phyla.
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
@benjwoodcroft.bsky.social @rhysnewell.bsky.social
🧵1/6

Resistance to last-resort antibiotics in enterococci Abstract. The genus Enterococcus comprises a diverse group of species, many of which are commensal members of the gut microbiota of humans and animals. The

Delighted that our review on resistance to last-resort antibiotics in Enterococci has been published in FEMS Microbiology Reviews

academic.oup.com/femsre/advan... (accepted manuscript version)

TL;DR: the Enterococci are really good at evolving resistance to antibiotics in new and creative ways.

Single-particle genomics uncovers abundant non-canonical marine viruses from nanolitre volumes - Nature Microbiology Environmental micro-compartment genomics provides efficient and high-throughput single-particle DNA sequencing that captures overlooked members of microbial communities.

#NewResearch

Single-particle genomics uncovers abundant non-canonical marine viruses from nanolitre volumes

@rstepanauskas.bsky.social & co

#microsky

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧬 🦠 🏙️
Urban vs rural lifestyles create dramatically different gut microbiomes. But how do these different gut microbiomes affect the host?

Excited to share our new paper: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Ocean-M: an integrated global-scale multi-omics database for marine microbial diversity, function and ecological interactions Abstract. Multi-omics analyses have significantly advanced the understanding of complex marine microbial communities and their interactions. Despite notabl

Ocean-M: an integrated global-scale multi-omics database for marine microbial diversity, function and ecological interactions academic.oup.com/nar/advance-... #jcampubs 🌊

Vitamin B2 Production by Vaginal Lactobacilli Promotes Symbiosis The human vaginal microbiome, particularly with lactobacilli as the main inhabitants, plays a key role in maintaining women's health. While lactic acid-mediated pathogen exclusion is well known, broad...

We are very happy to share a new preprint 🎉

Congratulations to everyone involved!
@carolinedricot.bsky.social, @denisemselegato.bsky.social, @sarahlebeer.bsky.social and co.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Ultra-deep long-read metagenomics captures diverse taxonomic and biosynthetic potential of soil microbes AbstractBackground. Soil ecosystems have long been recognised as hotspots of microbial diversity, but most estimates of their microbial and functional comp

Want to know how diverse soil really is?
Our ultra deep sequencing is now published in GigaScience: academic.oup.com/gigascience/...
Soil is wild! Thanks for leading the study @canerbagci.bsky.social
#secmet #soil #metagenomics #bacterialdiversity

Selection and transmission of the gut microbiome alone can shift mammalian behavior Nature Communications - Here, the authors present evidence that the gut microbiome alone, without changes in the host genome, can shape how animals respond to selection, identifying a bacterium and...

We selected the laziest mouse at each round to inoculate the next batch of germfree mice: over rounds of selection and passaging, behavior shifted without changes to the mouse genome: rdcu.be/eM3rO
🦠🧫