Phages replenish NAD+ supply and overcome bacterial defenses. A cool discovery by Ilya Osterman!

After an incredible time in the labs of Tal Dagan and Sorek Lab, it's time for a new exciting chapter! I am deeply honored the WeinLab will be part of the Systems_Immunology_WIS department at the Weizmann Institute. Can't wait to begin this journey!

If you are interested in bacteria-phage relationships, interbacterial interactions, bacteria-host interactions and RNA biology - reach out to me! I will be happy have a post-doc with an Azrieli fellowship! Regulating with RNAs in Bacteria and Archaea

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AlphaFold 3 is out! As expected expands coverage to small molecules and nucleic acids. And replaces the structure module with a diffusion-based one. Unfortunately no code or model weights--just a web server for a limited set of ligands: blog.google/technology/ai/…

A versatile bacterial innate immunity protein directly senses two disparate phage proteins biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh… #biorxiv_micrbio

New preprint alert!🚀 Excited to share our latest preprint, where we discover a vast arsenal of phage anti-defense proteins using an interpretable machine-learning approach. Big thanks to Martin Polz, @ShaulPollak, Mariusz Ferenc, and all collaborators! biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Bacteria produce chemical compounds that humans harness as drugs (ex antibiotic). We hypothesize that a major biological role of these compounds have been overlooked: antiviral defense. 👇Discovery of lantiphages, a large BGC family wt antiphage function biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

ATTENTION! We are hosting an ML/AI workshop for college students and will sponsor the travel of three out of state participants and support up to 80 online. APPLY NOW if you’re interested. We have very special guests from AlphaFold (surprise). Please RT! nextepoch.org/events

It has recently been described that bacteria and eukaryotes share some part of their immune systems. But what do they share exactly? How did this evolve? We propose the concept of ancestral immunity to explore this emerging topic. Some answers but mostly questions 🙃.

Thrilled to share the final version of my postdoc project, out today in nature! We investigated the Bil system – a ubiquitin-like antiphage defense system – and discovered a new defense mechanism! More info in the thread below 👇 nature.com/articles/s4158…

Thrilled to announce the Rothschild Symposium on phage-bacteria interactions in honor of Sorek Lab! Join us for inspiring talks by Aude Bernheim, Alan R Davidson, Avigdor Eldar, and @BejaLab. Plus, we're awarding 3 PhD prizes for exceptional research in the field. Don't miss it!🤩

Multiplexed editing of phage genomes using retrons, now published at Nature Biotechnology with lots of new bells and whistles. chloe kate crawford Santi Bhattarai-Kline Darshini Poola Karen Zhang Alex González-Delgado Matías Rojas Montero nature.com/articles/s4158…

Our NAD-reconstitution story is finally published in nature rdcu.be/dU5AQ Thank you to all co-authors, especially to hadarsamra, @FrancoisRousset, Elena Loseva, Erez Tzvi Yirmiya, Adi Millman, and everybody in the Sorek Lab for their help and support.

My lab is up and running and just needs enthusiastic phage biologists to populate it! Contact me or apply in the link if you are interested in a postdoc exploring plasmid-dependent phage biology in beautiful (and super affordable!) upstate New York🍎healthresearch.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/HRI_Care… 1/3

Join us in Paris on April 8th-10th for the 2025 Symposium on the Immune System of Bacteria 🥖🍷🦠🧬. Excited to welcome these amazing speakers at Institut Pasteur, since 1887 . Registration will open beginning of November. Abstract deadline February 28. Stay tuned.

Fancy a postdoc in Munich? For a collaborative project between Sorek Lab and HornungLab on antiviral innate immunity, we are looking for exceptional candidates with skills in immunology / biochemistry / computational biology. More details here: genzentrum.uni-muenchen.de/career/postdoc…

We are looking for a lab manager to join our team!

Very happy our paper on CARD domains in gasdermin anti-phage defense systems is now published in nature 🥳 Thanks to all the people involved especially the Kranzusch lab and Sorek Lab nature.com/articles/s4158…

RNA-guided systems span kingdoms, from bacterial immunity to eukaryotic gene regulation. How did they evolve? We traced the origins of CRISPR-Cas13 and identified its likely ancestor: an RNA-based toxin-antitoxin (TA) system. Here’s what we uncovered: cell.com/cell/fulltext/… 1/8