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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

🧫 At last week’s MERMan seminar, we heard from: 🧬 Dia Ghose on the evolution and engineering of protein–protein interactions. 🦠 @laurasanrub.bsky.social on a long-term evolution experiment in defence-less Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for sponsoring the refreshments! 👏

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

🧫 The MERMan 2026/2027 seminar series is underway! Since kicking off on 9 September, we've had the pleasure of hearing from some fantastic speakers : 👏 Zhuo Chen 👏 Daniel Malumphy Montesdeoca 👏 Chris Doherty 👏 Kate Brandin 👏 Logan Sauers and @microbesng.bsky.social for sponsoring refreshments.

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

And finally Adam Mulkern (Oxford): "Antibiotics reshape the antagonism landscape of polyclonal Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections" #meehubs26 #meehubs2026

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Peggy Sechele (Manchester): "Microbial warfare is a driver and potentiator of resistance to antibiotics and phages" #meehubs26 #meehubs2026

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Conor Sharp (Reading): "Bacterial warfare is associated with virulence and antimicrobial resistance" #meehubs26 #meehubs2026

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Our keynote speaker Jasmine Ono (Nottingham): "Breaking a species barrier allows selection on recombinant hybrids in budding yeasts" #meehubs26 #meehubs2026

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

And our final speaker of the session is Kaitlin Schaal (Liverpool): "Modeling and experimental approaches allow us to parse drivers of community responses to environmental change" #meehubs26 #meehubs2026

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Next we have Oliver Meacock (Sheffield): "When cooperation isn't cooperative: resolving the paradox of stable mutualisms in microbial ecosystems" #meehubs26 #meehubs2026

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Manchester kicking off today's MEEHubs with keynote speaker Professor Sarah Coulthurst (Dundee): "The bacterial Type VI secretion system – a versatile antimicrobial weapon" #meehubs26 #meehubs2026

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Finally, we have Sadhbh Dodd from Trinity College Dublin: "Intraspecific variation is key for predicting the outcome of bacterial species interactions in the cystic fibrosis lung" #meehubs26

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Our next speaker this morning is down the drain, Greg McCallum from University of Liverpool: "The hospital sink drain microbiome: a melting pot for antimicrobial resistance plasmids" #Meehubs26

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Next we return to the ocean with Dr Gretel Waugh: "A metagenomic framework for marine microbial ecotoxicology"

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

First up in Manchester is our first plenary speaker, Professor Stineke van Houte: "Understanding the role of bacterial anti-phage defences to inform phage therapy" #meehubs26

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Last week we kicked off the ecology & evolution seminar series with a fantastic talk by @taylorlabgroup.bsky.social 🧬 A great start to a diverse series of talks organised by @bexlowrypalms.bsky.social & @matthewjshepherd.bsky.social Come and join us for the next one on 25th June!

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

We’re at the Universally Manchester Festival today with colonies to count, bacteria to infect with phage & your very own microbes to create! 🧫 @socialresponuom.bsky.social

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

In our recent seminars we heard from @mbottery.bsky.social about anti fungal resistance evolution 💊 and Dr Irma Vitonytė spoke about endosymbiont evolution (using samples from ponds across Manchester!)🔬 Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for the best seminar snacks!

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

This week’s seminar featured a great talk by PhD student Zhou Chen about engineering phages for biocontainment ⚙️ Shoutout to @microbesng.bsky.social for our fabulous snacks!

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

In last week’s seminar we heard from @rebeccawallis.bsky.social about her work on the ecology and evolution of pathogens in CF 🫁 And @flanagella.bsky.social taught us about the importance of strain context in antibiotic resistance 💊 Thank you to @microbesng.bsky.social for our snacks!

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

We had two fantastic talks last week: Tom Butterfield talked about tailoring promoter sensitivity for fun and profit, and Deepanshi Kwarwall on understanding the disturbance potential of Bacillus spp. toward soil microbes. Cheers to @microbesng.bsky.social for sponsoring snacks.

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

In this week’s seminar we heard from Erika Hansson who shared work on the evolution of endosymbiosis 🔬 and our lab reps shared an update on our laboratory sustainability efforts, including a quiz on lab recyclables! 🧪♻️ Thank you to @microbesng.bsky.social for the fantastic snacks!

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Two great talks from last week's seminar by Emma Wright: Mutation rates depend on the presence and density of cohabiting species, and Matt Thomas: The elements of mobile elements in microbiomes. Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for sponsoring refreshments at our seminars.

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Last week's seminar featured excellent talks from @fionapoulter.bsky.social on understanding the evolution of epidemic Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Holly Richardson on why heterogeneity matters: predicting antibiotic resistance in cystic fibrosis. Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for the nice snacks!

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Two fantastic talks in our latest seminar: Kirsten Lim told us about her work on the effects of IgA on gut phage diversity, and Jeremy Dejardin shared his work mapping chromosome-plasmid interactions in E. coli Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for the best seminar snacks!

Kirsten is stood to the left of a slide which reads “the three-way interactions between gut bacteria, phage and the host”

Jeremy is stood to the right of a slide reading “mapping chromosome-plasmid interactions: a genome-wide knockout approach”

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

In today’s seminar we heard about Lambda phage Q proteins and their role in gene expression from Xuan Chen 🧬 A huge thank you as always to @microbesng.bsky.social for the fantastic snacks! 🧁

A screen in the centre shows a title slide in dark grey with microscope imagines of bacteriophages. The title in white reads “Regulatory Role of Lambda Q Protein in Late Gene Expression”. The speaker Xuan Chen is stood to the right of the screen.

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Last week's seminar featured talks by Hannah on the culture enrichment of cystic fibrosis sputum samples and by Edoardo on the spatial and temporal tracking of antifungal resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus hyphal networks. Cheers to @microbesng.bsky.social for their usual surprise snacks

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

We had an exciting talk at today's seminar, first on Polymicrobial interactions in Cystic Fibrosis @ambercutcliffe.bsky.social, and Coalescence in host spring microbial communities @magdalenakurteu.bsky.social. Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for the snack!

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

We had two interesting talks at today's seminar: Eric spoke about the multistep pharmacodynamics of multimodal antibiotics, and @laurasanrub.bsky.social spoke about the long-term evolution experiment in defenseless PA01. Again, huge thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for the snacks.

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Today's seminar featured one of MERMan's PIs, @sarafederici.bsky.social, who discussed how phage therapy could be improved to target gut pathobionts in IBD. Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for the snacks.

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

This week's seminar featured two talks. @normanvanrhijn.bsky.social talked about fungal pathogens, and @taoranfu.bsky.social discussed population-level defence systems in bacteria. Huge thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for the snacks!

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

From phages to fallopian tubes - in last weeks seminar we heard about designing synthetic phages from Ryan ⚙️ And Dolan from the Tank lab @raveentank.bsky.social spoke about their microfluidic fallopian tube models 🧫

Ryan is stood to the right of his title slide which reads: Smart-Phage: designing synthetic bacteriophage to defeat superbugs

Dolan is stood to the right of his title slide which reads: modelling the fallopian tube in a microfluidic setting

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

This week’s seminar featured two talks about long-term evolution experiments! 🧬🕣 Ingrid talked about contamination detection for Pseudomonas LTEEs & CD shared their results of archaeal commmunity LTEEs Huge thank you to @microbesng.bsky.social for the snacks! 🍪

Ingrid is stood to the left of a screen showing a title slide which reads “Long term evolution experiment - investigating the evolutionary trajectories of defenseless PAO1 (dPAO1v2) strain exposed to mobile genetic elements

CD is stood to the left of a screen showing a red title slide, white text reads “The first long-term community evolutionary experiment in archaea”

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

A very interesting talk about culture cycle dependence of mutation rates by Ziang Zhang 🧬 Accompanied by fantastic snacks thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social 🍰

A screen in the centre shows a slide titled “Culture cycle dependent mutation rate”, Ziang Zhang stands to the right looking at a the audience

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

This week we kicked off the new year with a great talk about endosymbiosis evolution by Dan Malumphy 🔬 Thank you to @microbesng.bsky.social for supplying us with snacks! 🍪

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Congratulations to Dr Rana Alruthaya, who successfully defended her PhD today on AMR diversity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from non-CF bronchiectasis patients. She's the 10th PhD student from MERMan. Well done Rana! @dannagifford.bsky.social @brockhurstlab.bsky.social @knightjar.bsky.social

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Congratulations to PhD student Zahraa Albaqsami @zahraaalbaqsami.bsky.social for successfully defending her PhD today! Zahraa's thesis looked at thermal adaptation and mutation in the archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarious. Thanks to examiners @rokkrasovec.bsky.social and Thorsten Allers!

Zahraa standing with her name placard on the wall of PhD graduates

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

The last seminar of the year was another set of exciting talks from visitor @alekseiagapov.bsky.social and merfolk @sophiesomerville.bsky.social ! Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for the 🍪! Have a happy and safe holiday! 🤶🏻 🎅🏻 🎄

Alekseis title slide up on the projector.

Image of Aleksei answering questions following his talk.

Sophie starting her presentation next to her title slide.

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

We had two fantastic visiting speakers today MERMan alumnus @rowancallumg.bsky.social spoke about his current work with viral cheating in influenza with @asherleeks.bsky.social And @lavishaparab.bsky.social talked about phage infection trade-offs Thanks to @microbesng.bsky.social for our snacks!

Rowan standing in front of a title slide reading “defective viral genomes in natural infections”

Lavish standing in front of a title slide reading “trade-offs in bacterial evolution in the context of temperate phage infection”

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Massive congratulations to our own @magdalenakurteu.bsky.social for winning the poster prize at #MicroEvo25!! Her poster describes coalescence dynamics in hot spring microbial communities, and featured wonderful photos from Icelandic field work

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Incredibly insightful talk this afternoon by @matthewjshepherd.bsky.social speaking about within-patient ciprofloxacin resistance in P. aeruginosa #MicroEvo25

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Starting day two of #MicroEvo25 strong with our first MERMan speaker of the day! An amazing talk by @mattjago.bsky.social about mutational bias in E. coli 🧬

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Come chat to Dan at poster 22 to learn about endosymbiosis evolution #MicroEvo25

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Find out more about DNA repair protein single-molecule tracking from @bexlowrypalms.bsky.social at poster 18🔬 #MicroEvo25

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Fantastic talk about the impact of inflammation on Pseudomonas aeruginosa evolution by @taoranfu.bsky.social #MicroEvo25

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Another great week at our seminar series! This session, we explored "Within-patient evolution of ciprofloxacin resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa from @matthewjshepherd.bsky.social Big thank you to @microbesng.bsky.social for once again keeping us fuelled with delicious refreshments 🙌🍪

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

In this week’s seminar we learned about the evolution of intrinsic terminators from @stepadenisov.bsky.social 🧬 Made even more fun by snacks kindly sponsored by @microbesng.bsky.social 🍪

Stepan Denisov standing to the right of a lecture slide titled “Evolution of intrinsic terminators between two closely related species”

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

This week @willpjsmith.bsky.social taught us all about microbial competition & Logan Sauers ( @coytelab.bsky.social ) shared recent gut microbiome work. Thanks @microbesng.bsky.social for the refreshments!

Will P Smith in front of a lecture slide teaching about type 6 secretion systems.

Logan Sauers describing gut microbiome metagenomic data.

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