Meriel J. Bittner

🚨 Postdoctoral Opportunity for Female Scientists🚨

The University of Vienna is awarding at least 20 fully funded 4 year postdoctoral positions to outstanding female scientists

Interested? Get in touch via direct message
careers.univie.ac.at/en/postdoc/e...

#MicroSky 🧪

#PostDoc @univie.ac.at

Thanks @markowenmartin.bsky.social for choosing to highlight our recent article on archaeal-bacterial conflict in this week's episode of "This Week in Microbiology"! asm.org/podcasts/twi...

How do microbes become permanent partners? 🌊🔬🦠 Check out our new study published in Current Biology showing how cyanobacterial genomes evolve step-by-step into endosymbionts of diatoms. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
@currentbiology.bsky.social @mehrshmali.bsky.social

Supervisors and Projects

Please re-post: If you know (or are!) somebody who might fancy doing a PhD (Oct 2026 start) in my group @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social, working on chromatin evolution in prokaryotes (or other things we're interested in), please have a look at www.bioch.ox.ac.uk/supervisors-...

A scanning electron microcrograph of a cluster of bacteria forming a rosette. 12 bacterial cells form the rosette on a surface with a scale-bar showing that the cells are around 1 micrometer in length.

A scanning electron microcrograph of a bacterial cell. One long rod-shaped bacterial cell is shown with a scale-bar showing that the cell is around 10 micrometer in length and 1 micrometer in width.

New Phaeobacter species are now out! 🦠🔬 We found two new species - I am especially fascinated by the really, really long cells P. cretensis makes, something we have never seen in Phaeobacter before! Please comment your thoughts about why that is 🤔 1/2
www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Huge thanks also go to Arianna Krinos for taking the lead on this work! @akrinos.bsky.social

Let’s keep building inclusive and interdisciplinary research cultures! 🙌

Grateful for the shared vision, thoughtful discussions, and collective creativity that shaped this work.

Thank you to BioGeoSCAPES and the Santa Fe Institute for hosting us and providing such a great and collaborative environment!

@sfiscience.bsky.social
@biogeoscapes.bsky.social

Thrilled to share our #Comment in @natmicrobiol.nature.com
A collaborative effort by a fantastic group of researchers across disciplines!

💬We explored how interdisciplinary microbiology can thrive when early-career researchers are included and supported.

📄 doi.org/10.1038/s415...

#Comment

A call for early-career teams in interdisciplinary microbiology research

#MicroSky

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

Vitamin auxotrophies shape microbial community assembly on model marine particles Abstract. Microbial community assembly is governed by the flow of carbon sources and other primary metabolites between species. However, central metabolism

🌊🦠🧪 Delighted to share this work now out in @isme-microbes.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1093/isme... The currency of microbial life is chemistry, but there’s so much still unknown about how metabolic interactions shape communities. 1/

Genome-resolved long-read sequencing expands known microbial diversity across terrestrial habitats - Nature Microbiology Nanopore sequencing of Danish soils and sediments yields genomes from over 15,000 microbial species, expanding the phylogenetic diversity of prokaryotes by 8%.

Genome-resolved long-read sequencing expands known microbial diversity across terrestrial habitats www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Antagonism as a foraging strategy in microbial communities In natural habitats, nutrient availability limits bacterial growth. We discovered that bacteria can overcome this limitation by acquiring nutrients by lysing neighboring cells through contact-dependen...

Thrilled to share our new paper in @science.org describing our discovery that bacteria can switch from competitors to bonafide predators when resources run dry—arming nanoscale “spears” (T6SS) to stab & consume neighbours.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#MicroSKy #Microbiology

Solid phase extraction to measure B-vitamins in aquatic systems - Nature Reviews Earth & Environment Meriel Bittner explains how solid phase extraction can be used to concentrate B-vitamins for quantification in aquatic systems.

Solid phase extraction to measure B-vitamins in aquatic systems www.nature.com/articles/s43... #jcampubs