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kampamycin.bsky.social
Derrick Kamp
@kampamycin.bsky.social
800 followers 700 following 150 posts
Visualizing host-microbe interactions | Postdoctoral Fellow at UT Austin | he/they | derrickkamp.com
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kampamycin.bsky.social
Derrick Kamp @kampamycin.bsky.social · Apr 15
This work is finally officially out!

Check out our paper, where we use various advanced microscopy techniques to shed light on the structures of a complex symbiotic organ and the communities of bacteria that live inside it.

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
Organ structure and bacterial microbiogeography in a reproductive organ of the Hawaiian bobtail squid reveal dimensions of a defensive symbiosis | Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Sequence-based microbiome studies have revealed much about how hosts interact with communities of symbiotic microbiota but often lack a spatial understanding of how microbes relate to each other and t...
journals.asm.org
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
pnas.org
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
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
December 28, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
centriolelab.bsky.social
A super detailed protocol + video on Cryo-ExM - Cryo-Expansion Microscopy, led by the labs of our former postdocs @marinelap.bsky.social & @ebertiaux.bsky.social.
Clear, practical, and very useful for anyone doing nanoscale imaging 🚀 app.jove.com/t/68595/expa...
December 25, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
mousterpiece.bsky.social
A hill on which I will die: Calvin and Hobbes is one of the great pieces of 20th-century American literature in no small part because it was never turned into anything aside from a comic strip. Leave it be.
December 18, 2025 at 9:29 PM
kampamycin.bsky.social
I've started imaging the symbionts inside the bacteriocytes of aphids.

You can see the aphid body in white and the bacteria are depth-coded different colors to show the dimensionality. Some of the embryos are getting loaded up with symbionts!

#FluorescenceFriday
Grey spots form the outline of an aphid abdomen on a black background. Inside, there are splotches of different colors. Closer inspections shows the splotches are made of little spots that are bacteria. Some are found in donut-shaped bacteriocytes and others are entering the aphid embryos.
December 19, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
isabelott.bsky.social
“‘In evidence-based policy, you gather data and then make a decision,’ [Jake] Scott said. ‘This is the reverse. CDC made the policy decision and then funded research to back it up. When you commission research after making a decision, you're not looking for answers—you're looking for validation.’”
gavinyamey.bsky.social Prof Gavin Yamey @gavinyamey.bsky.social · Dec 18
“NIH is in crisis, grants are being terminated, labs are closing….but they found $1.6 million for an unsolicited proposal to study whether we should delay a vaccine we’ve been safely giving for 40 years, in a country where infants are at high risk of infection”

www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...
CDC awards $1.6 million for hepatitis B vaccine study, likely to controversial Danish researchers
www.cidrap.umn.edu
December 18, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
drsubini.blacksky.app
This 🧵 is important & I want to highlight: They are going to give kids in an Guinea-Bissau a placebo for Hep B even though it's already proven to be safe. These white supremacists are putting African children at risk to support a thesis we know is wrong. They do not value Black lives.
December 17, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
oliviamesser.bsky.social
IRW — a Pulitzer-winning nonprofit newsroom at American — and @thebarbedwire.com traced the history of anti-trans legislation. Houston conservatives realized homophobia didn’t fly anymore, weaponized girls’ safety, and parroted segregationist language. It worked.

thebarbedwire.com/2025/12/04/a...
Where Did Anti-Trans Laws Start? How a Forgotten Houston Ordinance Turned Into a Massive, Nationwide Culture War
In fighting for bathroom bills in Houston, Texas conservatives provided a blueprint for the rest of the country.
thebarbedwire.com
December 5, 2025 at 2:47 PM
kampamycin.bsky.social
New preprint characterizing a protein likely required for vertical transmission. Some really stellar undergrads contributing to this work too!

A secreted endosymbiont protein essential for colonizing host cells
A secreted endosymbiont protein essential for colonizing host cells
Intracellular bacterial symbioses have arisen myriad times in eukaryotes, with dozens known from insects alone[1][1],[2][2]. Beginning with Buchnera , the obligate endosymbiont of aphids, genomes of e...
www.biorxiv.org
December 8, 2025 at 4:57 PM
kampamycin.bsky.social
Love this cover
evolletters.bsky.social Evolution Letters @evolletters.bsky.social · Dec 4
Check out our cover article by @timjanicke.bsky.social and colleagues about the role of sexual selection in animal speciation. academic.oup.com/evlett/artic.... The beautiful illustration is by Katharina Bóth.
December 4, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
phylogenomics.bsky.social
Really fascinating and important work
mizrahilab.bsky.social Mizrahi Lab @mizrahilab.bsky.social · Dec 3
Excited to share our new @natecoevo.nature.com
paper. We identified microbes found across nearly all ruminants that act as the functional backbone of both the rumen ecosystem and the host, with major implications for food security and climate change mitigation. (1/8)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
December 4, 2025 at 5:21 PM
kampamycin.bsky.social
Once again, Spotify refuses to release the .csv of supplemental data behind Spotify Wrapped, thus fueling the reproducibility crisis.
December 3, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social
Induced endosymbiosis between a fungus and bacterium reveals a shift from antagonism to commensalism

@natcomms.nature.com by Thomas Gassler et al from Julia Vorholt

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

Ralstonia pickettii in the fungus Rhizopus microsporus

#Endofungal
Induced endosymbiosis between a fungus and bacterium reveals a shift from antagonism to commensalism - Nature Communications
Gassler et al. implant a free-living bacterium into fungal cells to study early steps in the establishment of an endosymbiosis. They observe vertical transmission of the bacteria despite initial host ...
www.nature.com
November 28, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
pjlariviere.bsky.social
The Lariviere lab at UMiami is recruiting PhD students! Incoming students will join us in studying host-microbe interactions in the honey bee gut, using molecular and genetic approaches. Please see the attached flyer for more details.

#Symbiosis #SymbioSky #MicroSky #PhDOpportunity #AcademicJobs
November 13, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
arnonelab.bsky.social
Our study, just published in #ScienceAdvances and funded by @hfspo.bsky.social, explores the post metamorphic cell composition of the sea urchin juvenile, revealing that its body is head-like. Long considered brainless creatures, they’re all brain instead!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Single-nucleus profiling highlights the all-brain echinoderm nervous system
A sea urchin is a head with a brain-like organization and a vertebrate-type retinal signature.
www.science.org
November 5, 2025 at 7:03 PM
kampamycin.bsky.social
This is definitive "Hell yeah" science
November 4, 2025 at 8:34 PM
kampamycin.bsky.social
Looking to learn about career paths in microbiome research?

Come join a panel discussion hosted by the Microbiome Centers Consortium. We're talking to some great folks in diverse positions about how they explored their proffesional paths.

lnkd.in/e6WVziXY
An ad for a panel discussion. The panel will take place November 7 at 3:00 PM ET. Three people are listed as panelists: Shayle Matsuda, a research biologist at John G. Shedd Aquarium. Corrie Whisner, an associate professor at Arizona State University. Jennie Starr JD, MA, Head of Market Insights, Brand Planning, and Promotion Management at Nestlé Health Science
October 27, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
broadwaybabyto.bsky.social
US Government accounts have arrived on Bluesky.

Block on sight.

Protect your digital space.

Be aware that the DHS account in particular is known to quote dunk on regular people to encourage their followers to harass them.

The detach quote function will come in very handy here…
October 17, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
akaashkumar.bsky.social
🚨Publication alert🚨
My first, first-author paper is now out in @natphoton.nature.com! Our paper describes an iterative spectral unmixing algorithm and eight-channel camera-based hardware we developed enabling unmixing of low SNR live-cell data at video rates. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Multispectral live-cell imaging with uncompromised spatiotemporal resolution - Nature Photonics
A tree-like arrangement of dichroic mirrors and multiple cameras coupled with an iterative spectral unmixing algorithm enables multispectral imaging of live cells in up to eight spectral channels with...
www.nature.com
September 16, 2025 at 10:20 AM
kampamycin.bsky.social
Somebody ask these guys where the name "Ohio" comes from
profdanhicks.bsky.social Dan Hicks @profdanhicks.bsky.social · Sep 4
We should all be paying attention here — land acknowledgments banned at Ohio State University

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
Inside Higher Ed • September 03, 2025 Ohio State Bans Most Land Acknowledgments The new policy is one of several in response to a state law that aims to eliminate any mention of diversity, equity and inclusion at public universities.
September 4, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
amybrown.xyz
this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like
Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me? Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.
August 22, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
oceanfilly.bsky.social
With many postdoc grants like the NSF PRFB, Ford Fellowship, and Hanna H. Gray fellowships disappearing, I am currently looking for grants that could fund incoming postdoctoral scholars. Here is a thread of some of them 🧵
July 24, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
katrinanavickas.bsky.social
Someone on here compared AI produced material as "digital asbestos " which in a few decades' time we will have to work out how to eradicate from the fabric of research.
historyned.bsky.social Ned Richardson-Little @historyned.bsky.social · Jul 30
From my own academic research, even pre LLMs there was a huge danger of zombie factoids that begin in a respectable publication by mistake and then get reprinted for decades because no one is backtracing to the original source. Once bad info gets into the system it can take years to clear it out.
beijingpalmer.bsky.social BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · Jul 29
I've seen numerous examples of this in recent days - we're at a point where some reporters are using LLMs as a source and not even remotely properly factchecking, but also where LLM generated material is making its way into other material and being unknowingly reproduced by others.
July 30, 2025 at 8:39 AM
kampamycin.bsky.social
Started using Fiji to estimate apartment sizes from Zillow images. Being a tall fella, you gotta prep for these things.

I am told this is "On Brand"
A computer screen with a few windows open. A couple windows are of microscopy images, but another is of an apartment
July 25, 2025 at 11:31 AM
kampamycin.bsky.social
A meme of a monkey puppet sheepishly looks to the side in one panel and ahead in another. It suggests guilt but also unwillingness to reveal it
July 24, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Derrick Kamp
napaaqtuk.bsky.social
I'm back home with my dad and have thoughts about being an Indigenous scientist and academic. I'm writing this in real time so it might get disrupted and will have typos.

I am fairly successful by academic standards. I have a tenure track job, wrote papers, have grant funding, mentor students.
July 21, 2025 at 9:18 PM