What I've been up to recently
February 2024: Our preprint on plasmid-dependent phages was accepted for publication, watch this space...
January 2024: A paper I contributed to on the genetic robustness of paralell E. coli populations of the Lenski Long Term Evolution Experiment was published in Science
November 2023: I gave a guest lecture on phage genetics for the graduate students at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada
August 2023: I won "Best Overall Talk" at the Evergreen International Phage Meeting for my presentation about our phage DisCo method and plasmid-dependent phages
July 2023: I presented a poster about our plasmid-dependent phage work at the Microbial Population Biology Gordon Research Conference
June 2023: I visited the Gladstone Institute for Virology in San Francisco for an invited seminar
May 2023: I have been helping to organise and teach the second iteration of Community Phages, a phage-discovery internship for students from Roxbury Community College
April 2023: I returned to my hometown in the UK to give an invited seminar at the University of Southampton's School of Biological Sciences. Thanks to Franklin Nobrega for the invitation!
March 2023: We released some of our new work on the discovery of diverse plasmid-dependent phages as a preprint. Check it out!
March 2023: I gave an invited seminar for the UC Irvine Systems Microbiology group, thanks to Albert Siryaporn for the invitation.
March 2023: The paper I co-authored with the Church lab was Published in Nature
February 2023: I co-authored a paper in Nature Microbiology lead by Eric Rubin and Graham Hatfull's labs showing the dependence of some mycobacteria phages on a host nucleoid associated protein
February 2023: I gave an invited seminar at New England Biolabs in Ipswich, Massachussetts, focussing on our phage discovery research and how we adapted it for the HMS-phages program last summer
December 2022: I co-authored a paper invovling some of my PhD work in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
August 2022: I presented a poster at the 2022 Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phages meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, USA
July 2022: I co-authored a preprint lead by the Church lab on how to synthetically recode E. coli to make it resistant to all phages. Congrats Akos!
May 2022- June 2022: I ran the HMS-phages program, an 8-week research internship for students from Roxbury Community College. We isolated lots of new phages!
May 2022: I co-authored a preprint from the Baym lab on changes in gene essentiality over time among the paralell E. coli populations of the Lenski Long Term Evolution Experiment. Congrats Anurag!
March 2022: I gave an invited seminar for the Biology department at University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Thanks to Andrew for the invitation
February 2022: The paper I co-authored with the Balskus lab was published in Nature
October 2021: My paper made the cover of the November issue of Cell Host & Microbe, featuring an awesome graphic by Eliza Wolfson
Septemeber 2021: My paper on the BstA phage defense system is published online at Cell Host & Microbe!
May 2021: I co-authored a preprint in collaboration with the Balskus lab on the prophage-inducing properties of colibactin, a small molecule produced by gut bacteria
October 2020: I gave an invited seminar for the Salmonella and Enterics Group at MLW in Blantyre Malawi
October 2020: I gave an invited talk to the Iqbal group at EMBL-EBI, Cambridge UK
Septemeber 2020: I gave an invited seminar for the Molecular and Genetics seminar series at Brandeis University, USA. Thanks to Alex for inviting me!
July 2020: I gave a talk about my recent preprint at the (virtual) Boston Bacterial Meeting 2020
July 2020: I published a preprint describing a new prophage-encoded phage defense system, check it out!
June 2020: We resumed limited wet lab research at the Baym lab -YAY
June 2022: The paper I co-authored with the Springer lab was published in Science
May 2020: I gave an invited seminar for the phage seminar series organised by the Millard lab at the University of Leicester, UK
March 2020: We shut down our wet lab as Harvard suspended non-essential research activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic :'(
February 2020: I published my first paper as corresponding author in Microbial Genomics on transcriptiomic analysis of prophages
December 2019: I co-organised the inaurgural meeting of Boston PFU, a meeting to connect phage-researchers in the Boston area
October 2019: I gave an invited seminar for The Parsons Lab Microbial Systems Seminar Series at MIT
June 2019: I somehow found myself presenting 3 talks and 2 posters at ASM Microbe 2019 in San Francisco- YIKES
May 2019: I had a great time visiting and giving an invited seminar at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. Thanks to the Graduate Student Association for the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences for the invitation!
April 2019: I was awarded the Roche Travel Award for Phage Genomics to attend the upcoming ASM Microbe 2019 in San Francisco later this year- thanks Division M!
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