Michael Brockhurst

How does treatment induced antibiotic resistance happen in real-world infections? We analysed 25k Pseudomonas isolates from 180 patients in a clinical trial to find out! TLDR: The ecological and evolutionary paths are surprisingly diverse & complex even in patients receiving identical treatment…

Super-excited to be organising the first in-person meeting of the @target-amr.bsky.social network today and tomorrow. We will be launching an initiative for pump-priming and an amazing comic by Eddie Ross on AMR Genomics

Happy to share that our latest research on the eco-evolutionary dynamics of MDR plasmids and PDPs is now out (open access vAuthor) in The ISME Journal doi.org/10.1093/isme... Here, we explored how plasmid-dependent phages (PDPs) act as a selective pressure against the spread of multidrug resistance

Less than 1 week to apply for this postdoc! If you want to find out more about the project have a look at our recent preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #mevosky

Bacterial immune proteins have repeatedly evolved to become parts of eukaryotic immunity. But how? Our new preprint uncovers a recent horizontal transfer event & shows how eukaryotes co-opted a toxic bacterial immune protein 🦠🧪🧵 1/

Why does antibiotic resistance evolution vary between patients? Come to @officialuom.bsky.social @mermanchester.bsky.social to help us find out! 2.5 year @wellcometrust.bsky.social postdoc position in experimental evolution Closing 15 May. Apply here: www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Join us! @wellcometrust.bsky.social postdoc position using experimental evolution to understand real-world resistance dynamics. See preprint for the 🤯 strain collection we will be working with www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Closing 15 May. Apply: www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... #mevosky

Interested in working on the evolution of photosynthetic endosymbioses? Come join us! I have 2 open positions in my new group @cemess.bsky.social in Vienna 3yr postdoc info: tinyurl.com/4emkjpn4 4yr PhD info: tinyurl.com/mtxmsjpy Apply by 1st June! Please share/repost #Protists #Symbiosis #PhD

We have a PhD studentship available to develop genome safeguarding technologies for synthetic phage therapeutics www.findaphd.com/phds/project... It is part of an exciting new @officialuom.bsky.social PhD by Enterprise programme www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/study/resear...

Here’s the latest preprint from my work on evolved resistance to Type VI Secretion system (T6SS) weaponry, funded by a @wellcometrust.bsky.social Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship. So happy to see this out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Very excited to announce that we are hiring for three faculty positions at @universityofleeds.bsky.social in @bioscienceleeds.bsky.social: A/Prof Plant Science, A/Prof Animal Biology and Lecturer in Ecology, Zoology, Biodiversity or Ecosystem Management. Please do get in touch to chat. Links below:

🚨Preprint! Happy to share the research from my PhD “Genome delivery of a contractile tailed phage and its superinfection exclusion mechanism”. We use cryoEM to study the genome ejection of the phage T4, revealing how the tape measure protein regulates the process. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating). A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

Pleased to finally share this fun collab that began at #Ento23 @cedricaumont.bsky.social presented & I had seen NCBI annotated some cockroach genomes as "contaminated." Turns out NCBI & I were wrong (much more fun). Horizontal transfer of an #AntimicrobialPeptide across insects bit.ly/DrsHGT 1/🧵

CBASS is a cyclic nucleotide-based antiviral system in bacteria that is related to cGAS-STING signaling in animals. One of the big questions is how CBASS is activated during phage infection? We made some progress on this during my final year in the Kranzusch lab. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Out today: We discovered new viral proteins that target immune signaling molecules, solely based on their AlphaFold-predicted shapes www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Congrats Nitzan Tal and coauthors! Thank you Kranzusch lab for the fun collaboration! Linking below previous thread on our findings

#MicroSky Please RT @erc.europa.eu-funded postdoc position in my lab to identify the molecular basis of prey-predator interactions using our favorite micro-vampire Bdellovibrio exovorus as a model. Let's find what the bite is made of! 🧛 Flexible start date. Info: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/415877

New post-doctoral research position in my phage-host interactions (Phi) laboratory in @otagomicroimmuno.bsky.social at @universityofotago.bsky.social New Zealand. The project is focused on defences against jumbo phages. Please share and if interested apply using the link in the comments.

Phage therapy offers a powerful tool against AMR infections—but only if we move from isolated cases to coordinated systems. The first initiative of the ASM Health Unit, led by Colleen Kraft and Dev Mittar, will tackle this. Delighted by this scientific leadership, join us! asm.org/about-asm/as...

New preprint out on bioRxiv! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Can conjugative plasmids be used to control plasmid and pathogen spread? Follow me down the rabbit hole that led to this story 🧵

Convergent MurJ flippase inhibition by phage lysis proteins www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Now out & nicely formatted in @isme-microbes.bsky.social A big analysis of ocean genomes & metagenomes co-led by former postdocs, now PIs, @gmdouglas.bsky.social & @cyanophage.bsky.social along with co-PIs @lbobay.bsky.social & Samuel Chaffron. A few highlights... 🧵 (1/n) doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Happy 38th birthday to the #LTEE! #BOTD in 1988. Keep on evolving! #science #evolution #microbiology

Now published: our work using phylodynamics from surveillance data to quantify and experimentally validate the fitness impact of antibiotic resistance determinants & how this changes with patterns of antibiotic use: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thank you Mike! I encourage your colleagues to join the new initiative from ASM Health to develop and execute on synergies with phage therapy. Would be great to involve multiple societies and NGO's here as appropriate, as we share common goals. asm.org/about-asm/as...

Out now in @plosbiology.org : our big joint effort on the role of #CRISPR in plasmid competition. Read on for a really fun (I’m biased ok) analysis of how a defence system has new selective pressures when it’s mobile journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... 1/6

Excited to share our new preprint exploring how Paramecium achieves diverse flow functions, i.e. feeding and swimming, simultaneously. This work was spearheaded by our ExM expert, PhD student Daphne Laan @daphnelaan.bsky.social : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Up to what degree of interspecific genetic distance is it possible to form viable and fertile hybrids? A strange species of paramecium breaks the record: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Alita Burmeister (@aburmeister.bsky.social) is looking to hire a postdoc (or potentially a PhD student) for projects on phage resistance and evolution. The position description is posted to the Eco-Evo Jobs wiki and also available on her lab's website (arburmeister.weebly.com).

MENI is back! Join us in Dublin this August 2026 for our 3rd Meeting for Microbial Evolution in Ireland. We are delighted to have @rachelmwheatley.bsky.social @drrebeccajhall.bsky.social @jpjhall.bsky.social and @tweethinking.bsky.social join us as keynote speakers this year. miniurl.com/MENI

Cancer therapies exploit DNA repair defects to kill tumours. We asked whether the same logic could constrain antibiotic resistance evolution... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Super interesting - many roads lead to #AMR in different patients #IDSky

🚨 New pre-print! 🚨 In the largest study of its kind to-date, we investigate the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms driving within-patient evolution of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Read here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... , and follow along with this thread, discussing our findings (1/21)

Fascinating and important study on Klebsiella plasmid diversity 'Plasmids from human, animal and marine [Klebsiella pneumoniae complex] isolates formed shared genetic clusters spanning ecological boundaries' www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Hoping to return to bluesky after a social media hiatus! Nice to start it off with some career updates - I've just started as a College for Life Sciences Fellow @wiko-berlin.bsky.social. Really excited to live+work in Berlin! Read about what i'll be up to here: www.wiko-berlin.de/en/fellows/a...

Read how @embopress.org is expanding its focus on molecular ecology and evolution as central underpinnings of functions/interactions/diversification of biological systems – by @yehumoran.bsky.social, @berndpulverer.bsky.social, and our new team of Editorial Advisors link.springer.com/article/10.1...

📢📢📢Lectureships at Bristol!📢📢📢 We're hiring 3 x lecturers (=assistant professor) in Biological Sciences, across the discipline. Great department, great colleagues, great building, great city Details here: www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

🚨 New preprint 🚨 How promiscuous really are conjugative plasmids, and what does that mean for plasmid co-occurrence? A pleasure to collaborate with @craigmaclean.bsky.social on the first paper of my fellowship! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Conjugation structures plasmid populations through host-lineage restriction https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.19.706745v1

Last year, we proposed a model of plasmid evolution via fusion and fragmentation (via mge mediated recombination) generating mosaics, by studying historical isolates. Excited to see a MASSIVE paper from @jrpenades.bsky.social , @epcrocha.bsky.social expanding on this www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🧵 New preprint! Our 4-lab team evolved Streptococcus pneumoniae in antibiotic-treated mice of varying immune states and discovered something surprising: bacteria rarely evolved resistance. Instead, they found a different way to survive — by rewiring RNA turnover. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A short research stay in 2019 (back in the pre-COVID era) at José R. Penadés lab turned into the third chapter of my PhD and today it finally sees the light.

How specific are heritable symbioses? And what can we learn from swapping obligate symbionts across host species? We address this in our latest, led by @inespons.bsky.social & in our collaboration w/ @microbiome.bsky.social 🦠🪲 Out today in @natcomms.nature.com! 1/n www.nature.com/articles/s41...