Hannah Ledvina Ph.D.
@hannahledvina.bsky.social
Incoming Assistant Professor of MCDB at the University of Michigan. Former JCCF and Leading Edge Postdoc Fellow in the Aaron Whiteley lab at CU Boulder. Predatory bacteria and phage enthusiast obsessed with host-pathogen interactions. She/her.
Pinned
The Ledvina lab will open its doors at the beginning of August! Stay tuned for updates!
Reposted by Hannah Ledvina Ph.D.
The Leading Edge Fellows gathered this week to celebrate Zara Weinberg, a beloved member of our community. Our 7th cohort of Leading Edge Fellows (2026) will be named in her honor.
The Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Cohort application is now open! Due Feb 2.
www.leadingedgesymposium.org/apply/
The Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Cohort application is now open! Due Feb 2.
www.leadingedgesymposium.org/apply/
November 5, 2025 at 5:48 PM
The Leading Edge Fellows gathered this week to celebrate Zara Weinberg, a beloved member of our community. Our 7th cohort of Leading Edge Fellows (2026) will be named in her honor.
The Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Cohort application is now open! Due Feb 2.
www.leadingedgesymposium.org/apply/
The Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Cohort application is now open! Due Feb 2.
www.leadingedgesymposium.org/apply/
Words cannot describe how excited I am to share the findings from the second half of my postdoc in @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social's lab where we discover that bacteria use functional amyloids to defend themselves from predatory bacteria. rdcu.be/euu5Y. See thread for details on this epic adventure 1/.
Functional amyloid proteins confer defence against predatory bacteria
Nature - Escherichia coli uses curli fibres, oligomers of the functional amyloid CsgA, as a barrier to protect against the predatory bacteria Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus and Myxococcus xanthus in a...
rdcu.be
July 2, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Words cannot describe how excited I am to share the findings from the second half of my postdoc in @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social's lab where we discover that bacteria use functional amyloids to defend themselves from predatory bacteria. rdcu.be/euu5Y. See thread for details on this epic adventure 1/.
Extremely excited to share I have accepted an offer to be an Assistant Professor in the MCDB department at the University of Michigan! Go Blue! The Ledvina lab will investigate the molecular interworking of the bacterial immune systems including defense against both viral and bacterial pathogens.
June 25, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Extremely excited to share I have accepted an offer to be an Assistant Professor in the MCDB department at the University of Michigan! Go Blue! The Ledvina lab will investigate the molecular interworking of the bacterial immune systems including defense against both viral and bacterial pathogens.
Reposted by Hannah Ledvina Ph.D.
1/10 New pre-print(s) from the Sternberg Lab in collaboration with Leifu Chang's Lab! We uncover the unprecedented molecular mechanism of CRISPR-Cas12f-like proteins, which drive RNA-guided transcription independently of canonical promoter motifs.
Full story here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Full story here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
June 11, 2025 at 4:03 PM
1/10 New pre-print(s) from the Sternberg Lab in collaboration with Leifu Chang's Lab! We uncover the unprecedented molecular mechanism of CRISPR-Cas12f-like proteins, which drive RNA-guided transcription independently of canonical promoter motifs.
Full story here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Full story here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Hannah Ledvina Ph.D.
Check out our new story led by @aesully98.bsky.social describing how bacteria turn immune evasion against phage! In collaboration with @benmorehouse.bsky.social lab, we discover that bacteria guard their nucleotide second messenger pool using a nucleotidyltransferase related to Cas10/CRISPR enzymes
Excited to share that my work from the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab is now on bioRxiv! With @benmorehouse.bsky.social, we discovered that the Panoptes defense system—named after the all-seeing watchman of Hera—uses decoy nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins.
A minimal CRISPR polymerase produces decoy cyclic nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins
Bacteria use antiphage systems to combat phages, their ubiquitous competitors, and evolve new defenses through repeated reshuffling of basic functional units into novel reformulations. A common theme ...
www.biorxiv.org
April 8, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Check out our new story led by @aesully98.bsky.social describing how bacteria turn immune evasion against phage! In collaboration with @benmorehouse.bsky.social lab, we discover that bacteria guard their nucleotide second messenger pool using a nucleotidyltransferase related to Cas10/CRISPR enzymes
Stop your scrolling and read this AMAZING story from my coworker @aesully98.bsky.social in @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social's lab in collaboration with @benmorehouse.bsky.social ! An immune system which detects anti-immune mechanisms, incredible!!
Excited to share that my work from the @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social lab is now on bioRxiv! With @benmorehouse.bsky.social, we discovered that the Panoptes defense system—named after the all-seeing watchman of Hera—uses decoy nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins.
A minimal CRISPR polymerase produces decoy cyclic nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins
Bacteria use antiphage systems to combat phages, their ubiquitous competitors, and evolve new defenses through repeated reshuffling of basic functional units into novel reformulations. A common theme ...
www.biorxiv.org
April 8, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Stop your scrolling and read this AMAZING story from my coworker @aesully98.bsky.social in @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social's lab in collaboration with @benmorehouse.bsky.social ! An immune system which detects anti-immune mechanisms, incredible!!
Reposted by Hannah Ledvina Ph.D.
Our paper out @CellCellPress: Structure guided discovery of viral proteins that inhibit host immunity
Congrats Erez Yirmiya, Azita Leavitt, Gil Amitai, our collaborators at the Kranzusch lab, and coauthors
A 🧵 1/10
www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...
Congrats Erez Yirmiya, Azita Leavitt, Gil Amitai, our collaborators at the Kranzusch lab, and coauthors
A 🧵 1/10
www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...
Structure-guided discovery of viral proteins that inhibit host immunity
Large-scale, structure-guided computational pipeline sifts through millions of phage
proteins to identify those that bind and antagonize host immune proteins. Detected
proteins are shown to inhibit no...
www.cell.com
January 23, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Our paper out @CellCellPress: Structure guided discovery of viral proteins that inhibit host immunity
Congrats Erez Yirmiya, Azita Leavitt, Gil Amitai, our collaborators at the Kranzusch lab, and coauthors
A 🧵 1/10
www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...
Congrats Erez Yirmiya, Azita Leavitt, Gil Amitai, our collaborators at the Kranzusch lab, and coauthors
A 🧵 1/10
www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...
Check out this incredible preprint from my coworker @emilykibby.bsky.social! Emily developed a computational pipeline to identify activators of phage defense pathways. Incredibly she found that a bacterial NLR-related protein senses multiple phage proteins 🤯 bacteria never stop surprising me!
I’m so excited to share that some of my grad work in the @aaronwhiteley lab is now available on bioRxiv! We used an AlphaFold-multimer screen to uncover how a bacterial NLR-related proteins senses multiple phage-encoded proteins to confer phage protection. Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A bacterial NLR-related protein recognizes multiple unrelated phage triggers to sense infection
Immune systems must rapidly sense viral infections to initiate antiviral signaling and protect the host. Bacteria encode >100 distinct viral (phage) defense systems and each has evolved to sense cruci...
www.biorxiv.org
December 19, 2024 at 4:28 PM
Check out this incredible preprint from my coworker @emilykibby.bsky.social! Emily developed a computational pipeline to identify activators of phage defense pathways. Incredibly she found that a bacterial NLR-related protein senses multiple phage proteins 🤯 bacteria never stop surprising me!
The @jcchildsfund.bsky.social has been career changing for me! Such a fantastic organization. Check out their first ever Impact Report showing just how amazing they are 🤩
The Jane Coffin Childs Fund has compiled our first ever Impact Report.
Full report:
jccfund.org/about-fund/i...
1/
Full report:
jccfund.org/about-fund/i...
1/
Impact - Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund
jccfund.org
December 6, 2024 at 7:43 PM
The @jcchildsfund.bsky.social has been career changing for me! Such a fantastic organization. Check out their first ever Impact Report showing just how amazing they are 🤩
Reposted by Hannah Ledvina Ph.D.
Exciting times! Our latest preprint is now live 🤩!
After nearly 16 yrs of running my lab, I truly believe this is one of the most significant contributions we've made. It offers fresh hypotheses about how pandemic Vibrio cholerae spreads globally. Let’s dive in!🧵..1/n
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
After nearly 16 yrs of running my lab, I truly believe this is one of the most significant contributions we've made. It offers fresh hypotheses about how pandemic Vibrio cholerae spreads globally. Let’s dive in!🧵..1/n
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Diverse phage defence systems define West African South American pandemic Vibrio cholerae
Our understanding of the factors underlying the evolutionary success of different lineages of pandemic Vibrio cholerae remains incomplete. Interestingly, two unique genetic signatures define the West ...
www.biorxiv.org
November 25, 2024 at 2:27 PM
Exciting times! Our latest preprint is now live 🤩!
After nearly 16 yrs of running my lab, I truly believe this is one of the most significant contributions we've made. It offers fresh hypotheses about how pandemic Vibrio cholerae spreads globally. Let’s dive in!🧵..1/n
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
After nearly 16 yrs of running my lab, I truly believe this is one of the most significant contributions we've made. It offers fresh hypotheses about how pandemic Vibrio cholerae spreads globally. Let’s dive in!🧵..1/n
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Hannah Ledvina Ph.D.
If you want to follow awesome women and non-binary early career scientists, the starter pack of Leading Edge Fellows is here!
go.bsky.app/He3EAcq
go.bsky.app/He3EAcq
November 10, 2024 at 9:40 PM
If you want to follow awesome women and non-binary early career scientists, the starter pack of Leading Edge Fellows is here!
go.bsky.app/He3EAcq
go.bsky.app/He3EAcq
It’s here! Thrilled to be sharing a review article I wrote with @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social exploring the similarities and conservation of immune systems across life rdcu.be/dzSa3
March 1, 2024 at 8:49 PM
It’s here! Thrilled to be sharing a review article I wrote with @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social exploring the similarities and conservation of immune systems across life rdcu.be/dzSa3