Al Darby
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acdarby.bsky.social
Al Darby
@acdarby.bsky.social
560 followers 830 following 0 posts
Applied biologist studying host-microbe interactions - from insect bacterial symbionts to human viruses. Co-director of the Centre for Genomic Research, which hosts the NERC NEOF facility at the University of Liverpool. 3D printing, Star Wars and rugby fan
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Al Darby
edcoakes.bsky.social
1/12 🎉 We're excited to announce our Genome Medicine paper benchmarking 1000+ metagenomes (DNA) and metatranscriptomes (RNA) from infectious intestinal disease patients against pathogen diagnostics. The full dataset is public to accelerate pathogen discovery & surveillance: doi.org/10.1186/s130...
May 20, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Reposted by Al Darby
andrewjpage.bsky.social
I co-host The Bioinformatics Lab podcast with @kevinlibuit.bsky.social and the other day we had a great chat about our job hunting experiences, the importance of professional networks and making genuine connections. Its on all the podcasting apps & youtube soundcloud.com/the_bioinfor...
Ep. 46: The Job Hunt Experience pt. 01
Summary In this episode, Kevin Libuit and Andrew Page discuss their personal experiences with job hunting in the bioinformatics field, emphasizing the importance of professional networks and genuine
soundcloud.com
January 14, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Reposted by Al Darby
kgandersen.bsky.social
A very good article from @cohenjon.bsky.social with lots of hard-hitting quotes, including:

“Everyone is acting as though this pandemic didn’t really happen.”

… from Van Kerkhove. Spot on.

www.science.org/content/arti...
COVID 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting
Five years after SARS-CoV-2 surfaced, scientists reflect and look ahead to the next threat
www.science.org
January 2, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
andrewjpage.bsky.social
I'm putting together a Microbial Bioinformatics starter pack to help get everyone connected in our community. Let me know if there are any bluesky users to be added and share so that twitter refugees can tune back in to the fantastic world microbes go.bsky.app/3ezLo7e
January 10, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Reposted by Al Darby
flodebarre.bsky.social
Five years ago (Saturday 11 Jan 2020), first public announcement and availability of a sequence of the new coronavirus.
It was posted by @eddieholmes.bsky.social at 01:05 UTC on Virological, and announced on Twitter at 01:08 UTC. ▫️1/

web.archive.org/web/20200118...
archive.is/z880d
screenshot of Eddie Holmes' tweet: @edwardcholmes All, an initial genome sequence of the coronavirus associated with the Wuhan outbreak is now available at Virological.org here: [link to virological]
January 11, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Reposted by Al Darby
kmagnacca.bsky.social
Entomologists: stop buying expensive or poor-capability manipulators, and make yourself one out of Legos. Costs about $5 including shipping and better than anything else you will find. Has just the right amount of friction and allows viewing in any position. Modified from doi.org/10.3897/zook...
manipulator stand for holding pinned insects, made of Lego parts.
January 1, 2025 at 7:46 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
greghurst.bsky.social
BBSRC funded PhD - evolution in the early stages of symbiosis, using Arsenophonus as model. tinyurl.com/Edgeofsymbio.... Apply by 30/01/2025. Available for UK and International students. With @brockhurstlab.bsky.social and @acdarby.bsky.social. #symbiosky
BBSRC NWD: On the edges of symbiosis: how insect symbionts evolve in newly established interactions at University of Liverpool on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - BBSRC NWD: On the edges of symbiosis: how insect symbionts evolve in newly established interactions at University of Liverpool, listed on FindAPhD.com
tinyurl.com
December 18, 2024 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
tianshenbio.bsky.social
Our miRNA story is now in @science.org ! We found a microRNA, not a protein, that finally solved a long-standing evolutionary mystery of wing coloration in butterflies and moths. (1/n)
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A microRNA is the effector gene of a classic evolutionary hotspot locus
In Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), the genomic region around the gene cortex is a “hotspot” locus, repeatedly implicated in generating intraspecific melanic wing color polymorphisms across 100 mi...
www.science.org
December 5, 2024 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
ukvbd.bsky.social
Professor Matthew Baylis @baylism.bsky.social opens the day once again with a warm welcome, ready for a morning filled with presentations and flash talks #UKVBD2024
December 4, 2024 at 9:01 AM
Reposted by Al Darby
cmillins.bsky.social
Jing Jing Khoo presenting Wolbachia genomic data from Culex pipiens cell lines at the Tick Cell Biobank hosted at @liverpooluni.bsky.social @ukvbd.bsky.social
December 4, 2024 at 10:12 AM
Reposted by Al Darby
cadebellaigue.bsky.social
FAO UK colleagues: french unis are facing massive budget cuts, forced to reduce numbers. They’re are protesting today; the VC of Lille has closed the whole Uni today to protest.
December 3, 2024 at 8:23 AM
Reposted by Al Darby
drstevenmwhite.bsky.social
Thanks to everyone who participated in our UK #VDB Hub meeting today. It was really great to have a whole day discussing issues around data. Special thanks to Lauren Cator for leading our team.
December 2, 2024 at 9:43 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
kiabugboy.bsky.social
Trilobite video's finally done, hope you'll give it a look ☺️
youtu.be/vGcsiJaz9kU?...

#sciArt #Trilobite #paleoart #3Danimation #paleontology
Trilobite Soft Tissue
YouTube video by Kiabugboy
youtu.be
December 1, 2024 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
jomcinerney.bsky.social
Nucleotide Transformer is a series of genomics foundation models of different parameter sizes and training datasets that can be applied to various downstream ta…

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Nucleotide Transformer: building and evaluating robust foundation models for human genomics - Nature Methods
Nucleotide Transformer is a series of genomics foundation models of different parameter sizes and training datasets that can be applied to various downstream tasks by fine-tuning.
www.nature.com
November 29, 2024 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
wvschaik.bsky.social
Useful benchmarking study

'Evaluation of DNA extraction kits for long-read shotgun metagenomics using Oxford Nanopore sequencing for rapid taxonomic and antimicrobial resistance detection'

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Evaluation of DNA extraction kits for long-read shotgun metagenomics using Oxford Nanopore sequencing for rapid taxonomic and antimicrobial resistance detection - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Evaluation of DNA extraction kits for long-read shotgun metagenomics using Oxford Nanopore sequencing for rapid taxonomic and antimicrobial resistance detection
www.nature.com
November 28, 2024 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
mitchguttman.bsky.social
Gene regulation involves thousands of proteins that bind DNA, yet comprehensively mapping these is challenging. Our paper in Nature Genetics describes ChIP-DIP, a method for genome-wide mapping of hundreds of DNA-protein interactions in a single experiment.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
ChIP-DIP maps binding of hundreds of proteins to DNA simultaneously and identifies diverse gene regulatory elements - Nature Genetics
ChIP-DIP (ChIP done in parallel) is a highly multiplex assay for protein–DNA binding, scalable to hundreds of proteins including modified histones, chromatin regulators and transcription factors, offe...
www.nature.com
November 27, 2024 at 4:13 AM
Reposted by Al Darby
darrenobbard.bsky.social
#PhD Advert: Please share! Are you looking for a PhD studentship in comparative- or population-genomics, using 300+ species of #Drosophila and 1000+ genomes of #melanogaster? #Entomology #Genomics #PopGen #Phylogenetics
Diverse species of Drosophilidae
November 27, 2024 at 4:23 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
liquidanbar.bsky.social
Spent some time the other day updating the #beenome100 website! If you’re interested in #beegenomes or #insectgenomes in general, check it out 🐝

beenome100.org
Beenome100
beenome100.org
November 24, 2024 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
persmiseth.bsky.social
Counted 633 wintering Orange Ladybirds on gravestones under single horse chestnut tree in a wintery Morningside Cemetery, #Edinburgh, this morning. #CemeteryWildlifeWatch recording activity on #iRecord. #Ladybirds
November 23, 2024 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Al Darby
mtanichthys.bsky.social
I think more people doing comparative phylogenetics stuff should read this paper.
Rethinking phylogenetic comparative methods
Abstract. As a result of the process of descent with modification, closely related species tend to be similar to one another in a myriad different ways. In
academic.oup.com
November 15, 2024 at 3:05 AM
Reposted by Al Darby
mosquitomicrobe.bsky.social
So here is a Wolbachia starter pack. Please let me know if you'd like to join or have other suggestions.

go.bsky.app/FTCKEyB
November 17, 2024 at 3:40 PM