Phillip Cleves
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pcleves.bsky.social
Phillip Cleves
@pcleves.bsky.social
Symbiosis, cell and developmental biology, and corals.
Principal investigator at the Carnegie Institution - Department of Embryology & Johns Hopkins University
New paper from the lab. Molecular characterization of the symbiont-containing organelle with proteomics and reverse genetics in Aiptasia and coral.
We're excited to share with everyone a preprint of our manuscript that resolves the cellular origins of the symbiosome in cnidarian-algal symbiosis through proteomics of the symbiosome, RNAi, and CRISPR/Cas9 experiments. ⬇️
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Read on below!

1/12 🧵
October 13, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
Happy to share the Biodiversity Cell Atlas white paper, out today in @nature.com. We look at the possibilities, challenges, and potential impacts of molecularly mapping cells across the tree of life.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
September 24, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
How do microbes become permanent partners? 🌊🔬🦠 Check out our new study published in Current Biology showing how cyanobacterial genomes evolve step-by-step into endosymbionts of diatoms. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
@currentbiology.bsky.social @mehrshmali.bsky.social
August 30, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
Before today, I would have never known it was possible to run DNA extractions and PCR without a lab. Who knew that a molecular bio bento box could facilitate bringing the lab into the field? I’m very excited to see how our hornwort Cyanobacteria community sequencing turns out later this week.
August 21, 2025 at 3:05 AM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
We're Hiring! Assistant Professor of Immunology and Molecular Medicine in MCB. Learn more and apply online:
aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05096
August 20, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
This surprisingly relaxing footage is from SIX MILES under the ocean – and it’s the deepest ecosystem yet discovered
July 31, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
A paper in Nature reports the discovery of fossilized claw prints thought to belong to an amniote on a slab of rock from Australia dated to about 356 million years ago, suggesting that the origin of amniotes is earlier than expected. go.nature.com/4jm5XTP #Paleosky 🧪
May 26, 2025 at 1:46 AM
It is happening again! Consider taking our course on the Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis at
@MBLScience. We extended the deadline for
applications to Apr 14, 2025. www.mbl.edu/education/ad...
Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis | Marine Biological Laboratory
This is an immersive research-based course designed to teach basic concepts, open research questions, and facilitate state-of-the-art experimental approaches in symbiosis research.
www.mbl.edu
April 2, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
It’s live! Check out the Cleves Lab website and learn how the lab uses ecologically relevant cnidarian models to gain key insights into how microbial symbiosis and its breakdown impact animal biology and health, driving new coral conservation efforts. 🪸🎉

@pcleves.bsky.social
www.cleveslab.org
The Cleves Lab
The Cleves Lab researches the molecular, cellular, and developmental basis of how intracellular beneficial microbes invade and persist in animal cells to form symbiosis. They use ecologically critical...
www.cleveslab.org
March 28, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
Save the date 📅: The PhD Summer School on Host-microbe Symbioses is taking place from 6-19 of July in Oeiras, Portugal.
Registration is opening soon!
Learn more 👉 gimm.idloom.events/phd-summer-s...

@gimmfoundation.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social
@crc1182.bsky.social #CIFAR #CBR
February 5, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
Interested in protist parasites? Want to learn some fun bioinformatics? Think this apicomplexan looks cool? Great! Come and do some protist genomics at @uniofbath.bsky.social!

We're advertising a fully-funded PhD studentship open to UK & International applicants!

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
January 21, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
Neural crest of Xenopus embryos labelled with nuclear GFP
December 11, 2024 at 8:12 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
Lets put this back in the feed and see if there is anyone else who who'd like to be added.

We are getting your future grad students ready, and plan on writing a book one day…maybe.

go.bsky.app/RnHK313
December 6, 2024 at 10:58 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
A video we made at @mbarinews.bsky.social explaining some functions of #fluorescence in the ocean, and how #bioluminescence is different… but related.
🦑🧪🌊
m.youtube.com/watch?v=whbe...
The allure of fluorescence in the ocean
YouTube video by MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)
m.youtube.com
December 2, 2024 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
I'm pumped to finally share our lab's first publication!
Microbiology and cancer are deeply intertwined, and this is our first foray into the cancer field. We asked: how do bacteria activate innate immunity in tumors to elicit anti-cancer responses?
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Cytosolic bacterial pathogens activate TLR pathways in tumors that synergistically enhance STING agonist cancer therapies
Intracellular bacterial pathogens are distinctive tools for fighting cancer, as they can proliferate in tumors and deliver therapeutic payloads to the…
www.sciencedirect.com
December 2, 2024 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
Thrilled to present our latest BioRXiv on brain/body interactions during defensive freezing behaviour! (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...). You might think that a frozen animal has, well, frozen muscle activity, right? Wrong! Underneath the still surface of a fly, something in the legs is beating… 🧵
December 2, 2024 at 9:57 AM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
Last week I showed to MSc students this iconic movie of a #leukocyte chasing a #bacteria, just wait...

Version taken from a 16 mm video made by David Elliot Rogers @VanderbiltU in the 1950s !

(as @mag2art.bsky.social says "the Citizen Kane of #Microscopy)
#CellMigration @focalplane.bsky.social
December 1, 2024 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
🔺🔺🔺RED TRIANGLE ALERT 🔺🔺🔺
Ever wonder how #TADs compare across the tree of life?Look no further & read our Review!!!

Find out what genes & 3D chromatin can & can't do in Bacteria! Archeae! Yeast! Plants! Animals!

SMCs & RNA-Pol are the only thing they have in common
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Evolution and function of chromatin domains across the tree of life - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
Szalay et al. discuss cross-kingdom similarities and differences in 3D chromatin folding in relation to gene regulation, including in bacteria, archaea, mammals and plants. This comparison reveals cer...
www.nature.com
November 28, 2024 at 12:48 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
I still love this figure. Submitting revisions this week. SNPs in transcription factor binding sites (green) explain the majority of additive genetic variation for >70% of ~150 phenotypes (rows) in maize. See Alt for detailed figure legend. See www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... for more!
November 12, 2024 at 5:42 AM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
Join us at the Symbiosis course!
With @pcleves.bsky.social @scottnichols.bsky.social & others!
Excited to announce that our 2025 Advanced Research Training Course schedule is up and applications are open! 🎉🎉🎉

See you in Woods Hole! mbl.edu/courses

🧪🐙🦑🧠🐟
November 12, 2024 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
Want to be amazed by how a symbiont can be located at the center of a cell while still being an epibiont! Please read and be amazed by the symbiosis between Anaerameoba and sulfate-reducing bacteria!

Now out in Nature Communications (open access)! rdcu.be/dZGNe
(1/11)
A unique symbiosome in an anaerobic single-celled eukaryote
Nature Communications - Symbiont-housing structures are well-studied in multicellular eukaryotes but rarely in unicellular protists. This study shows that low-oxygen-adapted Anaeramoebae have...
rdcu.be
November 11, 2024 at 10:47 PM
Reposted by Phillip Cleves
New preprint up! We sequenced hundreds of samples from across one of Earth's oldest living organisms - the Pando aspen clone - to understand how mutations accumulate and spread in long-lived clonal organisms. Our results were…surprising. 1/30
October 26, 2024 at 5:45 PM
Tap tap… does this thing work?
November 11, 2024 at 2:12 AM