Antoine Hocher
Group Leader, Molecular mimicry / chromatin evolution / engineering
Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge. Wellcome Trust CDA fellow
gen.cam.ac.uk/research/research-g…
- Reposted by Antoine HocherAude Bernheim @audeber.bsky.social and Eugene Koonin discuss one of most interesting questions in the field connecting bacterial and animal immunity! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Antoine HocherIn our most recent work David Forrest has discovered a widespread mechanisms linking transcription initiation to DNA supercoiling... www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Antoine HocherExtremophile alert! Registration is OPEN for the 2026 EMBO Archaeal workshop in Cambridge. Spaces are limited, so register soon with an abstract if you’d like to give a talk. If you can’t come in person, we are welcoming virtual attendees. So join us online where all talks will be screened!
- Sign up now for the EMBO Workshop "#MolecularBiology of #Archaea: Life Through the Prism of Archaea" in Cambridge, UK, 6–10 July 2026. Deadline: 15 April meetings.embo.org/event/26-archaea #EMBOArchaeaBiology #EMBOevents #CellBiology #StructuralBiology #ecology #evolution #biophysics 🧪
- Reposted by Antoine HocherMark your calendars for the next incarnation of the Biology and Physics of the Prokaryotic Chromosome meeting to be held in Paris on July 6-9, 2027. See the web site for further information biophychrom2027.sciencesconf.org
- "Failure is very much more frequent than success in working out the preliminary details" Wise words from W. Dallinger in "On the life-history of a minute septic organisms with an account of experiments made to determine its thermal death point"
- Reposted by Antoine HocherPassioned by #bioenergetics? Do not miss our new article on the evolutionary history of oxidoreductases with G. Borrel and @sgribaldo.bsky.social @archaeal.bsky.social @valdeanda.bsky.social @pasteur.fr @cnrs.fr @cnrsbiologie.bsky.social @natecoevo.nature.com (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).
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- Reposted by Antoine HocherAt a time when the UK should be capitalising on its global reputation as a great place to do science, this is an enormous own goal. I am so sorry for all those who jobs are going to be impacted.
- Both MRC and BBSRC responsive modes now withdrawn until further notice. Existing applications unlikely to succeed (late 2025 round expecting 1-5% success rate). Listen, I get that UKRI wants to pivot. But killing both at once is devastating. Let's hope at least one opens by summer... #AcademicSky
- Reposted by Antoine Hocher🫴 Fantastic work: DNA recognition-mimicry switch governs induction in arbitrium phages: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @spp2330.bsky.social #subtiwiki @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social
- Reposted by Antoine HocherHas the MRC research funding ‘pause’ been covered by any major news network? It feels like it should be a major news story
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- Reposted by Antoine HocherAnd so it begins... 3 UK universities (Essex, Sussex & Kent) have just gone public about walking away from their Elsevier Read & Publish deals, despite Jisc's recently announced agreement. Expect to see more of these over the coming months. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/three-m... #OpenAccess
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- Archaea fans (and the archaeal-curious) — please spread the word and register! Early sign-ups really help us plan, so if you know you’ll come, please register now.
- A reminder to sign up for the 2026 EMBO archaeal meeting im Cambridge: meetings.embo.org/event/26-arc.... Registration is open. We are looking forward to hosting you!
- Reposted by Antoine HocherClever new method for assembling DNA oligos into larger sequences without the need for unique overlap sequences. Can't wait for those 'this sequence is too complex' rejection messages from DNA suppliers to become a thing of the past. 🧬🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Antoine HocherOpen for applications: Massee Arts Grant: up to £5000 to support novel arts projects focused on fungi. For artists from all disciplines & all geographic locations who can help us encourage engagement and learning about mycology. Find out more & apply here: www.britmycolsoc.org.uk/massee-arts-...
- In my quest to avoid western blots I will consider this technique when possible (not new just cool) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Antoine HocherBacteria chromosomes contain Genomic Islands that provide virulence, antibiotic resistance, MGE-defence,... They transfer between cells, but the mechanism of most remains elusive. Here we explore the conjugative capacity of these mysterious Genomic Islands. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Reposted by Antoine HocherPhold's manuscript is now available @narjournal.bsky.social thanks to @susiegriggo.bsky.social @npbhavya.bsky.social @vijinim.bsky.social @linsalrob.bsky.social @martinsteinegger.bsky.social @milot.bsky.social @eunbelivable.bsky.social & others not on bsky #phagesky academic.oup.com/nar/article/...
- Stoked to finally have a preprint out for Phold, our tool that uses protein structural information to enhance phage genome annotation #phagesky 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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- Reposted by Antoine HocherSign up now for the EMBO Workshop "#MolecularBiology of #Archaea: Life Through the Prism of Archaea" in Cambridge, UK, 6–10 July 2026. Deadline: 15 April meetings.embo.org/event/26-archaea #EMBOArchaeaBiology #EMBOevents #CellBiology #StructuralBiology #ecology #evolution #biophysics 🧪
- Reposted by Antoine HocherWe are recruiting a PhD student to tackle a fundamental question in cancer biology: how DNA replication fails at centromeres and drives chromosomal instability (CIN) — a major driver of tumour evolution and therapy resistance. tiny.cc/vilw001 #PhD #CancerResearch #GenomeStability #Chromatin
- Reposted by Antoine HocherBorn #OnThisDay in 1922, Esther Lederberg was the first to isolate the lambda phage in 1951. She characterised the lysogenic phase, whereby the phage are able to integrate into the bacterial genome, staying dormant. This discovery made them a model tool of study, leading to many more breakthroughs.
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- Are you a long-time fan of Archaea, an extremophile-phile, or are you simply curious? Either way, we have good news. We’re delighted to announce the 2026 EMBO Workshop on Archaea, 6–10 July. Sign up: meetings.embo.org/event/26-arc... We look forward to seeing you in Cambridge, UK Please repost!!
- Reposted by Antoine HocherBacterial genomes encode a rich repertoire of antiphage systems, but we still know surprisingly little about when these systems are actually expressed. In this preprint, Lucas Paoli et al, ask what shapes antiphage systems expression in native contexts. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Reposted by Antoine HocherDelighted to share our new preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We address a longstanding question about the role of the topoisomerase reverse gyrase in hyperthermophiles. Great collaboration with Baranello and @tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social groups. #Archaeasky #Microsky
- Reposted by Antoine HocherTreat yourself this Christmas to a registration for the #Shigella2026 meeting in Paris!
- 🦠 EMBO Workshop Shigella: from biology to prevention 📅 April 20-24, 2026 📍 Institut Pasteur, Paris Register now ➡️ www.shigella2026.conferences-pasteur.org/home @embo.org @shigellameeting.bsky.social
- Must read!
- Confused by all the histones that are cropping up in organisms that are decidedly NOT eukaryotes? check out our review - fantastic work by team NucEvo in the #Lugerlab The Expanding Histone Universe: Histone-Based DNA Organization in Noneukaryotic Organisms - www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
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- Our study of the evolution of the ParB NTP binding domain across the Tree of Life is now published! An awesome collaboration with @tunglejic.bsky.social led by @jovanakaljevic.bsky.social at the John Ines Center. Thanks to editors and reviewers. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- Reposted by Antoine HocherEverybody ready for #EMBOevoChromo25 ? I, for one, cannot wait. It's like scientific Christmas come early :)
- gene names are great but really making sure a unique ID (genbank or consort) is mentioned somewhere in a paper is essential, future us will be thankful
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- Chromosome segregation in the highly polyploid archeon Haloferax volcanii was long thought to be random. Turns out a ParA family protein coupled with a non parB protein does the job. Is that one of the few examples of active segregaton of multi copy identical replicons?
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- At this rate of (amazing) papers/preprint, Asgard archaea will have an opposable thumb within next month 😂
- Reposted by Antoine HocherExcited to share our new preprint on BioRxiv! A collaborative effort spanning many years and several labs to uncover what the germline chromosomes of Paramecium really look like. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/5
- Reposted by Antoine HocherEnd-to-end protein design in the browser through evedesign. Generate and interactively explore designs in 2D/3D and export them as codon-optimized DNA. The underlying open source framework (released soon) is build to easily add new methods, more on that soon. 🌐 evedesign.bio
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- Reposted by Antoine Hocher1/10 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...
- « A key event in any cell’s life is division, when one cell becomes two » best opening, congrats to the team!
- Our paper on chromosome segregation in the archaeon Sulfolobus Acidocaldarius has been published in PNAS! This has been a great collaboration with @joeparham19.bsky.social and the rest of @buzzbaum.bsky.social's team. Stay tuned for more to come!😉 @istaresearch.bsky.social doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
- Reposted by Antoine HocherOur paper on chromosome segregation in the archaeon Sulfolobus Acidocaldarius has been published in PNAS! This has been a great collaboration with @joeparham19.bsky.social and the rest of @buzzbaum.bsky.social's team. Stay tuned for more to come!😉 @istaresearch.bsky.social doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
- Reposted by Antoine HocherHappy that the final version of our Lamassu work @yli18smc.bsky.social is now out: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Thanks again to our awesome collaborators @mblokesch.bsky.social and David and co and Mark Szczelkun and @steven-shaw.bsky.social and the DCI Lausanne @fbm-unil.bsky.social
- Glad to share the work of @yli18smc.bsky.social and co on Lamassu, a bacterial defense system related to Rad50/Mre11 (RM). While RM carefully trims DNA ends for repair, Lamassu chops up the host chromosome. Our study reveals how it is regulated to minimize damage, activating only during infection.
- I'm preparing a lecture on prokaryotic chromosomes, which will include some discussion on ploidy. I was curious to know if some of the ASGARD archaea are polyploid so I googled it. This is Gemini's results 😅😅😑
- I hope that genophore will one day make a come back instead of nucleoid for prokaryotic chromosomes
- Thrilled to see this work in its preprint form! A great collaboration with Jovana and Tung to explore the evolution and properties of the surprisingly versatile nucleotide binding domain of ParB.
- new preprint from our group & Antoine Hocher: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A fantastic collaboration with Antoine, with Jovana Kaljevic' initiated the collaboration and drives the project.
- Reposted by Antoine HocherIndependent research fellowships leading to tenured positions at the John Innes Centre. Repost = nice. Thank you very much!!!
- Shortlisted candidates will be invited to give a seminar at the Fellows Conference, which will be held on 10 March 2026. Candidates who win Fellowships will be offered a Tenure Track Group Leader position from the outset, initially for 5 years. Find out more: www.jic.ac.uk/training-car...
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- Reposted by Antoine Hocher📝New preprint! #MicroSky 🕰️We chart the full, synchronized lifecycle of a predatory bacterium using Hi-C, RNA-seq, ChIP-seq & microscopy. 🧬We uncover dramatic shifts in nucleoid architecture & transcription, tightly coordinated with predation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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- Reposted by Antoine HocherYou like phages ? In this publication, we use metaHiC and our new version of the MetaTOR pipeline to challenge the traditional view of phages with a narrow host range. @rkoszul.bsky.social @natmicrobiol.nature.com @cnrs.fr @institutpasteur.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Antoine Hocherhey bluesky 👋 visa hurdles mean I’m looking for opportunities outside the US. I’m a computational biologist (bacterial + phage genomics, postdoc in Koonin’s group @ NIH). I am interested in teaming up on funding apps. reach out if this resonates!
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- Reposted by Antoine HocherPlease re-post: Interested in chromatin and its evolution? Good news! There's still time to join us in beautiful Catalonia (9-12 Dec) to discuss eukaryotic, bacterial, archaeal, and viral chromatin and how it all hangs together meetings.embo.org/event/24-evo... Abstract deadline: 30 September
- Reposted by Antoine HocherPlease re-post: If you know (or are!) somebody who might fancy doing a PhD (Oct 2026 start) in my group @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social, working on chromatin evolution in prokaryotes (or other things we're interested in), please have a look at www.bioch.ox.ac.uk/supervisors-...
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- Reposted by Antoine HocherThird Era of Phylogenetics! 1️⃣ Era 1: Morphology 🦴 2️⃣ Era 2: Sequences 🧬 3️⃣ Era 3: 3D Structures ⚛️ Solving deep evolutionary puzzles like never before. Our new review in GBE explores what's next in #phylogenetics academic.oup.com/gbe/article/... #structuralbiology #evolution #AlphaFold #SciSky
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