Ben Adler
Postdoc @ Doudna Lab - UC-Berkeley | Bacteriophage engineering | CRISPR | Biotechnology | Microbiology | All Combinations Thereof | He/him. Opinions my own.
- Really phenomenal work from the Gerdt lab at Indiana University... I hope this becomes a major boon for phage therapy: "Chemical inhibition of a bacterial immune system" www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
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- Reposted by Ben AdlerNLR-like immunity in bacteria A new study from the Alex Gao lab. The scope of this work is incredible!!! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Reposted by Ben AdlerAll you want for christmas is.... transposon mutagenesis! Our new work at @cultivarium.bsky.social screening lots of transposon vectors in lots of bacteria, from @charliegilbert.bsky.social and team. Transposon and promoter modular parts available on Addgene (pooled library will be there soon too)
- On this episode of the "What's in the vault?!?!" saga...
- Vaults. They are cell biology's greatest puzzle! This preprint from Martin Beck's lab shows them docked on ER membranes with a ribosome inside. What on earth is going on there?? #CellBiology #WTFology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Reposted by Ben AdlerProtein domains have no single definition, so why stick to one segmentation? 🧩 Instead of forcing structures into rigid classifications, we built AFragmenter. It uses AlphaFold PAE networks for a tuneable approach to domain parsing. You control the granularity. 👇 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/bioi...
- Reposted by Ben Adler🚀New preprint from our lab! I am very excited to finally share what has been the main focus of my PhD for the past almost 3 years! It is about viral dark matter and a powerful tool we built to shed light on it. 🧬💡 Continue reading (🧵)
- Reposted by Ben Adler🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages. Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms. A thread 1/8
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- Reposted by Ben Adler📣 New preprint from us at phagefoundry.org 📣 A solid machine learning framework & to predict strain-level phage-host interactions across diverse bacterial genera from genome sequences alone. Avery Noonan from the Arkin Lab led this massive effort www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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- Reposted by Ben AdlerI’m excited to share my recent postdoc work. Here, we interrogate how different phage infection outcomes (productive vs. restrictive) affect the expression of phage defense systems. We find that a restricted infection not only inhibits the phage but also induces increased immune protein abundance.
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- Reposted by Ben Adler1/9 Metagenomics lets us read microbiomes in nature without cultivation, but writing (editing) them in their native context is still a major challenge. Meet MetaEdit: a platform for pathway-scale metagenomic editing inside the gut microbiome. science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Reposted by Ben AdlerOur nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole @doudna-lab.bsky.social and everyone at @innovativegenomics.bsky.social
- Reposted by Ben Adler🚨vConTACT3 preprint live!🚨(Peer Review soon...!) vConTACT3 delivers a unified, scalable, and transparent framework for genome-based virus taxonomy — helping translate big viral data into systematic classification. 🔗 Read the preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025... Improvements details below 👇
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- Reposted by Ben AdlerBacteria can sense when a virus starts shredding their genome — by detecting methylated mononucleotides. Here’s the story of how we discovered the Metis defense system 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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- Reposted by Ben Adler🚨New preprint out! We present a foundational genomic resource of human gut microbiome viruses. It delivers high-quality, deeply curated data spanning taxonomy, predicted hosts, structures, and functions, providing a reference for gut virome research. (1/8) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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- Reposted by Ben AdlerThe Wilkinson Lab is open for science! @mskcancercenter.bsky.social 🧬We'll be finding funky new RNA biology, mainly by looking at reverse transcriptases (i.e. the Best Enzymes In The World)🧬 annnd: I'm hiring - come join! Especially postdocs and PhD students - please get in touch (NYC is great)
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- Reposted by Ben AdlerExcited to share: DNA glycosylases are diverse antiviral effectors. They recognize phage base modifications and initiate genome destruction. A structure‑guided approach made the scope of this discovery possible! 🧪 #phagesky doi.org/10.1101/2025... #phage #microbiology
- Reposted by Ben AdlerOur @narjournal.bsky.social manuscript is out! It explores the growth of the GTDB (gtdb.ecogenomic.org) since its inception, as well as updates to the website, methodology, policies, and major taxonomic and nomenclatural changes over the past three years. academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
- Reposted by Ben AdlerExcited to share some new work from the lab, led by @shelbyeandersen.bsky.social where we developed a method and computational pipeline to identify antiphage defenses across diverse bacterial phyla.
- Reposted by Ben Adler1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from? Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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- Reposted by Ben AdlerPanoptes guards the CBASS pathway (bacterial cGAS-STING). One facet of this work that I find particularly exciting is the genetic linkage between Panoptes and CBASS, which significantly co-occur in bacterial genomes. What other phage defense systems may be genetically (and functionally) linked?
- Reposted by Ben AdlerOur work on the Panoptes antiphage system is published! Here we find that Panoptes "watches" the cytosol for phage immune evasion proteins–captured in this illustration by Clair Huffine of Insight Illustrations. A beautiful example of the effector triggered immunity paradigm.
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View full threadReposted by Ben AdlerCheck out the complementary story from @doudna-lab.bsky.social led by @erinedoherty.bsky.social and @benadler.bsky.social Their work on OptE oligomerization is particularly crucial to completing our understanding of Panoptes. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- This is how the Craspedochiton zefranki do.
- Reposted by Ben AdlerNew preprint! Ever wondered why only a fraction of genomes encode CRISPR immunity? 🧬 🦠 Turns out CRISPR is rarely beneficial against virulent phages, being most beneficial against those for which resistance mutations are rare! An epic effort by Rosanna Wright www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Ben AdlerJob alert ‼️ UChicago Micro is hiring! Open to tenured/tenure track faculty at all levels in any area of microbiology. Come join our amazing and growing department. apply.interfolio.com/174404
- Reposted by Ben AdlerThe Peters lab is looking for a new team member! The role transposons play in evolution, basic mechanisms regulating transposition, and applying transposons as tools for genome modification with a special focus on guide RNA-directed transposition. cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/CornellCaree...
- Reposted by Ben AdlerA little late to the Panoptes party, but I’m delighted to share that our paper is published! 👁️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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- Now online at @nature.com we show how the Panoptes defense system protects against viruses that attempt immune evasion - and expands our understanding of the role of oligonucleotides in immunity. Check out this work co-led with @benadler.bsky.social here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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- Reposted by Ben AdlerNow online at @nature.com we show how the Panoptes defense system protects against viruses that attempt immune evasion - and expands our understanding of the role of oligonucleotides in immunity. Check out this work co-led with @benadler.bsky.social here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
