Malcolm White
@mfwhite2
Molecular microbiologist at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. My scientific interests include: CRISPR, antiviral defence, cyclic nucleotide signalling, archaea, nucleases.
Tim Blower and I are guest editing a Biochemical Journal @biochemsoc.bsky.social themed collection on: The Prokaryotic Immune System It's now open for research submissions and we'd welcome submission of research and review articles. More info: portlandpress.com/biochemj/pag...
Wonderful to hear Carl Stetter reminisce on the discovery of Archaea at MBoA2026
Travelling to the #EMBO Molecular Biology of Archaea meeting in Cambridge. The first meeting was in St Andrews in 2008 and involved kilts. Looking forward to catching up with a lot of friends and colleagues
We braved the unseasonal heat (23C) to play our annual lab golf competition yesterday- putting on the Himalayas (iykyk). Congrats to Stephen who retained the trophy and Sabine for two holes-in-one!
Machines on Genes running smoothly in Heraklion #BiochemEvent @biochemsoc.bsky.social
In Heraklion, for @biochemsoc.bsky.social Harden Conference, Machines on Genes #BiochemEvent. Amazed by the Phoenician ceramics (nearly 4000 years old) in the archaeological museum - puts our pot shards into perspective!
Enjoying the science from #SISB2026 - albeit remotely on zoom. This works well and we have a room set up for lab members to drop in for talks. If you are there, look out for Niels Schneberger @nschneberger.bsky.social from the lab - poster C7
New preprint: Cyclic tri-adenylate signalling by a Panoptes anti-phage guard system with a CARF-TM effector. Great work led by Sabine Grüschow www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
I'll be representing the Biochemical Journal at the @biochemsoc.bsky.social Harden Conference Machines on Genes in Heraklion, Crete. Hope to see you there - always a great conference and certainly has the best title of any conference series!
Next up from our lab - a ring nuclease with a novel fold which cleaves all cOA species involved in Type III CRISPR defence. It's also found in plasmid and phage genomes, where it presumably functions as an anti-CRISPR. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Jo Hobbs @hobbslabmicro.bsky.social has a 12 month Postdoc available on mechanisms of antibiotic tolerance. More details here: www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
It's been a great few days hosting Eugene Koonin in St Andrews @uniofstandrews.bsky.social , where he was awarded an honorary degree in recognition of his stellar contributions to molecular biology and comparative genomics. Here with @tatianadimitriu.bsky.social
Annual lab putting competition at the “Himalayas” (THE original mini-golf course). Congrats to Stephen McMahon who won the trophy
Great to be in Manchester for the annual @multidefence.bsky.social meeting, with Luna and Simon!
Passing through the Borders on the train to Manchester for the annual @multidefence.bsky.social meeting
Berth for tonight on the Caledonian sleeper after a great couple of days visiting Imperial and UCL in London, thanks to David Rueda and Finn Werner for the invites
Watching a short film on the dangers of climate change in the Cloud Forest, Singapore. Wondering if this would still be shown in the USA?
Congratulations to Laura Gaskell-Mew on her successful PhD defence! Thanks to the examiners Heath Murray and @ulischwarzlinek.bsky.social
It was a pleasure to act as Laureator for the award of an honorary degree to Prof Dame Anne Glover @uniofstandrews.bsky.social last week. Anne was my lecturer when I was an undergraduate - an inspriational scientist
It's that time of year when you get the THE Global Academic Reputation Survey invite and ponder: "Do I vote for my own institution?"
If you work on bacterial immune systems, this founding paper by Burroughs and Aravind is a must-read (and must-cite). pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32868406/
Quick reminder that CRISPR 2025 takes place in Christchurch, New Zealand in February next year. 🧪https://www.crispr2025.org