Bork Group at EMBL Heidelberg

It has been two weeks since the unexpected death of Peer Bork, and all of us in his research group are deeply missing him. His scientific vision brought us together as a team, and we are immensely grateful for the time we spent together. 🧵

Thanks to additional funding, the registration fees for #EMBLBorkMemorial have been set at a reduced rate. This symposium will reflect on Peer Bork's past achievements and explore future directions of fields such as protein biology and more. Submit your abstract by 10 Nov: s.embl.org/pbs27-01-bl

At the start of 2026, EMBL lost long-serving colleague and Interim Director General Peer Bork. Join us in commemorating Peer and his legacy at the #EMBLBorkMemorial. Submit your abstract by 10 November: s.embl.org/pbs27-01-bl

We've been very moved by the tributes paid to Peer at conferences around the world: e.g. at ISME by Jeroen Raes, at ECCB by Christian von Mering, and at the Tara conference by Chris Bowler. Thank you! @isme-microbes.bsky.social @eccb-europe.bsky.social @taraoceans-science.bsky.social @raeslab.org

This morning we remembered four computational biology pioneers, who the world sadly lost over the past year. Thank you to all speakers for your moving tributes at ECCB. #ECCB2026 #Bioinformatics

What a way to start #EMBLPlanktonDiscoveries! ⛵️🌊 We’re live from EMBL Heidelberg, where scientific organiser Chris Bowler has opened the first edition of the meeting, followed by a keynote lecture from Éric Karsenti. We’re excited for what’s ahead this week!

The CGMLab is seeking an experienced postdoctoral researcher to work on an EU project focusing on the bioprospecting of novel microbial enzymes and pathways through metagenomics. Further information and application form can be found at: jobs.cgmlab.org/o/postdoc-po...

The CGMLab is seeking an experienced postdoctoral researcher to work on an international project focusing on the clinical associations of the microbiome of the female reproductive tract and heavy menstrual bleeding disorder. Applications and info at jobs.cgmlab.org/o/postdoc-po...

Get your calendars, because the new 2027 EMBL Annual Poster has arrived: s.embl.org/2027-poster Whether you'd like to enhance your skills in a practical course or engage with the latest research at one of our conferences, we've got you covered. See you at EMBL in 2027! 🙌 #LifeSciences #EMBL

EMBL researchers are helping improve how satellites interpret tropical forests. EMBL researchers and collaborators are combining microbial DNA and RNA sequencing with airborne and satellite observations to give satellites a ’microbial sense’ of forests. More info 👉 www.embl.org/news/science...

Don‘t forget to register for what promises to be an end-of-the-year highlight in functional microbiome research 👇🏻 !

EMBL and partners carried out a new pilot project in Luxembourg to study how freshwater microbiomes respond to environmental change. By sampling rivers and soils along the Moselle and Rhine, researchers aim to provide a way to track ecosystem stress and pollution. www.embl.org/news/connect...

Our new paper „Variations in the latitudinal diversity gradients of the ocean microbiome“ was just published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social 🥳 We present a global analysis of prokaryotic #biodiversity in the surface and mesopelagic layers of the ocean 🦠🌊 www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

New in @natgenet.nature.com: a moving obituary for Peer. Francesca Ciccarelli, Jan Korbel & Christian von Mering reflect on his scientific vision, from protein domains and genome evolution to metagenomics, and on his generosity as a mentor and friend to so many. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our work exploring host-microbial co-metabolism of bile acids in patients with alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) has been published in the JHEP Reports: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🪐 A big thank you to everyone involved, to the GALAXY and MicrobLiver consortia who made this possible! 🙌

Our study describing `microntology` and annotations for >300k metagenomes is now online in Bioinformatics @academic.oup.com : academic.oup.com/bioinformati... Congratulations to @fullam.bsky.social @vishnuprasoodanan.bsky.social & @biocs.bsky.social ! See the thread below for more details.

🚨Take this 15 min survey to shape the future of #Hepatology: 👉 survey.alchemer.eu/s3/91085482/... 🦠 #Microbiome-based mechanisms & biomarkers for improved patient stratification + prediction of therapeutic response in decompensated #Cirrhosis / #ACLF ⏳Survey closes on 17 May @easlnews.bsky.social

Due to some IT problems, the Bork group homepage and various services such as SPIRE and Metalog are unfortunately going to be unavailable for a couple of days. We're sorry for that and hope that the outage can soon be resolved!

@fullam.bsky.social has pushed a new #GUNC release, v1.1.0: github.com/grp-bork/gun... It fixes some bugs, updates some underlying databases and brings new features (e.g. you can now BYODB – bring your own database). GUNC v1.1.0 is also live on #bioconda .

Excited to share the upcoming EMBO | EMBL Symposium “Metabolic interactions shape ecosystems” 🧬🌍 📍 Heidelberg & online 📅 21–24 July 2026 Abstract deadline: 14 April! More info & registration: www.embl.org/about/info/c... #Metabolism #Microbiome #SystemsBiology #Ecology #EMBL #EMBO

'Phil was also the founding Editor-in-Chief of PLOS Computational Biology, where he created the beloved Ten Simple Rules series. He was so prolific in the series that the meta-article “Ten Simple Rules for Writing a PLOS Ten Simple Rules Article” literally includes, as Rule 4: “Be Philip E. Bourne.”

We’re hiring: Research Group Leader in computational biology. Are you generating more research ideas than you can explore? Lead cutting-edge AI & biology research at EMBL-EBI. Apply by 11 April 2026: embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j... #ScienceCareers @ewaldlab.org @embl.org

Just published: "Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats" by @podlesny.bsky.social @chanyeong-kim.bsky.social and @jonas-bio.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... See the quoted post below for a thread on the preprint!

In the largest study of its kind, scientists in the Bork Group at EMBL have found that a small subset of microbes can carry and transfer genes across disparate habitats, creating a planet-wide, interconnected network of microbiomes 🌍 🦠 🔗 Read more here: www.embl.org/news/science...

Excited to announce my upcoming @snsf.ch Ambizione research group at EPFL on bacteria-host interactions, combining systems approaches and microphysiological models. 🚨 We have an open PhD position! More info on projects and how to apply here: elisabettacacace.github.io/BHI-Lab/ 🧪

EMBL is deeply saddened by the passing of our Interim Director General Peer Bork, a pioneering scientist who left an indelible imprint on life science research in Europe and beyond. We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues. www.embl.org/news/people-...

We just released a @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social describing the *microntology*, a lightweight controlled vocabulary that we have been using for a while to tag metagenomes with contextual data. Study by @fullam.bsky.social @vishnuprasoodanan.bsky.social et al: 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We’re hiring 2 Postdocs (f/m/d) in Drug–Microbiome–Host Interactions 🦠💊 Focus: how non-antibiotic drugs shape the gut microbiome, drug efficacy & side effects. #PostdocJobs #Microbiome #AcademicJobs Full job ad: lisamaierlab.com/wp-content/u...

Text-mining tools have progressed a lot in the last two decades, and I'm excited to see what can be done now. More info chembl.blogspot.com/2025/12/new-... Apply here: embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/EMBL/job/Hin... The position is at @ebi.embl.org #ScienceJobs #AcademicSky #ChemSky #BioSky [3/3]

...but life intervened and funding changed, so SIDER sideeffects.embl.de is unfortunately gathering dust since its last update in 2015. But there's good news: @chembl.bsky.social and @opentargets.org are starting a new effort to mine the available data and produce a high-quality databases! [2/3]

During my PhD @borklab.bsky.social, we extracted drug side effect data from package inserts and used the dataset to predict new drug targets (doi.org/10.1126/scie...) and pinpoint proteins that mediate the side effects (doi.org/10.1038/msb....). We also published the underlying database... [1/3]

Congratulations, Julia Mahamid! Julia Mahamid receives the @dfg.de Leibniz Prize for her work on structural cell biology! #LeibnizPreis

From @jhcepas.bsky.social and colleagues in the @narjournal.bsky.social #NARDatabaseIssue | eggNOG v7: phylogeny-based orthology predictions and functional annotations | #Bioinformatics #ProteinCentric #Database #OpenScience 🧬 🖥️🧪🇨🇭🇪🇸🇩🇪🔓 ⬇️ academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

We're excited to release metaTraits.embl.de! 🦠 Interactively explore 140+ 𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘁𝘀, harmonized & integrated from culture-derived collections 🔬 & genome-based predictions 🧬 for >2M MAGs & genomes. Publication at NAR: doi.org/10.1093/nar/... @narjournal.bsky.social #microsky 🧵 1/8

Happy to announce VIRE, a planetary-scale database of >1.7M viral genomes reconstructed from 100k+ metagenomes across diverse environments! In collaboration with @fullam.bsky.social, @tsbschm.bsky.social, and @borklab.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/nar/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nar/gkaf1225/8356007

Congrats @fullam.bsky.social @pangenomics.bsky.social @borklab.bsky.social & team(s). Great to see this published! proGenomes4: providing 2 million accurately and consistently annotated high-quality prokaryotic genomes: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

We're up to 1000 studies in metalog.embl.de ! For the past year the focus was on finding inconsistencies in the data and creating the website, but now I have more time to go through the backlog of annotated issues to do QC and load them into the database.

Great to see this finally published! Metalog: curated and harmonised contextual data for global metagenomics samples now out in @narjournal.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Our newest preprint is the work of two talented PhD students: Dominic Eriksson (working in the labs of Meike Vogt, Nicolas Gruber & Shinichi Sunagawa @ethz.ch) and @jonas-bio.bsky.social from our group @embl.org, investigating latitudinal diversity gradients of the ocean microbiome (🧵 linked below)

Latitudinal diversity gradients (LDGs) are found across 🌱🐨🦠 but their underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we highlight that LDGs are not universal in marine microbiomes but reflect lineage-specific ecological strategies and environmental responses. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

The Data Science team at EMBL is hiring for two open positions! First, for a Scientific Community Manager, focusing on community aspects and training on data science. embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...