Jeroen Meijer

🚨 New preprint 🚨 We’ve discovered millions of viruses from sequencing data but we don’t always know who they infect. Our new tool, VHAMSTeR generates broad virus host predictions across the tree of life (prokaryote, plant, animal, fungi and protist hosts) A thread 🧵👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Thrilled to share this pre-print from an exciting collaboration with @bnashby.bsky.social, @asherleeks.bsky.social and @bramvandijk.bsky.social! Viral cheats that emerge through social evolution, under vertical transmission as proviruses, become defense systems to their hosts.

New preprint from our lab, with @sultannazir.bsky.social! 🚨 Defense systems in pro- and eukaryotes are often derived from the very parasites they now defend against. Here we show how this all starts with the emergence of cheaters in parasite populations! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We're looking for a PhD candidate who's eager to study how the genomes of fascinating eukaryotic microbes evolve and organize - and we have a fully funded PhD position available!

In my latest for @undark.org, I compare AI adoption in science to the Ship of Theseus: "If you swap out every wooden plank on a ship over time, is it still the same vessel?" I argue that science derives authority from something more than data generation + publication. undark.org/2026/09/25/o...

“I’ve heard from a bunch of people in our field who say, ‘Uh oh, are they training on my prompts?’” Dr. Shipman said. “We can’t not think about it.” ... '[A]fter Anthropic’s announcement last week, he is winding down his projects with Claude.' “I’m shutting down everything,” [Dr. Mestre] said.

Are you into sequence graphs and looking for a PhD position in viral ecology? Join the VEO Group in beautiful Jena, Germany! 👇👇 jobs.uni-jena.de/jobposting/a...

Ken je Hyves nog? Het sociale platform van de krabbels en dansende bananen maakt een comeback. Deze week kondigde De Telegraaf aan Hyves nieuw leven in te blazen. Volgens de hoofdredacteur draait het platform op Europese software. Maar dat klopt niet. www.ftm.nl/artikelen/hy...

🌱 Systems Ecology is now live! A new independent, researcher-run, diamond OA journal for ecological research through systems science. Free to read. Free to publish. No APCs. We are now open for submissions: systems-ecology.org Please help spread the word!

Any other bioinformaticians feel they’re the temporary, meat-flavored glue between experimental biologists and LLMs like Claude?

Wonderful tool that solves the problem that "Conventional research papers require readers to understand...the paper’s code, data and methods to their work"

Authors!🚨 While you scramble for scarce $ 🤔 “Springer Nature reports revenue growth of 6.2%..and adjusted operating profit growth of 7.7%. They reported even more stunning submission growth of 30% and published article growth of 13%.” Publishing in society journals helps YOU not them👇🏻. Pass it on.

🧬 Postdoc ad is now live: evolutionary genomics of Klebsiella pneumoniae phages. How do prophage depolymerases vs SGNH-esterases shape phage host range? Krakow, Poland. Deadline 21 Sept: mostowylab.com/job-postdoc-...

Delighted to share news that our preprint “Slower-than-exponential viral decay is prevalent and can reshape virus-microbe dynamics” is now online, led by Akash Arani (UMD-BEES PhD), Paul Fremont (UMD-Biology postdoc) and Emma Wachter (former UMD Honors Bio student) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Very happy that our paper Obligate cross-feeding of metabolites is common in soil microbial communities just came out in Nature Microbiology. See here 👇 Paywalled version: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Free read-only version: rdcu.be/fBHAb

Rewilded land remains green amid drought-stricken English countryside, images show. Excellent work by the National Trust at Holnicote. #MakeBritainWetAgain www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Join us and become part of PhageOrder: study the evolution of phage genetic modules!

A third-year student draws poster PS3.20.305 -- far corner, farthest wall -- and commits to standing there two hours. Barely anyone makes it that far. Two floors up, a senior colleague is having the week of his life. Same conference. A new essay. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/why-we-sti...

I wrote about a reason not to use generative AI in your writing that I haven't seen anyone talking about. Once I realized this, banning GenAI in our lab's writing became a no-brainer. Feel free to share, I think this is probably useful especially for trainees: www.carlsonlab.bio/thoughts/the...

🚨 New paper with @bramvandijk.bsky.social, out now in Genome Biology and Evolution! Why do accessory genes so often hitch a ride on temperate phages? We show that spatial structure alone can tip selection toward a prophage locus over a chromosomal one. doi.org/10.1093/gbe/... 🧵 Two mechanisms:

Nazir & @bramvandijk.bsky.social demonstrate how phage lifecycle dynamics and spatial heterogeneity drive mobile genetic element–gene associations, providing new insights into the evolution of phage-encoded virulence. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag181 #societyjournal #virus

Happy to share our latest review on @isme-microbes.bsky.social. We discussed how (intra- or interpopulation) cell-cell distances shape microbial interactions and enable community-level outcomes. Several hypotheses are proposed and we are testing them! doi.org/10.1093/isme...

🦠 #Bacteria organise themselves to hitchhike across large distances @susiegriggo.bsky.social @flinders.university.bsky.social #chemotaxis #metagenomics #EnvironmentalMicrobiology

Starting with the DNA sequence of a #phage genome, #PholdAPhage will create a 3D reconstruction of the complete phage, almost like you did cryoEM on it! Check out Renee's awesome software github.com/reneegreen81... to assemble unknown phage particles one protein at a time

🦠 #Bacteria organise themselves to hitchhike across large distances @susiegriggo.bsky.social @flinders.university.bsky.social #chemotaxis #metagenomics #EnvironmentalMicrobiology

Bacteriophage continue to have so much to teach us. It's in our interest to understand how they work and impact human & environmental health. New joint work led by @mariandm.bsky.social & @rantahan.bsky.social inferring single-cell latent period & burst size heterogeneity from population dynamics.

Thanks for having me! I really enjoyed the discussion as well.

Bacterial community adaptation after brackish and freshwater coalescence academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a... #jcampubs

For some reason people had less difficulty finding my poster than usual

Excited to share our new paper! Emanuele and @benjaminraach.bsky.social combine experiments and modelling to show that phage-mediated lysis can increase the growth rate of surviving bacteria by releasing resources back into the environment. 👇 www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Enjoyed speaking about viruses driving state shifts in microbial communities at #VoM2026. All 120 seconds of it. Catch me this afternoon at poster 236 if you want to know more. #phagesky

🚨The program for MEEHubs2026 is now online, as is more detailed information about the hubs! Check it out at meehubs.org and register‼️ Less than a month before the conference kicks off! 🦠

Interested in a PhD on bacteriophages? Check out www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3623... #phagesky if you are interested and also happen to be at #VOM2026, send me a dm

Final version is out! 🎉 Community state shifts driven by total carbon availability over resource complexity in a synthetic microbial community In ISME Communications with @teppo-h.bsky.social and coauthors. academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...

Snel ruilen met Macron voor de mosasaurus, voordat het toch niét d’Artagnan blijkt te zijn? www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/...

Exciting news! After a wonderful four years at @uni-jena.de, I'm excited to announce the next chapter as a group leader at @fzborstel.bsky.social and professor at @uni-kiel.de.

🚨New paper alert 🚨 Here we tried to leverage an (incredible) metagenome time-series to better understand MGE diversity and activity in soil across decade(s). @scbagby.bsky.social has an amazing thread about this work with all the details - bsky.app/profile/scba...

Out today in Nature Microbiology: a paper that started in 2021 with an email from @sullivan-lab.bsky.social. Subject line: "Crazy ideas". www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/23

I really value: the dynamics of community assembly on 2 contrasting C sources. Daily sampling of communities derived from compost & maintained over 8 wks. No difference in diversity maintained on simple or complex C. AmaZinG. 🙏 all enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Diverse Microbial Communities Assemble on Both Recalcitrant and Labile Carbon Sources enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #jcampubs

#microsky #phagesky Years ago a stray temperate #phage lysogenised an E. coli mutant of mine unable to take in a Sia. The small portion of lysed cells was enough to predigest the Sia into catabolites the cells could take in and use for growth!!! And here I was 1/2 academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

It will never stop being funny to me that the street fighter subreddit has a much better, well reasoned ai policy vis a vis literally all universities.

1/4. Excited to share the first preprint from my PhD at @binfutrecht.bsky.social and @uti-revisited.bsky.social 🐥. In this work, we explored the urinary tract microbiome composition (urobiome) by combining data from multiple metagenomic sequencing studies 💛🦠. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New on Academic Renewal: early-career voices. I’d like to include written interviews with ECRs on publication pressure, career strategy, mentoring, metrics, and the pursuit of knowledge. Named or anonymous contributions welcome. DM is interested academicrenewal.substack.com/p/early-care...

Can we use ecological principles to increase coexistence in synthetic bacterial communities? Our new paper is now out in @isme-microbes.bsky.social: "Environmental complexity shapes maintenance of bacterial diversity through context-dependent interactions among niche axes" doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Very excited to share our new preprint, led by Alyssa Henderson! We ask why auxotrophy is so widespread in bacteria, and find that phylogeny is the dominant predictor of autotrophy, as opposed to environmental context. Check it out! 👇

I’ve started Academic Renewal, a Substack on research culture, scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge. The first post asks how private concerns about academic life might become an open conversation about incentives, assessment and responsibility. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/why-academ...

Belatedly sharing an opinion piece with Kuni Kaneko. We propose that 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗼𝗴𝗺𝗮 is one instance of a more general pattern that has evolved repeatedly across levels of biological organisation. doi.org/10.1098/rstb...