Mike Surette
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Mike Surette
@surettem.bsky.social
120 followers 49 following 1 posts
microbiome, genomics, metagenomics, culturing, cooking, photography, birds
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Reposted by Mike Surette
linsalrob.bsky.social
New in @asm.org #MMBR Computational function prediction of bacteria and phage proteins. How to annotate your #phage and #bacteria genomes

by @susiegriggo.bsky.social @bedutilh.bsky.social @gbouras13.bsky.social and Bob

#phagesky #microsky

journals.asm.org/doi/epub/10....
Examples of protein annotations across functional classification schemes. Yellow: hierarchical classification schemes, red: orthologous/homologous groups, and blue: methods using protein domain information. Protein structures were generated using the ColabFold Alphafold MMseqs2 interactive notebook (version 1.5.2) (57) and visualized using ChimeraX (58). (A) Functional labels associated with the glycogen synthase protein in Escherichia coli (UniprotKB P0A6U8). (B) Functional labels associated with Kehishuvirus sp. tikala major capsid protein (NCBI WEU69752.1).
August 22, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
relenski.bsky.social
Homeward Bound! Yes, the #LTEE is homeward bound. After a few thousand generations in Texas, the lines are coming back to #MSU, along with Jeff Barrick, and his team. telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/2025/07/28/h...
Homeword Bound
With apologies to Rhymin’ Simon
telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com
July 28, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Mike Surette
saskajanet.bsky.social
Avocet wading into your timeline #birds 🌿
Elegant shorebird with orange head and neck and long, upturned black bill, black and white wings. Bird is in profile facing left side of the frame while standing on pale blue legs, ankle deep in a marsh.
July 30, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Reposted by Mike Surette
glengrambo.bsky.social
Apparently, I’m photographing only grebes right now…. oh well!
These two horned grebe chicks hatched a few days apart and the little one definitely wants to hang out with its older sibling while they explore their marsh home!
#Birds #photography #wildlife
🪶
Two grey and white striped horned grebe chicks float together on a calm marsh. The green water reflects the surrounding foliage. They are both young enough to still have the red mark on their stripey heads, but the one on the left is much smaller as it hatched a bit later.
July 20, 2025 at 2:05 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
contaminatedsci.bsky.social
Our paper demonstrating that within-species warfare interactions are ecologically important on human skin is now published in Nature Micro! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
June 30, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Reposted by Mike Surette
saskajanet.bsky.social
OMG you guys! I was totally surprised and thrilled today to learn today that my pine grosbeak photo is an honourable mention in the 2025 @birdscanada.bsky.social calendar photo contest! You can check out the story with other cool photos here: shorturl.at/iXPy9 #birds
Silver bird with rusty head cap perched on and framed by frosty branches with silver bokeh background.
July 11, 2025 at 1:21 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
msmacrophage.bsky.social
I wish all our institutions, leaders, and politicians would do the same. Come on @mcmasteru.bsky.social - do the right thing!
July 11, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Mike Surette
stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social
mark, dare to ask dianne about 👇
screen capture from dianne newman's talk at the ISME18 meeting, lausanne
July 11, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Reposted by Mike Surette
fionabrinkman.bsky.social
So humbly honoured to have this recognition. But as we all of know, it really does take a village. This is a tribute to many. It’s important we look wholistically at what enables research innovation.

I also invite you to think of all those who support you and be so grateful for them all - as I am.
impactt-microbiome.bsky.social IMPACTT Microbiome @impactt-microbiome.bsky.social · Jul 10
Congratulations to our Platform 5 Co-Lead @fionabrinkman.bsky.social on receiving the 2025 @genomebc.bsky.social Award for Scientific Excellence from Life Sciences British Columbia! Learn more about Life Sciences BC and see all the awards and recipients here: lifesciencesbc.ca/lsbc-news/li...
Life Sciences British Columbia: In the News. 2025 Genome British Columbia Award for Scientific Excellence. Dr. Fiona Brinkman.
July 11, 2025 at 4:42 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
jeremymberg.bsky.social
IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT

Please watch the workshop video and COMMENT by 5:00 Monday 7/14

This is the source of the "no more model organism only grants in NIH-funded research" decree.
labonnelab.bsky.social @LaBonneLaB @labonnelab.bsky.social · Jul 11
Dear all, PLEASE add comments on the importance of model organism research at this link:
July 12, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
cibiocm.bsky.social
The new version of MetaPhlAn v4.2.2 released!

📌taxonomic profiling of long-read metagenomes for the first time
📌new version of the MetaPhlAn db (vJan25_202503) containing >21k new SGBs

Try it out & @hutlab.bsky.social and we are looking forward to your feedback!
forum.biobakery.org/t/metaphlan-...
MetaPhlAn 4.2.2 release (initial long-read sequencing support and database update)
Announcement We are pleased to share that MetaPhlAn 4.2.2 is now available, which incorporates taxonomic profiling of long-read metagenomes for the first time and includes a new version of the MetaPhl...
forum.biobakery.org
June 11, 2025 at 6:15 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
matthewcobb.bsky.social
Just learned that Frank Stahl (of the Meselson and Stahl DNA replication experiment ("the most beautiful experiment in biology") died at the beginning of April, to no fanfare. Here's a lovely video of them reminiscing: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-tn...
The Most Beautiful Experiment: Meselson and Stahl
YouTube video by Science Communication Lab
www.youtube.com
June 26, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
karinaxavierlab.bsky.social
Fresh from the press (from my brother Joao Xavier)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Ecological management of the microbiota in patients with cancer
Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology - This Review synthesizes the current understanding of host–microbiota dynamics in patients with cancer and proposes to integrate microbiota management...
www.nature.com
June 27, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Mike Surette
mermanchester.bsky.social
The MERMan contingent at #microbio25 headed home today after a great week in Liverpool for the @microbiologysociety.org annual conference - Thanks to the society and organisers for putting on a great event, and supporting us in presenting 6 talks and 5 posters packed full of microbial evolution!
April 3, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Mike Surette
friendlymicrobe.bsky.social
Paper! @phoebesilva.bsky.social's labour of love* optimising synthetic #CysticFibrosis mucus for growth of NTHi is out #MicroSky #Biofilm www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

*more like seething resentment as the bugs steadfastly refused to grow in most things we threw at them ^_^
Optimizing synthetic cystic fibrosis sputum media for growth of non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae
Non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) is an early pathogen isolated from the lungs of children with cystic fibrosis (CF). However, its role in the progression of CF lung infection is poorly under...
www.microbiologyresearch.org
June 20, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Reposted by Mike Surette
saskajanet.bsky.social
Another fabulous way to celebrate the #Solstice
cameratrapsue.bsky.social Sue @cameratrapsue.bsky.social · Jun 20
6 month, long exposure pinhole camera Solargram.

Paper wet - part was beginning to disintegrate from water intrusion. Had snow & wind storms & lots of rain May/June 2025.

Pinhole is tiny - I was surprised paper was so wet. Very pleased with result - even more pleased I got the angle right.
A solargram photo taken from the Winter Solstice of 2024 (21 Dec) to Summer Solstice of 2025 (20 June). It's a 6 month long exposure taken with a beer can pinhole camera, it shows the sun's movement across the sky during that time period, each day the Sun scribes a line on the paper in the pinhole camera. The bottom line is Dec 21 2024 and the top line is 20 June 2025. This kind of photo makes the movement of the Sun during the day into visible trails on the paper in the camera. There is a long orange-yellow arc going across the paper showing the whole 6 months. There is a shadow of my tree on the image, the tree blossomed during the exposure. Shades of blue and pink are on the paper too. There is a black kind of semi circle at the top of the image, that's where the water was disintegrating the top part of the paper.
June 21, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
mooseallain.bsky.social
Venn diagram
Venn diagram with Bono in the left circle, an oboe in the right, and a bonobo in the centre.
June 21, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
stcmicrobeblog.bsky.social
schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2...
The Remarkable Julian Davies
by Roberto — If I were asked to name scientists who have deeply influenced the evolution of my own thinking along the decades, there's little doubt that Julian Davies would be at the top of the list. ...
schaechter.asmblog.org
May 26, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
saskajanet.bsky.social
Angel? Spent some time with Forster’s terns last weekend. Incredible aerial acrobats #birds
White tern in the sky, head pointed down and wings and tail feathers spread. Background is blank sky.
May 17, 2025 at 12:48 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
sonjalehtinen.bsky.social
Looking for examples of beautiful, controversial or impactful microbial modelling papers - ideally a mixture of the above! It’s for teaching in the context of microbial eco/evo/epi. The modelling should be relatively easy to understand for a master’s student with a biology background.
April 23, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Mike Surette
jcamthrash.bsky.social
antiSMASH 8.0: extended gene cluster detection capabilities and analyses of chemistry, enzymology, and regulation academic.oup.com/nar/advance-... #jcampubs
antiSMASH 8.0: extended gene cluster detection capabilities and analyses of chemistry, enzymology, and regulation
Abstract. Microorganisms synthesize small bioactive compounds through their secondary or specialized metabolism. Those compounds play an important role in
academic.oup.com
April 25, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Mike Surette
stevenjrobbins.bsky.social
Attention long read metagenomists! This feels like an important read.

Misassemblies stitching together bacteria, archaea, and euks all into the same contigs, yikes! Reports of circularisation isn’t robust. There’s a lot in here to ponder.
jcamthrash.bsky.social Cameron Thrash @jcamthrash.bsky.social · Apr 25
Assemblies of long-read metagenomes suffer from diverse errors www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #jcampubs
April 26, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
martinsteinegger.bsky.social
AFESM: a metagenomic guide through the protein structure universe! We clustered 821M structures (AFDB&ESMatlas) into 5.12M groups; revealing biome-specific groups, only 1 new fold even after AlphaFold2 re-prediction & many novel domain combos. 🧵
🌐 afesm.foldseek.com
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
April 27, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
linsalrob.bsky.social
I was reading Botstein's "A theory of modular evolution for bacteriophages" (1980) and thinking about how concise the arguments are, and about all the ways reviewers nowadays would demand changes that mess up such an elegant paper.

#phagesky

nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
April 22, 2024 at 7:51 AM
Reposted by Mike Surette
bradleyksherman.bsky.social
The sequel:
youtu.be/EFCQoObWtvQ
November 20, 2023 at 2:09 PM