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miss-biophys · 2 hours
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18 hours difference of bacteria growth
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How much can Staphylococcus aureus bacteria grow in less than a day? I add a few drops of bacteria into a fresh medium (basically a meat bouillon soup) and after 18 hours I count tens of billions bacteria per milliliter. Literally, today I had 8x10^10 bacteria/ml. They grow like crazy when given the chance.
For the next 24 hours, I let them bath in antibiotics. Hehe!
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miss-biophys · 2 hours
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What would you do?
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miss-biophys · 7 hours
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Apparently sharing highlights about your new publication on social media does not increase the citations of that paper. But I'll still do it. It just feels GOOD!
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miss-biophys · 6 days
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What would you do?
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miss-biophys · 9 days
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5 years ago, I started blogging about my scientific struggles and joy, combining it with care for two children, move to another country, and learning the country's language.
5 years ago, just when I started, a few people reached out to me asking for advice and mentoring.
This week, I had one of these very first mentees visiting me in my home for 2 days. This girl made an amazing progress in her own journey through academia and life.
It was awesome experience and I am immensely proud of her.
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miss-biophys · 15 days
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The person error is real, I agree. But to make 2 people repeat the same experiment 9 times as in the mentioned paper... it's an overkill and waste of time of these people.
"The assays were performed independently by two researchers on all four bacteria."
OR... when triplicate of experiments is not enough and you need to come up with a person-plicate.
Found in this paper: 10.3390/biom11121889
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miss-biophys · 16 days
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"The assays were performed independently by two researchers on all four bacteria."
OR... when triplicate of experiments is not enough and you need to come up with a person-plicate.
Found in this paper: 10.3390/biom11121889
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miss-biophys · 1 month
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Plasma cleaning of Petri dishes
We pump out the air from the chamber and let in only a low amount of highly ionized gas. The ionized gas has this beautiful color you see. The Petri dishes will be now sterile, perfectly clean, and adhesive for my samples for measurements.
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miss-biophys · 2 months
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When bacteria struggle with too much sntibiotics, but not so much that it kills them all, they grow into the shape of pretty flowers. (At least in round bottom wells.)
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miss-biophys · 2 months
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New publication out!
We were curious what happens with the lipid membrane if proteins are inside. As a model of membrane proteins we use transmembrane peptides with neutral and positive charge. The charges turn out to be quite crucial in the peptides influence on the lipids.
publication link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colsurfb.2024.113765…
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All transmembrane peptides hinder mobility of lipids around. The positive charges in the peptide make this hindering a long range influence.
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The membrane with the positive peptides then has heterogeneities in the lipid mobility. This hampers free rearrangement of lipids and leads to lower ability to seal ruptures. You can see below how the membrane stays fragmented after indentations with AFM (atomic force microscope), which is basically a very tiny tip that scans the surface of the membrane for images and can also push through it to test mechanical stability.
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For comparison this is how it looks like with a membrane without any peptides. The mebrane seals the ruptures induced by the AFM tip and recovers its round shape. The same happens if we have a neutral, non-charged, peptide.
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With this work we highlight the importance of including charges of proteins and peptides in membrane model studies.
And last but not least...
This is the very first time I am the last corresponding author of a publication. I am immensely proud on myself!
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miss-biophys · 2 months
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My lab (im doing an undergrad thesis) is also researching synthetic peptide antibiotics! We're in a much earlier stage so we're focusing on emulating mode of action rn (which of course requires a whole host of smaller steps to check each part of its function before moving forward) and im presenting preliminary results in my first poster at the biophysical society meeting next week!!
(I have not finished said poster. I have not even gotten all the data to put on it. I have reached a point where I may or may not have used the wrong solution entirely which would require me to redo at least half of what I did. I am checking this today. Depending on whether its true I either have a couple more hours of data collection or like. Probably more than 12 :') im so tired.)
Hi! Good luck with your poster preparation. It often does not look like much work to prepare a poster but it could take a few days until you are satisfied with it. I always ask my students to show me their first draft at least a week before the printing so they have time to incorporate my feedback.
Don't worry about the results. You say it's preliminary, so just talk about the project, the question you aim to answer, the approach that you apply, and how far you got so far. This is completely fine and normal at conferences. I often discuss my ongoing projects at conferences and garther new ideas and tips on how to proceed and what I might have overlooked.
Good luck!
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miss-biophys · 2 months
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And it's out! Published. I am so happy for this! I will share more highlights from our story later.
But if you cannot wait, you can read the full paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.colsurfb.2024.113765
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Another milestone in my scientific journey
I submitted my very first article as the last corresponding author.
This means I take responsibility for every single word and all data and findings in the manuscript. It feels big.
Keep your fingers crossed!
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miss-biophys · 2 months
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Did we kill them?
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Looking at what concentrations my antibiotics killed resistant Staphylococcus bacteria.
Higher antibiotic concentrations are on the right side, where there is clear liquid with no bacteria growth. It works!
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miss-biophys · 2 months
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Very successful week... manuscript accepted, hypothesis that some people (read grant agencies) could not believe proved, negotiations about deepening collaborations are positive.
Sometimes half a year nothing happens and then one week makes all the difference.
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miss-biophys · 2 months
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My very first paper as the last corresponding author was just accepted today!
Coincidentally, today is also exatly 5 years since I sent my PhD thesis to print before the defence.
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miss-biophys · 2 months
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18 hours difference of bacteria growth
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How much can Staphylococcus aureus bacteria grow in less than a day? I add a few drops of bacteria into a fresh medium (basically a meat bouillon soup) and after 18 hours I count tens of billions bacteria per milliliter. Literally, today I had 8x10^10 bacteria/ml. They grow like crazy when given the chance.
For the next 24 hours, I let them bath in antibiotics. Hehe!
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miss-biophys · 2 months
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Still extremely happy about this! Now, half a year later, I am working on applications of this new target for clinical use. Some new exciting research results are coming!
We found a new antibiotic target in bacteria!!
It took almost 4 years, but the fruits of my postdoc research are finally here! In our paper (with me as the first author), just published in Nature Communications, we decipher a working mechanism of an antibiotic that targets the membrane of bacteria in an unprecedented way!
enhanced PDF: https://rdcu.be/dgj2d web version: https://lnkd.in/eRpxr4jg
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And how does it work?
The antibiotic AMC-109 first self-assembles into stable aggregates with a cationic surface. These aggregates then specifically target bacteria cells and insert into their membrane.
You can see the process how we simulated it in a computer on the figure below. Grey-Blue is the antibiotic, Red-Yellow are lipids that together form a membrane.
@jmelcr did this awesome simulation work! You are an amazing scientist, jmelcr! I love you and it seems our collaboration did not ruin our marriage. Not yet, anyway 😄.
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After insertion into the bacterial membrane, the antibiotic dissolves membrane nanodomains affecting membrane function without formation of any pores or holes in the membrane.
Below is the series of high-speed atomic force microscopy images that shows the process of dissolution of membrane nanodomains. Yellow are the membranes extracted from bacteria laying flat on a hard surface (black). The membranes contain nanodomains (bright yellow) that are important in living bacteria for its survival. Addition of antibiotic dissolves them.
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More studies will follow that use this new target in bacteria giving us an advantage over untreatable superbugs. I will keep you posted. And... keep your fingers crossed. It's research after all, so we never know if and how well it's going to work.
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