Laila Phillips
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lailaephillips.bsky.social
Laila Phillips
@lailaephillips.bsky.social
PhD Candidate, Moran Lab, UT-Austin, USA 🏳️‍🌈
Currently investigating host-microbe symbiosis in Drosophila 🪰
lailaep.github.io
Pinned
Flying bacteria!!! We recently described one genus and four new species of bacteria isolated from wild Drosophila & Neogriphoneura spp.:

🧫 Utexia brackfieldae
🧫 Orbus sturtevantii
🧫 Orbus wheelerorum
🧫 Orbus mooreae

Read our paper here: doi.org/10.1099/ijsem.0.006516
Characterization of gut symbionts from wild-caught Drosophila and other Diptera: description of Utexia brackfieldae gen. nov., sp. nov., Orbus sturtevantii sp. nov., Orbus wheelerorum sp. nov, and Orb...
Non-culture based surveys show that the bacterial family Orbaceae is widespread in guts of insects, including wild Drosophila. Relatively few isolates have been described, and none has been described ...
doi.org
I GASPED
A Peacock Fly (Callopistromyia sp.) showing off the beautiful display on those wings! They strut around waving their wings and doing a little wiggle, an amazing behavior right in your own backyard.

#Invert #Diptera #bugsky 🌿 #entomology
July 31, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Reposted by Laila Phillips
With many postdoc grants like the NSF PRFB, Ford Fellowship, and Hanna H. Gray fellowships disappearing, I am currently looking for grants that could fund incoming postdoctoral scholars. Here is a thread of some of them 🧵
July 24, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by Laila Phillips
Hey #Drosophila folks - its #fivedays to go to sign up as #FlyCROSS #mentor 👀

If you're faculty/postdoc/ equivalent in any scientific career & have #Drosophila research experience - fill up the mentor survey by July 14 to empower #earlycareer scientists in #Dros #community!
@flybase.bsky.social
Hey #Drosophila folks ! #FlyCROSS is back and #Mentor surveys are open NOW ! If you're a faculty/postdoc/ equivalent in any scientific career & have #Drosophila research experience - we'd be delighted to have you as mentors to empower early career scientists in the #Dros community !
Summer 2025 Survey For Mentors : FlyCROSS Mentor Mentee Matching Program
We appreciate you taking the time and volunteering to be a mentor! Add dmelcross@gmail.com to your email address book or safe sender list, so that you can receive our emails. To be a participating me...
docs.google.com
July 9, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Are you this kind of tuxedo cat owner or are you normal?
June 24, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Laila Phillips
FlyBase, a crucial resource for drosophila research, has lost its funding because its grant is awarded to Harvard. The team is scrambling to find other sources of funds, including donations from labs. Read more: www.thetransmitter.org/community/fl... @flybase.bsky.social
FlyBase funding squashed amid Harvard grant terminations
The team behind the Drosophila genetics database is now requesting donations from labs to keep the resource afloat.
www.thetransmitter.org
June 4, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Reposted by Laila Phillips
SUSTAINABILITY & #DROSOPHILA - If you keep flies & have tried to re-use containers but then given up on it, please could you let us know & tell us the reasons? We urgently need statements for a publication about sustainability in fly labs. Please, contact Andreas.Prokop@manchester.ac.uk
June 4, 2025 at 8:47 AM
👾🎧 I like keeping track of music that gets me into a flow state while doing computational work, so here's the first installment of the #bioinformaticsbangers of the day:
www.nts.live/shows/nts-x-...
NTS x JET SET RADIO: BAE BAE (LIVE FROM BRAIN DEAD STUDIOS) 14th June 2025
Playing Breakbeat Hardcore, Footwork, Jungle. Recorded live from Brain Dead Studios, BAE BAE presents a DJ set taking inspiration from Jet Set Radio’s influential high octane, multi-genre soundtrack.
www.nts.live
June 23, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by Laila Phillips
Learning about science is always rad. But as the Animal-Microbe Symbiosis GRC wraps up, I'm most excited about whom I get to do that science with.
June 20, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Flying bacteria!!! We recently described one genus and four new species of bacteria isolated from wild Drosophila & Neogriphoneura spp.:

🧫 Utexia brackfieldae
🧫 Orbus sturtevantii
🧫 Orbus wheelerorum
🧫 Orbus mooreae

Read our paper here: doi.org/10.1099/ijsem.0.006516
Characterization of gut symbionts from wild-caught Drosophila and other Diptera: description of Utexia brackfieldae gen. nov., sp. nov., Orbus sturtevantii sp. nov., Orbus wheelerorum sp. nov, and Orb...
Non-culture based surveys show that the bacterial family Orbaceae is widespread in guts of insects, including wild Drosophila. Relatively few isolates have been described, and none has been described ...
doi.org
January 27, 2025 at 9:42 PM