I’m delighted that our paper on the Multicellularity Long Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE) has, at long last, been published. This paper establishes the foundations of what I’d like to work on for the rest of my career. 1/25 Free, full access link: rdcu.be/dbPA9

Curious about multicellular life cycle evolution? Check out the summary of our latest study in cyanobacteria tinyurl.com/37r68faw with Yuriy Pichugin & a yeast study tinyurl.com/5n6c2kf5 by Julien Barrere & Andrew Murray! Big thanks Will Ratcliff & Peter Conlin for the great dispatch!

I wrote about an incredible experiment in which microscopic, single-celled yeast evolved to become multicellular organisms visible to the naked eye, recreating one of evolution’s most pivotal transitions in a lab, in just one year. theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

Ever wondered about estimating & reporting plasmid conjugation rates? We did too! Excited to share our new paper in Plasmid, where we propose guidelines for estimating & reporting these experiments. authors.elsevier.com/c/1h3ZU,3Mq7BJ… Thread👇

Another beautiful movie by the TOMOCUBE, INC. HT-X1. This is the ancestor of the MuLTEE (ace2 delta) yeast. You can see packing-driven group reproduction here. Going back now for higher temporal resolution, with fluorescent probes! Tanner Fadero Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL)

We have a new preprint, showing that living systems can entangle in ways non-living systems can’t. In non-living systems, entanglement only occurs under specific geometric regimes. Not so for growing systems! Given time, most geometries can entangle. doi.org/10.1101/2023.0…

I’m recruiting! Looking for 1-2 MS students to join my lab in the Department of Ecology at Montana State University and work on questions related to conservation and population genomics in birds. Thanks for spreading the word—details here: evol.mcmaster.ca/~brian/evoldir…

🔴 New preprint 🔴 This one is the first with someone from my lab as an author! We used previously identified metabolic rules to predict microbial community assembly along a temperature gradient (1/12). biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

An exciting new PhD project is available in my group to work on synergistic coevolution. The project will analyse an experiment in which a cooperative interaction evolved between two bacterial strains. Deadline: October 13, 2023 Please RT More details: uni-osnabrueck.de/universitaet/s…

Cuboidal cell packing is a common yet understudied route to multicellularity. In work led by Rozenn Pineau and @ozan_g_b, we explore its origin as a multicellular geometry capable of supporting a transition in individuality using fission yeast. biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

How does exposure to different hosts affect evolution of bacterial genes on mobile elements? In Molecular Biology and Evolution, Olivia Kosterlitz et al use barcode methods to compare adaptive landscapes across species & show alignment enables a form of adaptive “crowdsourcing”🧵academic.oup.com/mbe/article/40…

Hi folks, I’m excited to share a whale of a tale (sorry, bad pun), where we engineer snowflake yeast to express sperm whale myoglobin, and explore how oxygen-binding proteins may have helped overcome anatomical limitations to early multicellularity. biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Excited to announce that I'll be returning to FLORIDA as an Assistant Professor in Microbial Ecology UF Microbiology starting January 2025! My lab at UF/IFAS FLREC will study how biogeochemical transformations mediated by plant-microbe interactions impact ecosystem function. Stay tuned!

We're looking for an enthusiastic experimentalist PhD student to join our interdisciplinary group interested in the ecology & evolution of microbial communities unil.ch/mitrilab. Apply tinyurl.com/mu5swnk8 before Aug 31! Bonus: Lausanne is a beautiful place to live!

We are on the look out for postdocs to join the Lieberman Lab at MIT. Areas include: -Connecting bacterial warfare to strain dynamics in vivo -Evolution and transmission of strains in humans -Revisiting role of microbes in acne Take a look at our recent preprints and reach out!

Very excited to announce that in my group the post of a senior staff scientist/ group leader is available. The position includes both research and teaching (in German + English). Deadline: 25.08.24 More infos: shorturl.at/k9cM7 Please RT

Only 2 weeks left to apply for the position of a permanently employed staff scientist in my group 👇

Thrilled to share that I'm starting my own lab at UC Irvine in April 2025 and am recruiting at all levels - please spread the word! My lab will study how microbes interact and evolve in complex communities like the human gut microbiome. kxuelab.com 1/2

Nine PhD positions are open at Max Planck Institute. Come to work with me on modeling of the origins of organismic complexity at the onset of multicellular life. Application deadline is January 26.