Noah Houpt
Evolutionary ecology PhD candidate at Yale University, Patriots fan, and obligately bipedal lobe-finned fish. (he/him)
- First day on the Yale campus for my sabbatical. It’s a bit emotional to be here; my dad went to Yale (BA ‘69 and PhD (‘72)
- Wow, welcome! Hope you can visit us at the Turner Lab! And hope it’s healing for you to spend some time here.
- Interested in eco-evolutionary feedbacks? Microbial experimental evolution? Pleiotropy? Filamentous phages?? Check out our latest preprint, now up on BioRxiv! biorxiv.org/content/10.6... For a quick summary, peep the thread below...🧵 (1/10)
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View full threadWe feel our work is just the tip of the iceberg. Filamentous phages are common, particularly in P. aeruginosa, and are able to drive ecologically and clinically important selection in bacterial populations! (9/10)
- Thanks for reading and feel free to send me any questions you may have about the work! (10/10)
- On the bacterial side, every population where hyperactive phage emerged ended up with mutations in type-IV-pilus genes (the phage's cell receptor), reduced twitch motility, and resistance to an obligately lytic phage with potential for use in phage therapy. (7/10)
- Overall, our work shows that prophage evolution can drive eco-evolutionary feedbacks across a wide range of population densities. Further, the pleiotropic consequence of these feedbacks (twitching loss, resistance to lytic phages) are important for bacterial infections. (8/10)
- Follow-up experiments revealed that the cause of inhibitory filtrate was the presence of hyperactive filamentous phage mutants! (5/10)
- We sequenced 27 hyperactive phage isolates and found that they derived from one of two filamentous prophages present in the ancestral strain's genome (Pf4 and Pf6). Most of our phage isolates had large genomic deletions and many shared identical SNPs across populations. (6/10)
- We tested this idea using a 1,000-generation evolution experiment where we passaged P. aeruginosa at either high or low population density and then used microplate growth curves to measure the performance of endpoint populations in the filtrate of their ancestors. (3/10)
- To our surprise, endpoint populations from both density treatments performed much better than the ancestral strain in filtrates. Rather than benefitting evolved populations, filtrate strongly inhibited the ancestral strain, suggesting that an inhibitory factor was at play. (4/10)
- We set out to test a long standing hypothesis of eco-evolutionary theory: that high population density, by magnifying the impact of organisms of their environment, should strengthen eco-evolutionary feedbacks. (2/10)
- Cathy is one of the most brilliant, supportive, and thoughtful scientists and mentors I’ve had the privilege of working with. I would recommend working with Cathy to any student interested in bacteria-phage interactions. Congrats, Cathy!! We will miss you dearly.
- GRC Micro Pop Bio is one of my favorite meetings. I had a blast! Met some awesome people (+ wildlife) and had many engaging conversations. Definitely would like to return in the future. Shoutout to Pia for being an awesome roommate and for taking a photo of me catching grasshoppers during the break.
- Now I'm off to Edmonton for SMB 2025! Honored to be invited to give a talk at the minisymposium. Excited/nervous to present my project with an evo game theory angle since this will be the first time talking to a math-focused audience.
- You got this!! Good luck!
- Congrats to both of you. The GRS is in good hands.
- Excited to get to work on GRS 2027 with @duhitasant.bsky.social!! Hit me up here or via email if you have any feedback or ideas for the next Micro Pop Biol GRS!
- Thank you for the encouragement!!
- Thrilled to have been elected as GRS co-chair along with @noahhoupt.bsky.social Looking forward to the 2027 meeting! #GRCMicroPop
- Still winding down from the Microbial Population Biology GRS/GRC!🦠 It was a great experience to be GRS co-chair with @mikeblazanin.bsky.social, and congrats to the newly-elected GRS chairs @noahhoupt.bsky.social and @duhitasant.bsky.social!💃 #GRCMicroPop #MicroSky
- Excited to get to work!
- Excited to get to work on GRS 2027 with @duhitasant.bsky.social!! Hit me up here or via email if you have any feedback or ideas for the next Micro Pop Biol GRS!
- Still winding down from the Microbial Population Biology GRS/GRC!🦠 It was a great experience to be GRS co-chair with @mikeblazanin.bsky.social, and congrats to the newly-elected GRS chairs @noahhoupt.bsky.social and @duhitasant.bsky.social!💃 #GRCMicroPop #MicroSky
- #ASMicrobe day 3 vibes
- Come check out my poster tomorrow at #ASMicrobe in the E&EB section! We found that repressor mutations in Pf prophages sparked a coevolutionary dynamic that resulted in loss of twitch motility and susceptibility to virulent pilus-targeting phage. Would love to chat about all things phage :).
- Turner Lab representation at #ASMicrobe #ASMicrobe2025 (3/5) Grad student @noahhoupt.bsky.social will present the story of experimentally evolving a Pseudomonas lab strain for 150 generations over 1000 days. Spoiler alerts: #prophages are important! 🦠📊 #evolution
- Former @paulturnerlab.bsky.social postdoc @norapyenson.bsky.social featured Yale News today! Check out this overview on Nora's work or the full paper out in @science.org news.yale.edu/2024/12/16/n... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Check out the latest edition of Rees’ book, which provides an exhaustive synthesis of how microbial experimental evolution studies have been applied to answer some of the big questions in ecology and evolution! A must read for researchers starting out in MEE!
- I still need them. I still feed them. Now they’re 64 (days old).
- Check out this amazing new paper led by PhD student Helen Stone where she shows that pseudoviruses studded with spike proteins from three different SARS-CoV-2 strains can enter cells expressing dolphin and beluga whale ace2! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
- Basically: dolphins and belugas might be able to get COVID-19.
- Dear microbial peeps, Looking for a workshop that will give me a solid foundation in analyzing bacterial WGS and population sequencing data. I have no prior experience doing this. Are y'all aware of any good workshops (esp. in North America) for gaining these skills? Thanks!
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- Thanks so much for sharing! This is very tempting because I could possibly turn it into a trip home as well…
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- Thanks so much for sharing, Tatum, this is really helpful.
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- Thanks, Mike. That one is also on my radar, although it seems to have an environmental/community focus which may be overkill for what I’m looking for. Looks cool though.
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- Tragic to only begin being a Bears fan post-1985 😓.
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- 😂😂 I appreciate that
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- Thanks, Alan! I saw that one on Google, it looks like a terrific option if I can make it there.
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- Thanks, Alex! I’ll look into that :).
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- Whoa, you too!
- As I read this amazing new pre-print by @olimeacock.bsky.social, I was thinking about the implications for micro experimental evol. Much of what we know about how microbes evolve is via experiments that passage microbes in batch culture with ~1:100 daily transfers.. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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View full threadNaturally arising from this question: how much is our knowledge of microbial evolution biased by experiments in which microbial populations reach high densities within a few hours of growth in batch culture and therefore evolve in a massively self-altered environment?
- I'm hoping to dive into these questions with my dissertation work, so stay tuned for that. Massive congrats to the authors for their terrific contribution. Looking forward to re-reading when it comes out in print!
- This paper demonstrates how intra- and interspecific interactions among microbes can change over time and space as they change their environment through consumption and toxin degradation...
- This raises a huge question: how do microbial evolutionary dynamics vary when environmental modification by the population is more pronounced (e.g. at higher densities) compared with when these effects are less pronounced?
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- Welcome, Rich!
- Not one but two Yale EEB-led papers in this month's edition of Evolution! Something about that shared office space is leading to good science... Looking forward to checking these out! academic.oup.com/evolut/artic... academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...
- An honour to be highlighted by my undergrad in their post about the McMaster Faculty of Science's new Office of Undergraduate Research! Undergrads, if you're interested in getting involved in research check out my tips at the bottom of the article! dailynews.mcmaster.ca/articles/und...
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View full threadAnd yes, I met Sigal through my mother, which underscores the importance of administrators making an effort to connect undergrads to research opportunities. Needless to say, not everyone's mother has a personal connection to professors.
- As an added tidbit, Sigal knew my Master's supervisor growing up, so I also had a personal connection to my next boss! I am so fortunate to be where I'm at and hope the new office at Mac can help the next generation of undergrads have more equitable access to opportunities.
- Admittedly, I recoil a bit at seeing myself written about in this way. But, the article correctly heaps praise on my undergrad supervisor, Sigal Balshine, for her exceptional mentorship. I would not be where I'm at without the opportunities she gave me and her patient support.
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- Emailed!
- Nathalie is SUPERSTAR in our department who studies whether non-adaptive radiations are really so non-adaptive. Join me at her talk on Monday at noon eastern!
- @reeskassen.bsky.social now on bluesky! Give him a follow!
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- Ultimately, we hope this paper will inspire more work into how ecological interactions evolve during diversification. In particular, the potential for the sort of synergistic interactions we observed to impact P. aeruginosa infections is ripe for further research!
