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Markella Moraitou @markella-morait.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

What a great experience this PhD has been! Thank you @kguschan.bsky.social for your endless support! So grateful for the amazing people of Ashworth Laboratories, for all the new things I learned and for all the opportunties... And looking forward to the next steps!

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Reposted by Markella Moraitou

ICP2026 Stockholm @palaeogenomics.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

What a fantastic conference dinner we had yesterday at the Golden Hall 🪙 of Stockholms City Hall! 🏫 Even the full-delegate (>380) conference group picture we thought we couldn't pull out, happened organically 📸🎉

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Reposted by Markella Moraitou

ICP2026 Stockholm @palaeogenomics.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

♥️ THANK YOU ♥️ We are overwhelmed by the positive comments and are incredibly happy that everyone enjoyed their time in Stockholm! #ICP2026 was only possible with the hard work of the organizing committee and a marvellous team of ECR volunteers 🟠 at @cpgsthlm.bsky.social

Organizing committee and volunteer team for #ICP2026

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Reposted by Markella Moraitou

Annie G West @anniegwest.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Great intro from @kguschan.bsky.social on the wonderful world of museomics at #ICP2026 @palaeogenomics.bsky.social. My poster is tonight if you want to come have a chat, stop by board 160 😁

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Markella Moraitou @markella-morait.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

My main PhD paper is out on bioRxiv! 🎉 The microbiomes of wild animals, besides the gut, remain unexplored. To help remedy this, we used museum-preserved dental calculus to characterise the oral microbiome of 34 diverse mammal species. 💀🦠🦷 Read here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Phylum-level composition of the oral microbiome across 34 mammal species, representing 8 taxonomic orders, 4 dietary categories, and including 3 marine species.

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Reposted by Markella Moraitou

Katerina Guschanski @kguschan.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Another fun dental calculus study #aDNA #microbiome co-led by @martinafarese.bsky.social and @markella-morait.bsky.social, along with our favourite collaborators @chenyu.bsky.social and @tvdvalk.bsky.social. Ancient Romans, oral microbiomes, diet (which once again remains elusive) and more...

One of the sampled specimens, showing extensive dental calculus deposits, particularly clearly visible on the incisors

Martina and I sampling at the Museum of Anthropology “Giuseppe Sergi”, Sapienza University of Rome Museum Network

The incredible collection at the Museum of Anthropology “Giuseppe Sergi”

The necropolis Lucus Feroniae in October 2021

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Markella Moraitou @markella-morait.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

New preprint out with @martinafarese.bsky.social ! Lifestyle impacts the oral microbiome of Classical and Post-classical societies in Italy www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Markella Moraitou

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 03/10/2025

As a theoretical cosmologist, I'm frequently asked "what is the benefit of the work you're doing for people's lives?" Nothing I work on makes money or cures disease. There are a few different answers one can give, at various levels of "convincing" / "actually relevant to why the work is done." 1/🧵

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Markella Moraitou @markella-morait.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

New paper out! doi.org/10.1111/1755... Dental calculus allows us to study the oral microbiome of wild #mammals, but it's still underutilised! 🦷🦠 In this study, we recover oral #microbiome data from the dental calculus of 32 mammal species and share recommendations for future research. #museomics

Dental calculus deposits on the teeth of a plains zebra (Equus quagga) specimen housed at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium.

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Markella Moraitou @markella-morait.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Back to office, but mentally still in Barcelona and #ESEB2025 🦎 The range of questions, approaches and study systems was fascinating -- I got plenty of inspiration for my own work and my reading list has grown quite a lot!

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Reposted by Markella Moraitou

Katerina Guschanski @kguschan.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Fantastic dental calculus and where to find it Johnny Richards and team (@markella-morait.bsky.social + curators from 5 museums) survey >140 mammalian species with >1,600 specimens to understand what factors determine dental calculus formation. #aDNA #museomics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Examples of dental calculus in different mammalian species ranked by amount from 0 (no calculus) to 3 (full incrustation)

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