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Asaf Levy

@asaflevylab.bsky.social
1.8K followers 193 following 542 posts

Interested in computational biology, microbial toxins, plant microbiome, and microbial adaptation to different hosts. PI at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. www.asaflevylab.com Expressing my personal opinions.

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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We observed that T6SS effectors tend to be longer, more hydrophilic, charged, and ordered, and to reside next to or fused to T6SS genes significantly more than non-T6Es. Common protein domains are depleted from effectors. Another new effector is likely a non-specific metalloprotease
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
demonstrating a moon-like structural phenotype. You can observe the cell wall unipolar accumulation and degradation in blue. We didn't expect to E. coli looking so weird. We provide predictions of 19,958 T6SS effector candidates in 2,559 T6SS-encoding bacterial genomes.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Chryseobacterium, showed a beautiful phenotype. This toxin, that we named the "moon toxin", targets the peptidoglycan. When expressed in E. coli, it quickly leads to spherical aggregated cells, with inner membrane separation, and gradual peptidoglycan degradation in a unipolar manner,
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Happy new Jewish year to the Levy lab friends, collaborators, and Reviewers #2 around the world. May the next one will be much more peaceful. (Pic from lab's bday in Palmachim beach 2 days ago).
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
PISA results are alarming. (Graph from The Economist).
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Our friend the @shlezingerlab.bsky.social is hiring! Highly recommended. Working on the fascinating unknown world of mycoviruses. Her 1st postdoc, Marina Campos Rocha, just started her independent academic position.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Pretty amazing ecological effect. Microalgae from the Nile river delta are currently clogging Israel's desalination plants in the Mediterranean, disrupting agriculture in desert which is based on desalinated water. @bejalab.bsky.social
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
For nearly 20 years I have used this pic as my FB profile image and already forgot where it was taken by my wife. But today, while hiking with my kids in Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park (Spain) I found the exact corner and my sons reproduced it.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Elections are on Oct. "A sane government is required"
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
The pope promotes people to saints after having evidence for their miracles. Pope Leo already canonized 9 people in his short term. Pope Francis: more than 60. And I am thinking about this graph
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
This is a painful one.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
We're recruiting a fungal biologist to our friendly department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel. For details contact our chair. Talented non-Israli applicants are welcome to apply. See below.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
@torreslab.bsky.social
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
GRC toxins: France vs. Spain game
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Acadia NP
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
This God somehow has many hands when it comes to Argentina's football
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
From the lead authors of Haimlich S. et al. 2024 and Bograd A. et al. 2025 The lab's best achievement till now!
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Anusha Majumder from Sahar Melamed's lab @saharmelamed.bsky.social identified sRNAs in P. putida that affects plant growth.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Meyerowitz, Sundaresan, Dangl, JG Jones, Staskawics and the late Chory received yesterday the 2024 and 2025 Wolf Prize in agriculture in the Knesset. (Among laureates in other natual sciences) 'The founding fathers'
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Amazing group of Wolf Prize in Agriculture awardees (2020, 2024,2025) today at the Hebrew Univeristy faculty of agriculture. In the picture: Elliot Meyerowitz Venkatesan Sundaresan Brian Staskawicz Jonathan D. G. Jones Caroline Dean Missing: Jeffery Dangl (presenting from home) The late Joanne Chory
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
So many brave Iranians lost they lives becaue they believed him.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
How your email found me today (by the genious Haim Goldberg)
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
The Natufian culture lived in the area of today's Israel and Lebanon from 15,000–11,500 Before Present. In the Eynan site people discovered a burial of 45 yo woman and her puppy, which is the oldest physical evidence for dog domestication. Published in Nature in 1978 www.nature.com/articles/276...
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Love parade in Jerusalem
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Made up citations in pubmed www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
@aaronwhiteley.bsky.social Aaron Whiteley gave a great talk on antiphage defense as part of our microbiology journal club.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Dall-E ('old') vs. ChatGPT images 2.0 Incredible times
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I love it when the mountain in the background is actually in altitude 98m below sea level (Mt. Izrach), Judea desert. And lots of wild flowers after a rainy spring. With @idane.bsky.social and other friends
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Wow
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Planet Earth is blue?! And there is nothing I can do
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Nicotine was first isolated in 1828. It took **nearly 200 years** to complete the nicotine biosynthesis pathway. The authors reconstituted this metabolon both in vitro and heterologously in vivo. A pea expressing the genes became insecticidal to Spodoptera larvae. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
One day someone will rigorously quantify the % of carbon exuded to the soil by different plant roots. Until the time comes we will keep throwing imaginary numbers to the air, ranging between 10% to 40%.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Southern Judea desert gets 100-150 mm of rain annually but if you're lucky enough you get to see the water in a stunning powerful flash flood. This year Nakhal Khemar was flooding two days in a row.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
RIP J. Michael Bishop, discoverer of the 1st human oncogene, c-Src. A gene that is being activated in many cancers.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Escapism from war
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Arabinose isn't only an inducer! @peterfineran.bsky.social gave a talk in our Hebrew Univ. microbiology journal club and mentioned his recent amazing finding that some phages add up to 3 arabinoses (!!) to their DNA to evade bacterial defense. Mahler et al. CHM 2025 www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Alecia Speter from UNC gave a cool talk in our microbiology journal club about bacteria that she samples from the Ampullae of Lorenzini (organs that detect electrical fields) in various Atlantic Sharks.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
It's hard to believe now but Israel and Iran had good relations until the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Exactly 50 years ago a supermarket in Tel Aviv had a lottery for 2 flight tickets to Tehran.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
Tel Aviv between ballistic missiles
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Honeymoon
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
I despise Netanyahu. I don't like Trump. But if these two will liberate the Iranian people from ~50 years of dictatorship and oppression, I am for it. Celebrations in San Diego yestderday. Sent by a Baha'i friend who had to escape Iran due to religious oppresion and could pursue a PhD in the US.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
My 19th marathon. Great weather, wonderful views of Tel Aviv, and many kids giving high fives made it into a fun run. Hoping another war shall not start in the middle east although the signs are not encouraging.
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
The editor: We need a catchy title Daniel Defoe: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on ...
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Love the Eilat mountains. #fiseb2026
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Asaf Levy @asaflevylab.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
The Dead Sea
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