Martin Fenk
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mfenk.bsky.social
Martin Fenk
@mfenk.bsky.social
PhD student @MPIIB Berlin | Exploring the captivating realm of microbial evolution within microbiomes #Microbiology #Evolution
Reposted by Martin Fenk
Our new preprint, led by Martin (@mfenk.bsky.social), is online. We address the microbiome’s role as a source and incubator of acute infections by combining prospective collection of native samples with population-wide, culture-based sequencing. Please check out Martin’s wonderful thread. ⬇️🧵🎉
Is the human microbiome a source for hospital-associated infections (HAI) and are any genetic changes associated with HAI? In our new preprint, we longitudinally reconstruct the evolutionary processes within the human microbiome leading up to HAI: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Colonization, translocation, and evolution of opportunistic pathogens during hospital-associated infections
Many commensal bacteria that peacefully reside in the human microbiome are also able to cause acute opportunistic infections. Emerging evidence suggests that within-host evolution contributes to infec...
doi.org
October 27, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Is the human microbiome a source for hospital-associated infections (HAI) and are any genetic changes associated with HAI? In our new preprint, we longitudinally reconstruct the evolutionary processes within the human microbiome leading up to HAI: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Colonization, translocation, and evolution of opportunistic pathogens during hospital-associated infections
Many commensal bacteria that peacefully reside in the human microbiome are also able to cause acute opportunistic infections. Emerging evidence suggests that within-host evolution contributes to infec...
doi.org
October 27, 2025 at 9:25 AM
Reposted by Martin Fenk
Finally getting some of my research for my PhD out there! Hopefully soon in a journal near you ;)

Ancient Y. pestis infection from a sheep falls on the LNBA lineage, previously only known from humans! +molecular evolutionary analysis to leverage the ever increasing number of ancient genomes known!
Many zoonotic diseases are believed to have emerged during prehistory, but can we actually identify their past host range using ancient DNA? In the first publication of the Key Lab we present a 4000y old Yersinia pestis genome reconstructed from domesticated sheep. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Bronze Age Yersinia pestis genome from sheep sheds light on hosts and evolution of a prehistoric plague lineage
Most human pathogens are of zoonotic origin. Many emerged during prehistory, coinciding with domestication providing more opportunities for spillover from original host species. However, we lack direc...
www.biorxiv.org
February 10, 2025 at 5:18 PM