Fabian Blombach

Why did some #viruses evolve to be #giants while others did not? Our perspective piece on this topic with Eugene Koonin. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Gene duplication of initiation factor TFIIB drove eukaryotic inventions like the RNA polymerase I, II and III split and probably cyclins. With Kris Kuo and @buzzbaum.bsky.social, we show that the archaeal TFIIB paralogue TFB2 enables a regulated cell cycle in archaea. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I'm looking for an enthusiastic student to join my team as a PhD candidate on archaeal genome evolution 🦠💻 Work in beautiful Utrecht, at @binfutrecht.bsky.social, an international group full of caring, amazing scientists, and with frequent cake breaks! www.uu.nl/en/organisat... Please share! 🙏

Wonderful to hear Carl Stetter reminisce on the discovery of Archaea at MBoA2026

Very happy to share our latest publication in Nat. Commun. www.nature.com/articles/s41... It was a great collaboration with @ifremer.bsky.social, @cbitoulouse.bsky.social and @pasteur.fr. We discovered a new hibernation factor in Archaea binding to the ribosome in three different conformations !

Two post-doctoral positions open in our lab. We're looking for people with expertise in molecular microbiology and/or genome-scale tools. Initially 3 yrs, posts could be extended for upto 8 yrs. If you'd like to know more about us take a look at www.graingerlab.com www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQY475/r...

@ewarman.bsky.social has followed up on her discovery of bidirectional promoters in bacteria by defining their basic rules for regulation and links to gene expression noise... academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Delighted to share our new preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We address a longstanding question about the role of the topoisomerase reverse gyrase in hyperthermophiles. Great collaboration with Baranello and @tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social groups. #Archaeasky #Microsky

An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Check out our paper on intricate nested interactions between viruses and virus satellites of haloarchaea and their nanosized DPANN symbionts. Excellent collaboration with @deemteam.bsky.social, @anagtz.bsky.social and Michail Yakimov Free access link: rdcu.be/eLtCH 🧵 by @yifanzhou.bsky.social 👇

We have an exciting PhD opportunity to study ribosome hibernation in archaea using cryo-electron microscopy, tomography, microfluidics, omics, and confocal imaging. @daumlab.bsky.social, @lsiexeter.bsky.social Apply via: www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin... Any questions, IM me.

Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social

I set out to review the evolution of eukaryotic intracellular traffic, but along the way a new hypothesis came into focus: maybe the earliest membrane carriers were tubules, not coated vesicles! New preprint: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... Here’s the idea. 🧵

1/16 New pre-print from the Sternberg Lab! We uncover how temperate phages can use RNA-guided transcription factors to remodel the flagellar composition of their bacterial host and enhance their fitness. Find the preprint and full story here: tinyurl.com/mshwjd77

Elated to have our pre-print now published in @natcomms.nature.com #ArchaeaSky #Microbiology #MEvoSky rdcu.be/euila Our main results stay the same: S. islandicus follows a cell cycle akin to that of some eukaryotes, like the budding yeast, with cellular processes cycling similarly. old🧵cited below👇

A must-read for histone afficionados: our new review on 'Histone-mediated chromatin organization in prokaryotes and viruses' www.cell.com/trends/bioch... @samuelschwab.bsky.social @vikramalva.bsky.social

We’ve uncovered Asgard chromatin structures formed by a Hodarchaeal histone : closed hypernucleosome conserved in archaea and an open form resembling the H3-H4 eukaryotic octasome. Fantastic work by @harshranawat.bsky.social! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #Chromatin #Asgard #Archaea #cryoEM

In this new publication, we took #archaea for a walk in the chemical garden 😉. The abiotic hydrogen produced in this setting can fuel M. jannaschii’s metabolism. Great interdisciplinary collaboration with the Orsi lab who initiated and led this study. More here www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The MIMIC lab is hiring a Postdoctoral Research Associate to join my team at @Cambridge_Uni! Exploration and engineering DNA-mimicking proteins (wet-lab position.) 🧬 Details: www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/50652/ Please get in touch / circulate !

www.findaphd.com/phds/project... A funded PhD studentship is available for a joint project between my lab and @andreashaag.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social

If you're interested in chromosome biology (DNA folding, gene regulation, replication, polymer modelling and more) we're organising the below this autumn. It'd be great to see you there. Please share if you can. :-)