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Duncan Kountz

@dkountz.bsky.social
426 followers 610 following 515 posts

Anaerobic microbial metabolism and biochemistry. Humboldt Fellow in the Schuller Lab (SYNMIKRO, Uni Marburg).Fmr Pioneer Fellow at U Michigan. PhD: Balskus lab (Harvard) UG: Krzycki lab (Ohio State)

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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Strange question: has anyone tried to get a winogradsky column through customs? US customs in particular but experience anywhere is welcomed
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Cameron Thrash @jcamthrash.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Multiheme selenoenzyme essential for elemental sulfur respiration www.science.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs
science.org
Multiheme selenoenzyme essential for elemental sulfur respiration
Elemental sulfur reduction is a key process in anaerobic ecosystems and the global sulfur cycle. Although elemental sulfur serves as a terminal electron acceptor in microbial respiration, the molecula...
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I got my official notice today that I was awarded the Humboldt fellowship. And of course I accepted it. I’m really looking forward to the next two years of technically being unemployed while I conduct research as—I presume—some sort of soul-searching hobby activity
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Sunday evening, strolling along the river Lahn, beer in hand. Still cannot escape coot
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
I say this lovingly of my country of residence, but I’ve notice that it seems like a lot of German pop culture is borrowed from Britain and America with a delay of about twenty years. Here we find a band that has discovered the asthetic of circa-2009 Coldplay
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
I just noticed that the images on the covers are cofactors with blue bubbles as background. Until now, I assumed they were images from Coot. Then I thought “what kind of weird protein has *all three* hydrogenase active site metallocofaftors?”
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Just arrrived in the mail
Iron sulfur clusters two volume textbook
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Back in the US for the first time since the move to Germany. Reunited with my cat, who has settled in with my parents and seems very happy. It’s the longest time she and I have been apart in her 13 year life
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trisre.bsky.social @trisre.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
1/ Happy to share our preprint! The Mtr complex catalyses the second-to-last step of the methanogenesis and is an essential bioenergetic machine in most methanogenic archaea. Anaerobic cryo-EM of Mtr reveals a nitrogenase-like metallocluster bound at its active site! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
I’ll take “animals I wasn’t expecting to see in Germany for $1000”
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Skimming a paper about methylotrophic methanogens and the gut and kept seeing “NMR” in the figures and the text. Of course, my brain went right to “oh they have a lot of metabolite/metabolomic data”. Turns out, NMR sounds stood for “naked mole rat”, whose gut microbiome was being studied
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Question for the microbial ecologists out there: do you make a terminological distinction between a microbiome and its associated environment? For clarity, the next post in this thread provides the sentence I'm writing/editing that this question is related to.
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Tomas Pascoa @tomaspascoa.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
1/ Excited to share our preprint! 🥳 Degradation of aromatic compounds, including BTEX pollutants, requires highly endergonic aromatic ring reduction. Using #cryoEM and in situ #cryoET, we show how BCRII couples electron bifurcation modules in one giant redox machine www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Anuj @rnfr2d2.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
How do “LEGO-like” electron-bifurcating modules combine to drive degradation in BTEX-contaminated ecosystems? Check out our latest preprint, where we use cryo-EM and cryo-ET to reveal how the 1 MDa BCRII complex powers extremely endergonic aromatic ring reduction. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Jack Szostak "All of these things frighten me, and they should frighten you as well. I made the decision to create a life for myself here, because I viewed this as a place that rewarded determination, hard work, and integrity. It still has a chance to be that place again."
open.substack.com
I’m a Nobel Prize-winning immigrant. I can no longer recognize this country.
Attacks on science and immigrants are destroying America.
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
I just completely fell for something that I initially thought was satire because it was so crazy. On further inspection, it was actually satire.
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Just got an email from my grad school’s Graduate Research Fund asking me to donate. The really amusing part is that the email addresses me as “Mr. Kountz”. I mean, if there was any organization that should know that I have a PhD…
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Okay methanogen people (and particularly Methanococcus people): Does anyone have access to this publication?: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... If you do, could you DM me so I can send you my email (and then you could send me the pdf?)
sciencedirect.com
Isolation and characterization of 22 mesophilic methanococci
Twenty-two strains of mesophilic methanococci were isolated from salt marsh and other intertidal sediments of the southeastern United States. All the …
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
A genetic toolkit for the human gut bacterium Mediterraneibacter gnavus identifies capsular polysaccharides as a competitive colonization factor www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
A genetic toolkit for the human gut bacterium Mediterraneibacter gnavus identifies capsular polysaccharides as a competitive colonization factor - Nature Communications
Here, the authors develop tools to genetically modify Mediterraneibacter gnavus, a human gut bacterium associated with disease, showing that capsular polysaccharides are key for intestinal colonizatio...
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Nadav Amdursky @amdurskylab.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
📣 I was waiting for this paper for a while 🥳 Our new paper in @pnas.org shows that ATP synthase drastically alters membrane properties related to proton diffusion. Funded by @volkswagenstiftung.de www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
pnas.org
ATP synthase activity boosts membrane proton acceptance and lateral diffusion | PNAS
In most organisms, ATP synthesis is powered by the proton motive force (pmf) and catalyzed by ATP synthase. While the chemiosmotic theory originall...
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Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @maxplanck.de · 08/03/2026
"My motto is: just do it!" We love this interview w/ Maren Nattermann, Research Group Leader @ Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, on Marjory Stephenson (1885–1948), pioneer of chemical microbiology as well as her own path into science www.mpg.de/26210626/mar... #IWD2026
mpg.de
"There isn't one 'single right way' for a career - and it doesn’t have to be a straight line"
Maren Nattermann, Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, on Marjory Stephenson (1885–1948): pioneer of chemical microbiology, whose work on bacterial metabolic...
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Sven T. Stripp @stripplab.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Happy to share our new paper on proton transfer in metalloenzymes, out now in @pccp.rsc.org! Exploiting crystallography, electrochemistry, FTIR spectroscopy, and QM calculations we identified a Zundel ion in the catalytic proton tranfer pathway of [FeFe]-hydrogenase. doi.org/10.1039/D5CP...
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Maybe this is just me, but whenever someone says Mossbauer I think of the book Mossflower in the Redwall series. I can’t be the only one.
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Ribbe Hu Labs @ribbehulab.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
So excited to share our cryo-EM study of the nitrogenase cofactor assembly scaffold NifEN expressed in E. coli! @ribbehulab.bsky.social @ucibiosci.bsky.social @natcatal.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Structural insights into metallocluster trafficking in the nitrogenase assembly scaffold NifEN - Nature Catalysis
Structural insights into the assembly of the complex nitrogenase cofactor are scarce. Now, cryo-EM and AlphaFold analyses of NifEN, which converts the precursor (L-cluster) to a mature cofactor (M-clu...
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Today, I inoculated a methanogen culture for the first time in at least 10 years. Believe it or not
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Pretty allosteric regulation data from a manuscript I'm writing on my PhD work. Red and blue data are from two alternative substrates. Filled symbols = absence of allosteric regulator. Open symbols: presence of allosteric regulator. X-axis is mM substrate
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
I’ve had a really positive experience in Germany so far, but from time to time I get a deep feeling of sadness from being so far from home. Not a new thing for a human to experience of course
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Ákos T Kovács @evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
Evolutionary bioenergetics of sporulation "energetic cost of sporulation in units of ATP by integrating time-resolved genome, transcriptome, and proteome profiles" #Bsubtilis #MicroSky #PNAS by @ckarakoc.bsky.social @shoestrapped.bsky.social @jaytlennon.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Evolutionary bioenergetics of sporulation | PNAS
Energy is required for the expression and maintenance of complex traits. In many habitats, however, free energy available to support biosynthesis i...
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Does anyone know a good commercial source of rumen fluid in Europe (Germany in particular)? Maybe I just need to start cultivating a relationship with farmers...
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
From Joe Krzycki's, Bing Hao's and @djferguson.bsky.social 's labs: Delineation of the Active Site of MtgB, a Cobalamin-dependent Glycine Betaine Methyltransferase www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Delineation of the Active Site of MtgB, a Cobalamin-dependent Glycine Betaine Methyltransferase
The MttB superfamily member MtgB catalyzes the methylation of a cognate corrinoid protein with glycine betaine and representatives have been described…
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Das wetter ist sehr schlecht. Es schneit hefting und ich bin kalt
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
One of the perks of living in Marburg is that you can email Rolf Thauer and be like “remember me? want to get coffee?” and he’s just like “yes” and suggests a place that like 300 ft from your appartment
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SchmitzStreitsLAB @schmitzstreitslab.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Fantastic team effort of several groups in the SPP2002 @dfg.de and a brilliant PhD - Eva Herdering in the Kiel team @schmitzstreitslab.bsky.social
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
A newly identified quaternary amine:corrinoid methyltransferase (for tetramethylammonium) in Methanococcoides. Surprisingly, this one isn't a trimethylamine methyltransferase family member! www.frontiersin.org/journals/mic...
frontiersin.org
Frontiers | Methanogenesis from tetramethylammonium and choline in Methanococcoides methylutens Q3c requires a nonpyrrolysine monomethylamine methyltransferase homolog
Methanogenesis is a key biological process contributing to both global climate change and renewable energy via methane. Methylotrophic methanogenesis is an i...
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Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Watch this video if you want to cry over overwhelming decency rather than over rage about what some are trying to turn our country into.
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
So important. What they say is not the story. That is never the story. What happened is the story. Write what happened.
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
In the past, I wasn’t one of the people who said we should abolish ICE. Now, I am. There does need to be an organization that is responsible for things like immigration, interdiction of counterfeit currency operations, etc, but ICE is rotten and needs extirpataton
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Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Post from Pete Buttigieg that reads: If there was ever a moment for libertarians and conservatives to step up and join the rest of us, we’re in it. 

Americans have to unite and stop this descent from a freedom-loving nation into the kind of place where masked, militarized government agents are sent to politically noncompliant areas to roam the streets, terrorize civilians, and deploy violence with impunity.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
This guy went to work today, put a mask on, kidnapped a 5 year old child, and then used him as bait so both he and his father could be sent behind bars
A masked ICE officials with a 5 year old child
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
A five-year-old boy seized on his way home in Minnesota and now locked up in Texas. His family didn't know where he was for 24 hours.
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Important work here from the NYT. Ross wasn’t run over. He dropped his cell phone, which he had shifted to his left hand to draw his weapon. And then he shot and killed a person with the gun in his right hand. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/v...
nytimes.com
Video Analysis of ICE Shooting Sheds Light on Contested Moments
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Edward Marcotte @edwardmarcotte.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Very sad to hear about the passing of Peer Bork, one of true giants of computational biology www.embl.org/news/embl-an...
embl.org
In remembrance of Peer Bork  | EMBL
EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General.
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
I currently live in this twilight zone where Germans can tell that I have German ancestry from my last name, but also from my last name, I’m clearly not German
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Thrilled to be able to finally post my first adventure into secondary metabolism!: Flavoaffinins, Elusive Cellulose-Binding Natural Products from an Anaerobic Bacterium pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.... Co-authors: Ruocheng Yu, f. undergrad Jessie Lee, @katherinem.bsky.social , and Emily Balskus!
pubs.acs.org
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Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
/2 Anyway, America was never about everyone loving liberty; America was always about enough people loving liberty and being willing to defend it to keep down the people with totalitarian souls.
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Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
It would be a mistake to see Trumpism as authoritarianism imposed on an unwilling nation, as opposed to authoritarianism implemented in a nation with a plurality that is already made up of authoritarian bootlickers who created the context for Trumpism to thrive.
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Walking to my soon-to-be work through a trail in the woods today. Major brothers Grimm vibes
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StrictlyChristo 🇺🇦🌻 @strictlychristo.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Stephen Colbert on the ICE murder of Renee Nicole Good: “The message from this administration is clear. Only they determine the truth. And when their forces come to your city: obey or die. And if you die, you clearly didn’t obey. This should be an alarm bell for the entire country.”
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Duncan Kountz @dkountz.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Please share! The Balskus Lab (where I did my PhD) his hiring a Research Assistant to work on the vaginal microbiome: us.smrtr.io/4rGc4 Can testify that branch of the Balskus Lab (like the other branches) is a vibrant research environment with cool projects and cool equipment!
us.smrtr.io
Research Assistant I Lab
Company Description: By working at Harvard University, you join a vibrant community that advances Harvard's world-changing mission in meaningful ways, inspires innovation and collaboration, and builds...
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