Catherine Armbruster

Incredibly excited about our latest work on R-bodies, 5+ years in the making! These coiled protein ribbons extend into ~10 µm needles in a pH-dependent manner & we caught them springing open inside amoebae after P. aeruginosa gets eaten. (animation: Jegg Yoon)🧵1/2 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🤔 grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Decades of industrial pollution changed the bacteria living at a former Pittsburgh steel mill. Some evolved to break down toxic chemicals as food! theconversation.com/at-an-old-st...

That feeling when 8/21/26-Catherine only allotted 1 lecture for genetic drift on the Evolution syllabus, but 9/21/26-Catherine has too many slides and more to say... 😔

Out Now! Bacterial growth rate in populations and single cells #MicroSky

Bacterial DNA invasion triggers transposable element proliferation and genome expansion https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.14.738529v1

Out Now! Predictable shifts in microbial species composition lead to community-wide robustness to environmental stress #MicroSky

What is the best way to deal with bacteria at home? Biological Sciences Professor Catherine Armbruster shares her recommendations in the @seattletimes.com. 🧪 www.seattletimes.com/explore/at-h...

From Lotka-Volterra Dynamics to Community Assembly: Theory, Topography, and Empirical Applications https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.14.738515v1

From lab scripts to a reproducible bioinformatics pipeline! 💻🧬 Check out this article about @cmu.edu Quantitative Bio & Bioinformatics MS grad from my lab, Katie Wang. FYI - Katie is on the job market in bioinformatics & software development. Happy to connect you! www.cmu.edu/mcs/news-eve...

Check out this @seattletimes.com article where Matt Parsek & I give a microbiologist's perspective on cleaning your home! Brb, scrubbing my sink... 🫧https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/at-home/tackling-germs-at-home-like-a-microbiologist/

ribosomologists take note👇 #MicroSky

BacNeMu: neutral mutation spectra reconstruction pipeline for bacteria https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.30.735404v1

Genomic impact of the second plague pandemic on three human populations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.29.730585v1

Feeding the invaders: How metabolic imbalance shapes infection and biofilm development @femsjournals.bsky.social Microbiol Rev from Dan Wozniak academic.oup.com/femsre/advan...

Genome architecture shapes the evolutionary origins of redundant enhancers in fly and mouse https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.26.734851v1

Pls share: U of Washington has an opening for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor. This position is expected to specialize in molecular virology or bacteriology. Here is a link: microbiology.washington.edu/index.php/ne...

to whom the bell tolls (out of tune) an excellent tutorial !👇

Cross-feeding/protection between microbes can promote gene loss, but not always. In this COMICR review, @ofsheff.bsky.social, Ella Chuang, and I discuss the constraints on adaptive gene loss during metabolic interactions. Access for free until Aug 15: authors.elsevier.com/a/1nKlj4tPFp...

The screwworm barrier worked for nearly six decades because people funded and staffed it. Because we let down our guard, the vampire pathogen is back, and could cost billions of dollars to control.

"Power Law"

Absolutely loved my (brief) time in this department! Postdocs on the academic job market, check out this position!!!!

The M&I department/community at Dartmouth is fantastic. Apply!

Rather: small N + strong selection = beneficial mutations linked to DNA repair mutants that ⬆️ mutation supply We tried to be accurate here @catarmbruster.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-reports... Grateful that evolutionary biology is being used in microbial pathogenesis, now need more pop-gen

Headed to DC just as soon as I finish packing… #asm2026 #orangeboy

Recent CMU graduate Jingjing Xu investigates how communication shapes patient care. Her research highlights how listening, trust and lived experience can improve health outcomes. 🧪 #WomenInSTEM www.cmu.edu/mcs/news-eve...

From zoo wildlife to museum collections, the Smithsonian Institution reveals how microbes shape life across ecosystems. Don’t miss this first-of-its-kind session at #ASMicrobe 2026: eppro01.ativ.me/web/planner.... The event is also open to the public! Register here: myasm.asm.org/eweb/Dynamic...

Finally out! Biofilm ecology cannot forget their spatial structure 🦠🌏 Here we look at cm-scale diversity across controlled and uncontrolled conditions and quantify the effect of different sampling methods on the understanding of biofilm ecology doi.org/10.1093/isme... @eawag.bsky.social

🎊 New Preprint from phagefoundry.org ! Super excited to share our latest work on generating systematic phage-MDR P. aeruginosa interaction dataset & use of ML to predict phage susceptibility & phage cocktails from target genome sequences alone, w validations www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

So, Nat'ralists observe, a Flea Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey, And these have smaller yet to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum: -Jonathan Swift, 1733

Hey all! Happy to finally join everyone here on Bluesky, and also to share the culmination of my longest-running postdoc project, now on bioRxiv: “Apparent generalism in Pseudomonas aeruginosa is underpinned by convergent cryptic specialization.” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Congrats to @cmuscience.bsky.social QBB grad June Qu on her pre-print for BTEXgenie, a tool that IDs BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene) degradation genes in (meta)genomes. Tutorial: github.com/armbrusterla... Part of a new project in my lab inspired by Pittsburgh's brownfields. :)

Pasteurized Akkermansia muciniphila MucT for weight loss maintenance in people with overweight and obesity: a controlled randomized trial. #NatureMedicine www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧪 A record wave of researchers is running in the 2026 mid-terms (700+ applications to 314 Action, which recruits scientists and healthcare specialists). Only 3% of state seats are held by STEM professionals, and many of these recruits are looking to help push science-backed policy solutions again.

Silencing lipid catabolism determines longevity in response to fasting www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Invasive Hib infections are spreading in Pacific Northwest cities, predominantly among adults with unstable housing and illicit drug use.

Nitrogen Obsession by Roberto — A brief history of how organisms get their nitrogen.

Carnegie Mellon University researchers, like @catarmbruster.bsky.social are exploring whether microbes can help clean up what the steel industry left behind. 🧪 #WomenInSTEM www.cmu.edu/mcs/news-eve...

Congrats to Anish Pyne for winning the People’s Choice Award in tonight’s 3 Minute Thesis competition @cmu.edu 🥳🥳🥳 @cmuscience.bsky.social

Madness. A bacterium with a 10kb genome, lost replication initiation, translation.., relies on symbiotic host. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to announce our new journal from @isme-microbes.bsky.social ISME Host Microbe is live and now accepting submissions. Look forward to receiving your papers! #Microsky 🧫 🦠

New in JB: Mike Cashel is known internationally for his work on "magic spot", or (p)ppGpp, that serves as a key regulator of bacteria physiology. Hinman & Gottesman remember Dr. Cashel. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... @asm.org #JBacteriol

My lab went outside! Check out this article (and video!) about a new project in my lab @cmuscience.bsky.social www.cmu.edu/mcs/news-eve...

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Congratulations, @animrprfct.bsky.social! Best of luck and looking forward to watching you present in the finals for 3MT! @cmuscience.bsky.social

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…