Nidhi Vijayan, PhD

Applications are open for Broad’s 2026 Media Boot Camp!

Science/health reporters and editors: Join us in Cambridge (April 30–May 1) for a deep dive into emerging stories in biomedicine.

Hotel & meals provided. Applications due March 20. Learn more here: broad.io/mediabootcamp

FYI, this grant program is open to anyone communicating science.

It does not require that you went to school for science.

You could be a Ph.D. student, an artist, a community organizer, a teacher, or any other profession. As long as you are communicating science IRL in the US, you're eligible.

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.

Not something you see in textbooks very often: tripolar mitosis.

3-panel comic. (1) [Three small arthropods on ocean floor.] ARTHROPOD 1: Now that we’re multicellular, what are your plans? I’m gonna evolve little legs and swim around with them! ARTHROPOD 2: I’m gonna evolve sharp pincers and use them to crunch stuff! ARTHROPOD 3: I’m gonna evolve glands to make string from my butt and use it to construct elaborate geometric nets hundreds of times my size to catch other animals. (2) [Silence] (3) ARTHROPOD 1: *Dude.* ARTHROPOD 2: Can you *please* just be normal about this? ARTHROPOD 3: *What??!*

Early Arthropods

xkcd.com/3199/

Glowing bacterial sensors detect gut illness in mice before symptoms emerge UBC researchers have engineered gut bacteria that dim their fluorescent glow in the presence of illness.

Excited to share our latest publication, led by Dr. Ellie McCallum and Juan Burckhardt!
bit.ly/4kfzQaf
You can access the article for free here: authors.elsevier.com/a/1mWb4L7PXu... And more information is available on the updated preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program is funded by the National Science Foundation to create "points of entry" for students interested in research. Students apply from across the country to spend 10 weeks in Bozeman, Montana this summer (May 26, 2026 - August 1, 2026). Admitted students are paired with a faculty mentor, who serves as an advisor for a student's summer project. Each student receives a stipend ($7000 for 10 wks). Travel compensation, room, and board are also provided. Our program leverages MSU’s unique microbiology expertise, focusing specifically on microbes living with little or no oxygen (like those in the hot springs of nearby Yellowstone). Low oxygen microbes are essential to human and ecosystem health. They influence (or control) such processes as the breakdown of food in the GI tract, removal of toxins from our bodies and the environment, and production of greenhouse gases. They are also models for understanding the origins of life on this planet, and the potential for life on other planets. A key goal of our program is to recruit students from schools with limited research infrastructure. Being in Montana, a state with a vibrant Native American community, we are particularly interested in applications from students at tribal colleges. However, ANYONE with an interest in microbiology - or biology/science in general - can and should apply. If willing and able, please share/tweet/spread the word far and wide. Applications are due February 14, 2026. Full details can be found through our website http://www.montana.edu/mbi/reu/

Friends, please help spread the word about our microbiology REU program at Montana State University.
www.montana.edu/mbi/reu/

Each student receives a stipend ($7000 for 10 wks). Travel compensation, room, and board are also provided.

Details in the attached pic--Feb 14 deadline
🧫🧪🦠#microsky

Git for scientists 2 - How to use branches Branches are arguably one of the most important features of git - they allow you to keep multiple histories of your repository at the same time. Start using them early and often!

Git branches - you should be using them. But how?

Part 2 in an on-going series introducing git for wetlab scientists 🧪

emptymodels.substack.com/p/git-for-sc...

Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome - Nature A metagenomic survey of babies attending the first year of nursery detected extensive baby-to-baby microbial strain transmission, pointing to social interactions in infancy as crucial drivers of infan...

🥁 NEW

Our study on infant gut microbiome and #straintransmission is now published in @nature.com:

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

1/10

Maintaining microbiota across diverse symbiotic organs in Euprymna scolopes: Insights into shared immune responses from @nidhivijayan.bsky.social John Briseño, Oleg Simakov, @spencernyholm.bsky.social in @pnas.org www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Bacterial diversity within the accessory nidamental gland of a Hawaiian bobtail squid (E. scolopes), showing Alphaproteobacteria (magenta), Verrucomicrobia (yellow), and Flavobacteriia (green). CREDIT: Nidhi Vijayan

Hawaiian bobtail squid maintain distinct microbiota in different organs, including bioluminescent bacteria in their light organs, by deploying immune factors with tailored expressions in each niche. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/QxLo50XPnyS

These galaxins are found in many cephalopods, but why are they so highly expressed in the symbiotic organs here? We think they may likely be antibacterial. But 🤷🏽‍♀️

We found many immune genes similarly expressed in distinct symbiotic organs. Highlighting PGRP2 which occupied the same space as Vfischeri in the LO, but was almost always absent in tubules with bacteria in the ANG. We also described 8 new galaxins! Hopefully someone someday can tell us what they do

It's finally here!!!

I first want to say thank you to @spencernyholm.bsky.social for helping me see this through! Thank you for believing in me and this project! I am so glad I joined his lab and learnt so much through the process.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Just a reminder that Springer Nature is a for-profit journal where the mission requirement does not include flow back to scientific societies, universities or researchers.

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...

Support Skype a Scientist! By Skype a Scientist

At @skypeascientist.bsky.social we were able to give out more grant funding than we took in this year, thanks to people who support us!

That grant funding went to 13 science communicators across the country on their in-person projects.

YOU can support us here: givebutter.com/SupportSAS25

Springer requesting papers for the apple microbiome

This sounds kinda cool. I hope someone does some FISH imaging on the apple!

Screenshot of paper titled of mice and not men

I'm currently reading up on the differences between the GI tract between humans and mice and thought "of mice and men" would make a great title! But of course it already exists and I love it!

New preprint! Do you like ocean waves? We found similar waves on bacterial colonies! We found that this collective behavior, known as rippling, is nothing but surface waves on an active nematic. @princeton.edu @mpipks.bsky.social @ub.edu @icreacommunity.bsky.social

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

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild:

Elephants
Nurse shark
Corals
Peacock
Indian giant squirrel

An image of four stickers, one with the bioGraphic logo and three others showing an Indian pangolin, minipizza batfish, and variable harlequin frog.

Remember last year, when bioGraphic and Hakai Magazine were both facing uncertain futures? Your donations saved the day--we raised $140,000 and lived to publish another day!

Now we need help balancing our 2026 budget. Please donate via the link below, and snag some cool stickers to boot!

Interested in how life history may shape the gut microbiome of a wild mammal? Keen on getting to work with an iconic long-term study system in Scotland?

Check out this PhD opportunity with me, Josephine Pemberton and @gfalbery.bsky.social

Reach out to chat more!

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

Excellent work from @aroneys.bsky.social here. Free to read version at rdcu.be/ePJp4

OMG SOME GOOD NEWS 🧪 #MedSky

The Ozone Hole Is Steadily Shrinking because of Global Efforts After nearly 40 years of global efforts, the ozone hole over Antarctica is continuing to heal

A little bit of good news for you. And a reminder that we *can* solve big, global problems--when we want to. 🧪

(by @meghanbartels.bsky.social)

Gut fungi are associated with human genetic variation and disease risk In contrast to decades of research on gut bacteria, human genetic determinants of the gut fungal community (mycobiome) remain understudied. This investigation presents the first GWAS on the number and...

We published a new lane of research today on human gut fungi. Shout out to 1st author @emilyvansyoc.bsky.social sky.social & @erdavenport.bsky.social For 20 years, bacteria received the lion's share of interest in the human gut. Yet we know little about the gut mycobiome. doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Researchers have filmed thousands of climbing catfish scaling waterfalls, providing a rare insight into the daring migration of an enigmatic fish.

Learn more: https://scim.ag/4lDlFux

Electron micrograph of two phage infecting a host cell side-by-side, with hearts between them

Do you love phage? I have an opening for a postdoc in my lab at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science (@cmarinescience.bsky.social) looking at interactions between marine phage and iron, which is an important limiting trace metal in the oceans (1/5) 🧵#phagesky 🦠🌊