🚨 The Whelan lab is hiring! 🚨 We're looking for a Research Assistant to join our lab at U of Manchester. We're seeking someone with experience in microbiology & microbiome to support our growing group. Note this isn't a postdoc role (though keep 👀 for those announcements soon!) #Microsky 🧪 🧬 💻
This paper is the first chapter from my PhD and I'm really excited to start polishing some other projects up ready for publication now! All revolve around the plasticity of mutation rates and spectra, unravelling the fundamental supply of variation in populations. 8/8
This paper has a long author list and I'm grateful to all of my enthusiastic masters and undergraduate mentees who took on parts of this massive group effort! Working on this as part of the collaborative @mermanchester.bsky.social group has been the best possible scientific environment 7/8
We were lucky enough to receive an independent Hpx strain from LCB Marseille to verify our findings in a Hpx strain without this off target iron uptake mutation. Doing this was one of many really helpful suggestions from our reviewers and editor to whom we're really grateful. 6/8
Then, when working with a strain unable to degrade h2o2 (Hpx-), we found a secondary mutation disabling iron importer FecD. We believe this was an adaptation allowing the cells to reduce the internal iron pool and therefore reduce the oxidative stress that they are under. 5/8
One interesting side project revolved around the role of iron. We found that in cells with elevated internal free iron, mutation rates are not controlled by the social environment but 'maxed out' by oxidative stress driven by Fenton chemistry. 4/8