Mitchell Lab

Why are some non-antibiotic drugs toxic to bacteria 💊☠️🦠? Do they work like standard #antibiotics (ABX)? Our latest work by @MarianaNoto published @ScienceMagazine addresses this fundamental question (1/n) science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Never-have-I-ever seen technology racing forward as fast as #LMMs in the past two years. Watching the @OpenAI releases coming out in real-time in their twelves-days series is jaw dropping! 🤖🌊 youtube.com/playlist?list=…

The ability of LMMs (chatGPT here) to *assist* in generating useful code for biologists a mind-blowing power multiplier 🤯! My advice to biologists at all career stages: Learn to code, its a superpower 🦸‍♀️🦹‍♂️ (for example, counting fluorescent colonies from mouse microbiome) 🧪🦠

Credit for this work goes to my former student Dr Emily Lowry. @emily_lowry23 literally submitted the revised version of this manuscript at the very last minute before leaving the lab 🥳 (9/9)

I love this work since it a wonderful demonstration of (1) Serendipity in research – it started unexpectedly when we saw an active reporter even in non-contacting colonies and (2) it shows the power of simple experiments and quantitative microscopy (8/9)

Our second paper on the bacterial toxin colibactin is now out on mBio, this time we critically evaluated the claim that colibactin toxicity necessitates cell-cell contact 🧪🦠🧵(1/9) journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mb…

@DrDorSalomon @TanentzapfLab We’re taking this to the comically extreme, in edge cases, the pub ratio at top tier journals per postdoc (over 5 years) is probably 1:3 and the “absent” pi still opens many doors. These are terrible labs for phds, but for postdocs the risk/reward calc is different

@mitchell_sysbio @TanentzapfLab 1. I agree. 2. If there's one big paper a year, and you're the author, I guess your peers are unlikely to get a faculty position. 3. True and helpful if you're the one with the paper. But your ability to learn directly from the PI, who is usually absent, is quite limited.

The greatest mystery in science is not dark matter but rather it is why do people keep joining labs that have 10+ postdocs and students but publish like 1 paper a year.

Can’t believe we unlocked this level of the #AI hype - huge adds for @AnthropicAI in airports (Boston & Atlanta). Wonder what % of ppl even know what’s the product (<0.1% probably)

@fraser_lab Quid pro quo is a real slippery slope if you take into account that science, like all human endeavors, is the product of flawed human beings. Also we’re better off having reviewers make accept/reject recommendations than any other admin in the pub chain (unless we go @eLife)

@cshperspectives @fraser_lab Very good point, but I still believe it’s the lesser of evils. Under complete anonymity reviews can make unfounded claims and be borderline toxic (a style reviewers would avoid if a couple of peers know who they are)

@mitchell_sysbio @fraser_lab reviewers knowing each others' names is actually one of the parts I find problematic (while being a fan of transparent review) as that is where power dynamics and deference can emerge that may discourage a junior scientist from offering criticism that contradicts a senior figure

@fraser_lab At a massive scale, who will actually do this work? X reviewed Y very favorably three years ago, now Y reviews X favorably. Should the editor even ask Y to review X and trust it to be above board?

We are extremely curious to know if there are other known cases of self-inflicted damage from toxins in bacteria (would greatly appreciate replies to this thread)

This study was truly an exciting one, with many plot twists along the way. All credit goes to @emily_lowry23 who led the study and collaborated with @iwangtoknow on the analysis of the mutation pattern.

We found that the bacterial #toxin colibactin acts as a double-edged sword and inflicts self-damage (evident in hundreds of genomes). Our recent collaboration with @DaganLab is now out on @genomeresearch genome.cshlp.org/content/34/8/1…