Our new consensus statement on reducing and reporting contamination in microbiome studies is the cover image of this month's Nature Microbiology: www.nature.com/articles/s41... In the cover photo, you can see our postdoc Sophie Holland in fully PPE sampling the atmosphere of terrestrial Antarctica.

Our lab has come back refreshed from our annual retreat. Blending personal/scientific talks with group discussions and team activities. I come away amazed by our team -- not just for our science, but for how mature, caring, and forward-thinking everyone is. So proud!

P.S. Can you guess the microbe?

Melbourne Pride (Midsumma) started yesterday. Very thankful to live in such a cosmopolitan and progressive city.

Huge congrats to Cait Welsh for submitting her PhD thesis today. As reflected in the preprint below, Cait has bridged methods to understand gas cycling in the human gut in health and disease. Also a huge source of enthusiasm, innovation and support over the years. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Proud supervisors and team.

Enormous congratulations to Bob (Pok Man) Leung for receiving the Mollie Holman Award for Thesis Excellence. Bob was an exceptionally visionary, collaborative, and productive PhD student valued by all. He received an ARC DECRA Fellowship earlier this year to develop an independent program.

Honoured to receive Monash University's inaugural Researcher of the Year award last night. Since starting my group eight years ago, the university has enabled us to do creative, impactful, often programmatic research. This award recognises a huge collective effort from our team and collaborators.

Elated to receive the Prime Minister's Prize for Life Scientist of the Year yesterday. Reflects a massive team effort from our wonderful team past and present. Also so thankful to my collaborators, mentors, teachers, supporters, and funders. www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Dv...