Milan Gerovac
gerovac.bsky.social
Milan Gerovac
@gerovac.bsky.social
Pinned
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Can we leverage bacterial competition for targeted replacement of harmful strains? Maybe! Our recent piece in @natmicrobiol.nature.com provides a theoretical framework and a set of experiments to show what it might take: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Strain displacement in microbiomes via ecological competition - Nature Microbiology
Mathematical modelling and experimental tests reveal principles that govern displacement of a resident strain by an invader in microbial communities.
www.nature.com
November 7, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Growth-coupled microbial biosynthesis of the animal pigment xanthommatin — Led by Leah Bushin, featuring M. Gracia Alvan, @danielvolke.bsky.social @oscarpuiggene.bsky.social in a fantastic collaboration w/Brad Moore @labnikel.bsky.social @natbiotech.nature.com 🦑
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 3, 2025 at 12:49 PM
October 31, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Proud to be part of this incredible multidisciplinary team uncovering why some people are NOT infected by Salmonella. This new Wellcome Trust @wellcometrust.bsky.social funding will allow us to uncover why some people naturally resist infection and colonisation by Salmonella Typhimurium.
NEWS | Professor @jayhinton.bsky.social and an international team have been awarded £4.56M Wellcome Discovery Award to investigate natural human resistance to Salmonella

🔗 bit.ly/4hujsRG

@livuninews.bsky.social | #TeamLivUni
October 30, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Cool work by @microberna.bsky.social & Kai Papenfort, presenting the first RNA-RNA map in C. crescentus using RIL-seq, revealing an RNA sponge that controls the transition from nutrient abundance to starvation; new insights into RNA networks and stress responses!
#RNA
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
An RNA sponge directs the transition from feast to famine in Caulobacter crescentus - Nature Communications
In bacteria, many small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) associate with the RNA chaperone Hfq to modulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Here, the authors identify global Hfq-mediated RNA-R...
www.nature.com
October 30, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
@prczhaoyansong.bsky.social’s deep dive into the dark matter of compost communities is now out 🎉 Genomic islands hijack jumbo phages—whose capsids enable transfer of large tracts of DNA—shedding new light on the scale & scope of phage-mediated gene flow 😎

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Jumbo phage–mediated transduction of genomic islands | PNAS
Bacteria acquire new genes by horizontal gene transfer, typically mediated by mobile genetic elements (MGEs). While plasmids, bacteriophages, and c...
www.pnas.org
October 29, 2025 at 7:19 AM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
One transcript, two functions: the emerging roles of dual-function RNAs

microLIFE review by @lizmarialuke.bsky.social and Kai Papenfort at @uni-jena.de

academic.oup.com/microlife/ad...
One transcript, two functions: the emerging roles of dual-function RNAs
Abstract. Bacteria use small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) and small proteins to change gene expression and modulate cellular processes in response to changing e
academic.oup.com
October 27, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
How to become a "hot RNA" 🌡️? The answers were kindly provided by hyperthermophilic archaea: rRNA modifications are key! Check out this new publication presenting pan-modification profiling of the epitranscriptome. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex.... (1/3)
Pan-modification profiling facilitates a cross-evolutionary dissection of the thermoregulated ribosomal epitranscriptome
Pan-Mod-seq enables systematic, multi-modification mapping of rRNA across life. Applying it to diverse organisms reveals that hyperthermophiles dynamically install stabilizing modifications to support...
www.cell.com
October 27, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Excited to share our new @narjournal.bsky.social paper!

Using ReLo and AlphaFold, we described a network of interactions between Drosophila piRNA pathway factors suggesting new links how they coordinate to ensure transposon silencing and genome integrity.

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...
October 18, 2025 at 6:59 AM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from?

Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Antiviral reverse transcriptases reveal the evolutionary origin of telomerase
Defense-associated reverse transcriptases (DRTs) employ diverse and distinctive mechanisms of cDNA synthesis to protect bacteria against viral infection. However, much of DRT family diversity remains ...
www.biorxiv.org
October 17, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Very excited to share the latest work from our lab, which was published today in Nature!
nature.com/articles/s41...

PhD graduate and now post-doc Sofia Dahlman, along with co-senior author Sam Forster from The Hudson and other researchers from our lab and others.
Isolation, engineering and ecology of temperate phages from the human gut - Nature
Human host-associated cellular products may act as induction agents for bacteriophages.
nature.com
October 15, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Check out our preprint! With new molecular mechanisms, 140 subtomogram averages, and ~600 annotated cells under different conditions, we @embl.org were able to describe bacterial populations with in-cell #cryoET. And there’s a surprise at the end 🕵️

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#teamtomo
October 15, 2025 at 6:26 AM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
#Viren sind mehr als nur Krankheitserreger: @quarkswdr.bsky.social zeigt, wie Viren seit Milliarden von Jahren die Evolution beeinflussen, unser Erbgut geprägt haben & heute als Grundlage für #Impfstoffe oder alternative Therapieformen genutzt werden können. www.ardmediathek.de/video/Y3JpZD...
Quarks: Viren: Freund und Feind! - hier anschauen
Viren gelten als Auslöser von Krankheiten und Pandemien. Doch das ist nur ein Teil der Wahrheit. Seit Milliarden Jahren wirken sie auch als Motor der Evolution. Rund acht Prozent unseres menschlichen ...
www.ardmediathek.de
October 13, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Two group leader positions available in the broader areas of RNA science, RNA technologies, and RNA medicine. Attractive packages and a great environment. Come and join us at Helmholtz RNA Würzburg, Bavaria.
October 8, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Please RT:
We have an opening for a junior group leader position in „Phage Biology & Biotechnology“.
www.fz-juelich.de/de/karriere/...

Interested candidates are encouraged to contact me via email for further details.

@spp2330.bsky.social; @mibinet.bsky.social
Junior Group Leader - Phage Biology & Biotechnology
As a leading research institution for microbial biotechnology the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences - Biotechnology (IBG-1, https://www.fz-juelich.de/de/ibg/ibg-1 ) at the Forschungszentrum Jülich foc...
www.fz-juelich.de
October 8, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
DYK most P. aeruginosa carry filamentous phage(s) that don't need to kill the cell to reproduce?

We 👉🏻@nanamikubota.bsky.social show that these Pf phages can go ROGUE.

"Filamentous cheater phages drive bacterial and phage populations to lower fitness"

🔗 authors.elsevier.com/c/1lt5I3QW8S...
October 2, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Viral AlphaFold Database (VAD) is live in Science Advances

~27,000 predicted viral protein monomers & homodimers

Conserved folds across bacteria, archaea & eukaryotic viruses

New toxin–antitoxin system KreTA uncovered

Vast “functional darkness” remains uncharted

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The Viral AlphaFold Database of monomers and homodimers reveals conserved protein folds in viruses of bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes
VAD is a Viral AlphaFold Database of protein monomers and homodimers from viruses infecting hosts across the tree of life.
www.science.org
October 2, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Today in @nature.com , we highlight how a cousin of CRISPR-Cas10, mCpol, establishes an evolutionary trap in anti-phage immune systems.

Check out @erinedoherty.bsky.social and my work from @doudna-lab.bsky.social lab here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A miniature CRISPR–Cas10 enzyme confers immunity by inhibitory signalling - Nature
Panoptes, an anti-phage defence system against virus-mediated immune suppression, is revealed.
www.nature.com
October 1, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
*New preprint*
#phage #phagesky
This is a cool effort lead by Fangchao, Arkin lab, to test a new tech to study phage-host interaction mechanism at scale, in a droplet!
We benchmarked it by using a set of 2 classical coli phages to identify their receptors, impt for generatin data for AI/ML models
Droplet-based Random Barcode Transposon-site Sequencing (Droplet RB-TnSeq) to characterize phage-host interactions https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.29.679331v1
October 1, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Wir freuen uns, drei weitere Nachswuchsgruppenleiter:innen in unserem HUMAN-Programm zu begrüßen! 🎉
Christiane Iserman, Jakob Wirbel und Sampurna Chakrabarti @amapruns.bsky.social nehmen heute die Arbeit in ihren neuen Gruppen auf. Herzlich willkommen am HZI und alles Gute!
October 1, 2025 at 8:29 AM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Wir haben ein Krise von Antibiotika-Resistenzen. Dennoch werden Bakteriophagen - eine Virus-Art, die Bakterien abtöten kann - kaum als alternative Therapieform eingesetzt. Warum?

Das erklärt ETH-Forscher Alexander Harms im Interview. (@aharms485.bsky.social)
ethz.ch/de/news-und-...
«Bakteriophagen helfen gegen resistente Infektionen, aber in der Schweiz gibt es kaum Zugang zur Therapie»
Nicht nur Antibiotika können krankmachende Bakterien abtöten. Auch bestimmte Viren – sogenannte Bakteriophagen – können das. Um diese therapeutisch anzuwenden, fehlt in der Schweiz aber der rechtliche...
ethz.ch
September 26, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
You’ve heard of ubiquitination, meet deazaguanylation: Doug Wassarman in our lab discovered phage defense pathways have co-opted Q nucleobase biosynthetic enzymes to catalyze a new form of protein conjugation chemistry @science.org

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
September 25, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Reposted by Milan Gerovac
Am HZI-Standort @helmholtz-hiri.bsky.social werden die Grundlagen für neuartige RNA-Therapien erforscht. Heute wurde das Richtfest für den mehr als 10.000 Quadratmeter großen HIRI-Neubau auf dem Medizincampus der @uni-wuerzburg.de gefeiert.
📷HIRI / Mario Schmitt
www.helmholtz-hzi.de/media-center...
September 24, 2025 at 3:14 PM