Nuria Quiles
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quilesnuria.bsky.social
Nuria Quiles
@quilesnuria.bsky.social
Microbiologist and phage enthusiast. Researcher at UCH CEU University.
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages.

Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms.

A thread 1/8
November 20, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
Independent research fellowships leading to tenured positions at the John Innes Centre.

Repost = nice. Thank you very much!!!
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to give a seminar at the Fellows Conference, which will be held on 10 March 2026.

Candidates who win Fellowships will be offered a Tenure Track Group Leader position from the outset, initially for 5 years.

Find out more: www.jic.ac.uk/training-car...
Independent Research Fellowships Leading to Tenured Faculty Positions | John Innes Centre
The John Innes Centre (JIC), is a world leading centre of excellence in plant and microbial sciences based on the Norwich Research Park, UK. We are inviting applications from outstanding researchers…
www.jic.ac.uk
October 3, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
We discovered a new horizontal gene transfer mechanism: tail-less cf-PICIs hijack free phage tails extracellularly, forming infectious chimeric virions that drive both intra- and inter-species transfer among bacteria. @jonaszpatkowski.bsky.social @tcostalab.bsky.social @jrpenades.bsky.social
September 9, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
Thrilled to share our two latest papers with the @tcostalab.bsky.social
lab! In the first, we uncover a new mechanism of satellite transfer: cf-PICIs hijack tails from diverse phages to spread across species.
@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Chimeric infective particles expand species boundaries in phage-inducible chromosomal island mobilization
Capsid-forming PICIs (cf-PICIs) produce their own capsids and exploit phage tails from unrelated species to transfer their DNA across bacterial hosts. This tail piracy enables broad dissemination and ...
www.cell.com
September 9, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
Thrilled to share that two of our papers with @jrpenades.bsky.social & GoogleDeepMind
are now out in @cellpress.bsky.social

1️⃣Microbial piracy: tinyurl.com/yvf6t3b3
2️⃣AI co-scientist mirrors experimental science: tinyurl.com/2dym92kj

@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
@imperiallifesci.bsky.social
September 9, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
New review 🔥 Single-cell RNA-Seq has been revolutionary for studying eukaryotic cells and now it's time for it to do the same for microbes! We describe the technology for single-bacterium RNA-Seq & the questions now studied using it.🧵⬇️
science.org/doi/10.1126/...
@andrewpountain.bsky.social
September 4, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
What is everyone's favourite review on anti-phage/defence systems? Ideally as an introduction to the concept/key systems for undergraduate level without expertise in phage biology #MicroSky #PhageSky
August 27, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
New paper in collaboration with the @asantoslopez.bsky.social lab!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
August 13, 2025 at 6:39 AM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
Why do some people age more healthily than others? The answer may come, in part, from our guts and the massive community of microbes living in them. Discover how aging shapes—and is shaped by—the gut microbiota: asm.org/Articles/202...
Aging and the Gut: The Microbiome's Second Act | ASM.org
Why do some people age more healthily than others? The answer may come, in part, from our guts and the massive community of microbes living in them.
asm.org
July 30, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
Today, Professor Donal Wall, @uofglasgow.bsky.social attended a pitch session as part of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee's 'Under the Microscope' inquiry to explain why they should be interested in microbiomes.
July 1, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
Let’s talk about/with/to phage!
Virtual Virology is back - our first ever phage session. Do join us...
May 22, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
I got hit by some rather sudden and extreme financial hardship so if anyone is in need of remote wetlab contract research, strictly BSL1, do let me know. Currently scrambling for gigs.

Plant, Bacterial, Archaeal Non-model Bioeng
Custom Lab Hardware
Turn Key Genetic Design

Please repost for reach 💚
May 2, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
Gene editing and many other useful biotechnology tools came from studies of bacteria fighting off viral invaders, but scientists have only begun to unlock the secrets of this microbial warfare. Read the Nature feature on what breakthroughs could be next. 🧪
Microbial warfare brought us CRISPR. What big breakthroughs could be next?
Gene editing and many other useful biotechnology tools came from studies of bacteria fighting off viral invaders. But scientists have only begun to unlock the secrets of this ancient arms race.
go.nature.com
April 13, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
I was waiting two years to see this out!! The genomic location of bacterial genes is not random!!! Congratulation on the authors (Martin Lercher and Team!). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Most bacterial gene families are biased toward specific chromosomal positions
The arrangement of genes along bacterial chromosomes influences their expression through growth rate–dependent gene copy number changes during DNA replication. Although translation- and transcription-...
www.science.org
April 10, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
The BASEL collection of E. coli #phages is limited by its host strain. @humollidorentina.bsky.social @damienpiel.bsky.social @aharms485.bsky.social &co use a modified host to add 36 new phages, revealing roles of O-antigen in recognition & R-M systems in immunity @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4jirGvX
April 8, 2025 at 4:55 PM
PhD opportunity in a fantastic topic with great supervisors. Check it out!
March 31, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
If you are interested in phage satellites, we hope you'll enjoy this. Fun collaboration with the Rocha, Seed, Bikard, and Chen labs! rdcu.be/efkvG
Genetics, ecology and evolution of phage satellites
Nature Reviews Microbiology - In this Review, Penadés et al. explore the genetics, potential origins and life cycle of phage satellites, and they discuss the impact of these elements on the...
rdcu.be
March 27, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
We welcome on BlueSky Alfred Fillol Salom @alfredfisa.bsky.social, the leader of the The Ecology of Mobile Genetic Elements group at our research institute #microsky 🧫🦠🧪 #phages #virology #viruses
March 22, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
Made a feed for phage papers/discussions/friends!
Please feel free to pin this feed to your bluesky profile and if you wish to add to the feed, simply add the #phage hashtag (NOT case sensitive) and the feed will aggregate the posts. See you there! Please repost🙏🏽
a cartoon drawing of a man in a white superhero costume
Alt: a cartoon drawing of a man in a white superhero costume
media.tenor.com
March 9, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
Re-posts appreciated!

We have an open PhD position w/ Prof Harold Auradou on #microswimmers/#protists in complex media! Students get to spend at least 12 months in Paris, and will receive their PhD from both Exeter and Paris-Saclay!

Apply by 31st Mar.
More details:
adum.fr/as/ed/voirpr...
March 4, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
My lab’s first preprint!

We used functional metagenomics to identify phage defenses in human and soil microbiomes. We scaled these selections while maintaining accuracy, enabling us to examine 9 habitats for defense elements against 7 phages.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/10
March 3, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
A prophage-encoded anti-phage defense system that prevents phage DNA packaging by targeting the terminase complex https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.27.640495v1
February 28, 2025 at 3:20 AM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
It is finally out!

Muntathar Al-Shimary, @doudna-lab.bsky.social , @cresslab.bsky.social and I present a gene knockdown tool that works in diverse bacteriophages: CRISPRi through antisense RNA Targeting (CRISPRi-ART)!

Check it out @naturemicrobiol.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
CRISPRi-ART enables functional genomics of diverse bacteriophages using RNA-binding dCas13d - Nature Microbiology
Leveraging RNA-targeting dCas13d enables selective interference with phage protein translation and facilitates measurement of phage gene fitness at a transcriptome-wide scale.
www.nature.com
February 26, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by Nuria Quiles
I'm so happy that I can finally share the results of my first postdoc paper with @baym.lol!!! Turns out plasmids are an amazing system to study multi-scale evolution and we can track within-cell and between-cell dynamics!
(1/n) www.biorxiv.org/content/earl...
Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics
Conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution, from populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements in microbes. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-r...
www.biorxiv.org
February 21, 2025 at 8:36 PM