Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
@seamusholden.bsky.social
Professor of Microbial Biophysics, University of Warwick. Interested in all things bacterial cell envelope, cell biophysics and advanced light microscopy. https://holdenlab.github.io/ Twitter (inactive): @seamus_holden
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
Ten days left to apply to be a @crick.ac.uk Early Career Group Leader
Closing date 27th November
www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...
Closing date 27th November
www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...
November 17, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Ten days left to apply to be a @crick.ac.uk Early Career Group Leader
Closing date 27th November
www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...
Closing date 27th November
www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...
Another update on the GeneFrame saga 🙄 #microsky #bioimaging
Further update - while looking for alternatives I found this new page on GraceBio's website gracebio.com/product/secu...
So it looks like they may have indeed recently started making them but just dont reply to my emails any more 😠😠
Not cheap ($115/25pk) but good to have a source.
So it looks like they may have indeed recently started making them but just dont reply to my emails any more 😠😠
Not cheap ($115/25pk) but good to have a source.
SecureSeal™ Frame - Grace Bio-Labs
SecureSeal™ Frame Only, 65ul, 15 X 16mm ID, 25 X 25mm OD, (Coverslips 620100, sold separately) - 25 PACK
gracebio.com
November 14, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Another update on the GeneFrame saga 🙄 #microsky #bioimaging
Broader #bioimaging and #microsky people - anyone have any suggestions for sources of ~0.25mm non-cytotoxic double sided adhesive sheets?
Alternatively, a DIY solution might be possible. If anyone has any ideas on a suitable non-toxic double-sided adhesive sheet material, then purchasing those and using either consumer grade die-cutter or online-die cutting services could be a straightforward solution.
November 14, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Broader #bioimaging and #microsky people - anyone have any suggestions for sources of ~0.25mm non-cytotoxic double sided adhesive sheets?
Negative update on the GeneFrames saga: I got ghosted by GraceBio, who had said they were working on replacement. Back to square one. A few ideas how to move forward. Input appreciated. #microsky #bioimaging
Further update on GeneFrames replacements from GraceBio. Recap: their prototypes worked great, and in July they said they were moving to production. I emailed GraceBio beginning of October requesting update about production. Since then I have emailed them 4 times, and have not received any reply. 🔬🦠
November 14, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Negative update on the GeneFrames saga: I got ghosted by GraceBio, who had said they were working on replacement. Back to square one. A few ideas how to move forward. Input appreciated. #microsky #bioimaging
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
The diderm cell envelope is not a stack of layers but a unified scaffold of Inner Membrane–Peptidoglycan–Outer Membrane.
We discuss how tethering the OM to the PG in E. coli preserves integrity — and extend the concept across diderm bacteria.
Curr Opin Microbiol: doi.org/10.1016/j.mi...
#microsky 🔬
We discuss how tethering the OM to the PG in E. coli preserves integrity — and extend the concept across diderm bacteria.
Curr Opin Microbiol: doi.org/10.1016/j.mi...
#microsky 🔬
Redirecting
doi.org
November 13, 2025 at 12:17 PM
The diderm cell envelope is not a stack of layers but a unified scaffold of Inner Membrane–Peptidoglycan–Outer Membrane.
We discuss how tethering the OM to the PG in E. coli preserves integrity — and extend the concept across diderm bacteria.
Curr Opin Microbiol: doi.org/10.1016/j.mi...
#microsky 🔬
We discuss how tethering the OM to the PG in E. coli preserves integrity — and extend the concept across diderm bacteria.
Curr Opin Microbiol: doi.org/10.1016/j.mi...
#microsky 🔬
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
We’re on the cover of @embojournal.org
Odin, from Norse mythology, emerges from the Odinarchaeota yellowstonii genome, holding FtsZ1 and FtsZ2 the ancestral twins of tubulin highlighting their evolutionary divergence in Asgard archaea. 👉 shorturl.at/n7iZE
#archaea #evolution #tubulin #cytoskeleton
Odin, from Norse mythology, emerges from the Odinarchaeota yellowstonii genome, holding FtsZ1 and FtsZ2 the ancestral twins of tubulin highlighting their evolutionary divergence in Asgard archaea. 👉 shorturl.at/n7iZE
#archaea #evolution #tubulin #cytoskeleton
November 4, 2025 at 9:01 AM
PhD project available in my lab. Email me with CV if interested
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
#microsky #bioimaging
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
#microsky #bioimaging
Using super-resolution microscopy to investigate the mechanistic principles of bacterial cell wall remodelling at University of Warwick on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - Using super-resolution microscopy to investigate the mechanistic principles of bacterial cell wall remodelling at University of Warwick, listed on FindAPhD.com
www.findaphd.com
October 22, 2025 at 8:29 AM
PhD project available in my lab. Email me with CV if interested
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
#microsky #bioimaging
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
#microsky #bioimaging
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
🚀🔬 Announcing #IMS2026 at @itqbnova.bsky.social! We're assembling a #LifeSciences #Microscopy symposium packed with ✨ speakers and 🧑🔬 workshops. All about imaging cells with photons, electrons and AI! If you love microscopy, you need to be here. Join us on March 19!
ims2026.itqbnovacommunity.org
ims2026.itqbnovacommunity.org
October 21, 2025 at 2:25 PM
🚀🔬 Announcing #IMS2026 at @itqbnova.bsky.social! We're assembling a #LifeSciences #Microscopy symposium packed with ✨ speakers and 🧑🔬 workshops. All about imaging cells with photons, electrons and AI! If you love microscopy, you need to be here. Join us on March 19!
ims2026.itqbnovacommunity.org
ims2026.itqbnovacommunity.org
Letting AI anywhere near my writing is a big line in the sand for me. No thank you.
Finally, someone has solved a real problem with AI! No more having to take a paper in the format for a journal that rejected you, and reformat it for a new journal. Well done!! formatmypaper.com
October 15, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Letting AI anywhere near my writing is a big line in the sand for me. No thank you.
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
C̳H̳E̳C̳K̳ ̳I̳T̳ ̳O̳U̳T̳
Spectacular atomic force microscopy time course studies from Carolina Borrelli et al. in Nature Microbiology show how polymyxin drugs (like colistin) cause blebbing and shedding of the Gram-negative bacterial outer membrane
It looks almost like the bacilli 🦠 caught smallpox then died
Spectacular atomic force microscopy time course studies from Carolina Borrelli et al. in Nature Microbiology show how polymyxin drugs (like colistin) cause blebbing and shedding of the Gram-negative bacterial outer membrane
It looks almost like the bacilli 🦠 caught smallpox then died
Polymyxin B lethality requires energy-dependent outer membrane disruption - Nature Microbiology
The antibiotic polymyxin B requires bacterial metabolic activity to cause sufficient damage to the outer membrane to access the inner membrane, which it permeabilizes via an energy-independent mechanism to kill the cell.
www.nature.com
October 7, 2025 at 12:55 PM
C̳H̳E̳C̳K̳ ̳I̳T̳ ̳O̳U̳T̳
Spectacular atomic force microscopy time course studies from Carolina Borrelli et al. in Nature Microbiology show how polymyxin drugs (like colistin) cause blebbing and shedding of the Gram-negative bacterial outer membrane
It looks almost like the bacilli 🦠 caught smallpox then died
Spectacular atomic force microscopy time course studies from Carolina Borrelli et al. in Nature Microbiology show how polymyxin drugs (like colistin) cause blebbing and shedding of the Gram-negative bacterial outer membrane
It looks almost like the bacilli 🦠 caught smallpox then died
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
Thrilled to share that our article in @jofmicroscopy.bsky.social is now accessible online and as open access! If you wonder how to start the analysis of your images, we propose a decision tree to help identify suitable methods. Just follow the link(s)...
#imageanalysis #bioimaging
#imageanalysis #bioimaging
"From cells to pixels: A decision tree for designing bioimage analysis pipelines" by Elnaz Fazeli, Robert Haase, Michael Doube, Kota Miura & David Legland is free-to-view here: doi.org/10.1111/jmi....
September 29, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Thrilled to share that our article in @jofmicroscopy.bsky.social is now accessible online and as open access! If you wonder how to start the analysis of your images, we propose a decision tree to help identify suitable methods. Just follow the link(s)...
#imageanalysis #bioimaging
#imageanalysis #bioimaging
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
Come and work with me and @ariannebabina.bsky.social on #Streptomyces evolution and antibiotic production
Origins of a tangled bank: Adaptation and evolution in antibiotic-producing Streptomyces
www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate...
please repost
Origins of a tangled bank: Adaptation and evolution in antibiotic-producing Streptomyces
www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate...
please repost
University of Glasgow - Postgraduate study - Centres for Doctoral Training - NorthWest Biosciences - Our Projects - Underpinning Bioscience - Paul A Hoskisson
www.gla.ac.uk
October 4, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
BindCraft: an AlphaFold2-powered de novo protein binder design tool 🧬✨
Tested in some bacterial systems too! Designs so far are short peptides or mini-domains. Looking forward to long/full protein design ahead! 🧪 #microsky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Tested in some bacterial systems too! Designs so far are short peptides or mini-domains. Looking forward to long/full protein design ahead! 🧪 #microsky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
One-shot design of functional protein binders with BindCraft - Nature
BindCraft, an open-source, automated pipeline for de novo protein binder design with experimental success rates of 10–100%, leverages AlphaFold2 weights to generate binders with nanomolar affinity without the need for high-throughput screening.
www.nature.com
October 5, 2025 at 12:07 PM
BindCraft: an AlphaFold2-powered de novo protein binder design tool 🧬✨
Tested in some bacterial systems too! Designs so far are short peptides or mini-domains. Looking forward to long/full protein design ahead! 🧪 #microsky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Tested in some bacterial systems too! Designs so far are short peptides or mini-domains. Looking forward to long/full protein design ahead! 🧪 #microsky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
And the crispri genetic interaction screen 👏💫🤯 #microsky from J-W Veening lab. Dual CRISPRi-seq for genome-wide genetic interaction studies identifies key genes involved in the pneumococcal cell cycle: Cell Systems www.cell.com/cell-systems...
Dual CRISPRi-seq for genome-wide genetic interaction studies identifies key genes involved in the pneumococcal cell cycle
Dénéréaz et al. introduce dual CRISPRi-seq, a broadly applicable method to chart gene-gene
interactions across whole genomes. Applying it to the pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae,
they uncovered over ...
www.cell.com
October 5, 2025 at 10:59 PM
And the crispri genetic interaction screen 👏💫🤯 #microsky from J-W Veening lab. Dual CRISPRi-seq for genome-wide genetic interaction studies identifies key genes involved in the pneumococcal cell cycle: Cell Systems www.cell.com/cell-systems...
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
Dual transposon sequencing profiles the genetic interaction landscape in bacteria | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Dual transposon sequencing profiles the genetic interaction landscape in bacteria
Gene redundancy complicates systematic characterization of gene function as single-gene deletions may not produce discernible phenotypes. We report dual transposon sequencing (dual Tn-seq), a platform...
www.science.org
September 25, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Dual transposon sequencing profiles the genetic interaction landscape in bacteria | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Really enjoying reading this primer on single particle tracking #microscopy by @svanteeffelen.bsky.social and colleagues www.nature.com/articles/s43... (pdf on Sven's website)
A guide to single-particle tracking - Nature Reviews Methods Primers
Single-particle tracking is a method for analysing different motion behaviours of individual proteins and protein complexes in live cells. This Primer outlines the experimental setup and labelling tec...
www.nature.com
September 11, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Really enjoying reading this primer on single particle tracking #microscopy by @svanteeffelen.bsky.social and colleagues www.nature.com/articles/s43... (pdf on Sven's website)
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
#MicroSky yeah, cable bacteria 🤗
End-to-end contact enables long-distance electron transport between filaments in cable bacteria academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #jcampubs
September 2, 2025 at 4:22 PM
#MicroSky yeah, cable bacteria 🤗
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
Exciting to see our protein binder design pipeline BindCraft published in its final form in @Nature ! This has been an amazing collaborative effort with Lennart, Christian, @sokrypton.org, Bruno and many other amazing lab members and collaborators.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
August 27, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Exciting to see our protein binder design pipeline BindCraft published in its final form in @Nature ! This has been an amazing collaborative effort with Lennart, Christian, @sokrypton.org, Bruno and many other amazing lab members and collaborators.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
The sun cast incredible crespuscular rays during last night's saffron hued sunset.
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
July 22, 2025 at 11:00 AM
The sun cast incredible crespuscular rays during last night's saffron hued sunset.
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
you know the chaperones that 𝘌. 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘪 has at its disposal, don' you? GroEL/GroES, DnaK/DnaJ/GrpE, Trigger Factor (TF), ClpB, Hsp33 and Spy... but do you have the ribosome on your checklist? you should! 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#CryoEM #CryoET #TeamTomo #MicroSky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#CryoEM #CryoET #TeamTomo #MicroSky
July 23, 2025 at 9:24 AM
you know the chaperones that 𝘌. 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘪 has at its disposal, don' you? GroEL/GroES, DnaK/DnaJ/GrpE, Trigger Factor (TF), ClpB, Hsp33 and Spy... but do you have the ribosome on your checklist? you should! 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#CryoEM #CryoET #TeamTomo #MicroSky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#CryoEM #CryoET #TeamTomo #MicroSky
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
Come and work with us in beautiful Bath.
University of Bath is hiring:
Lecturer in Biotechnology (Teaching)
Lecturer in Biotechnology (Teaching)
July 23, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Come and work with us in beautiful Bath.
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
🚨 New paper alert! 🚨
MinD is famously known for positioning FtsZ at mid-cell in bacteria
In our study, myself and @iduggin.bsky.social found that MinD homologues in Haloferax volcanii influence the localisation of CetZ1, a homologue of FtsZ and tubulin
#Archaeasky #Microsky
MinD is famously known for positioning FtsZ at mid-cell in bacteria
In our study, myself and @iduggin.bsky.social found that MinD homologues in Haloferax volcanii influence the localisation of CetZ1, a homologue of FtsZ and tubulin
#Archaeasky #Microsky
Frontiers | MinD proteins regulate CetZ1 localization in Haloferax volcanii
url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com
November 23, 2024 at 7:23 AM
🚨 New paper alert! 🚨
MinD is famously known for positioning FtsZ at mid-cell in bacteria
In our study, myself and @iduggin.bsky.social found that MinD homologues in Haloferax volcanii influence the localisation of CetZ1, a homologue of FtsZ and tubulin
#Archaeasky #Microsky
MinD is famously known for positioning FtsZ at mid-cell in bacteria
In our study, myself and @iduggin.bsky.social found that MinD homologues in Haloferax volcanii influence the localisation of CetZ1, a homologue of FtsZ and tubulin
#Archaeasky #Microsky
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
*15%* of all the biomass on Earth is buried deep in the crust.
70-90% of all bacterial (and archaeal) biomass is found at depths from a few meters to 10 km below the soil line.
We can call these deep denizens: 'INTRATERRESTRIALS'.
Let's talk about the Deep Biosphere.
(🧑🎨: Verena Heuer, Marum)
70-90% of all bacterial (and archaeal) biomass is found at depths from a few meters to 10 km below the soil line.
We can call these deep denizens: 'INTRATERRESTRIALS'.
Let's talk about the Deep Biosphere.
(🧑🎨: Verena Heuer, Marum)
July 16, 2025 at 1:03 PM
*15%* of all the biomass on Earth is buried deep in the crust.
70-90% of all bacterial (and archaeal) biomass is found at depths from a few meters to 10 km below the soil line.
We can call these deep denizens: 'INTRATERRESTRIALS'.
Let's talk about the Deep Biosphere.
(🧑🎨: Verena Heuer, Marum)
70-90% of all bacterial (and archaeal) biomass is found at depths from a few meters to 10 km below the soil line.
We can call these deep denizens: 'INTRATERRESTRIALS'.
Let's talk about the Deep Biosphere.
(🧑🎨: Verena Heuer, Marum)
Reposted by Séamus Holden 🔬🦠🧫
Going to a conference and hope someone posts about your talk? Make it easy for the posters!!
Tips:
1. Include your handle at beginning and end
2. Make clear what is published/not
3. Have a conclusions slide with key message
4. Highlight new preprint or publication if relevant
#AcademicSky 🦠🧪🧬
Tips:
1. Include your handle at beginning and end
2. Make clear what is published/not
3. Have a conclusions slide with key message
4. Highlight new preprint or publication if relevant
#AcademicSky 🦠🧪🧬
July 17, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Going to a conference and hope someone posts about your talk? Make it easy for the posters!!
Tips:
1. Include your handle at beginning and end
2. Make clear what is published/not
3. Have a conclusions slide with key message
4. Highlight new preprint or publication if relevant
#AcademicSky 🦠🧪🧬
Tips:
1. Include your handle at beginning and end
2. Make clear what is published/not
3. Have a conclusions slide with key message
4. Highlight new preprint or publication if relevant
#AcademicSky 🦠🧪🧬