The Armbruster Lab is officially open in the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh! We're studying how bacteria in biofilms persist in the built environment & transition into the host to cause infections. Happy to be here! 🤓
Thank you to the Allegheny Branch of ASM for a Peggy Cotter Travel Award to attend #asm2026 in DC! 🙏 Postdocs and early career faculty, check it out via your local ASM Branch: https://t.co/pLHOUMq10c
Gearing up for my first visit to @ASMicrobiology conference since 2011 in New Orleans, when it was called the General Meeting! I’m participating in a panel called: “Poster to Paper — Ask the Experts” on Sunday, June 7 from 11:15am–12:00pm ET. See you in DC! 🫡 #asm2026
Since its first isolation in 1935, several thousand Clostridioides difficile isolates have been collected & analyzed. In #ClinMicroRev: an overview of the current C. difficile population structure, including a summary of the 5 main clades. Read now: https://t.co/yGmV5IGOJI
🎉Congratulations to #mBio Editors Jorge Vidal (@JorgeEVidal1), Jacob Yount (@YountLabOSU), and Birgit Scharf (of @VT_Biology) and Senior Editor Tom Coenye (of @LPM_UGent) on their election to the American Academy of Microbiology! 👏 https://t.co/nz8FnglcBo
Congrats to Sean, Will, and co-authors! Shoutout to
@CmuScience Quantitative Biology & Bioinformatics (QBB) MS student Isabelle D'Amico from my lab for her creative work on this cool collaboration! https://t.co/MDFpnxJ3T2
Very cool paper by Jyotsna Kalathera et al. from @iamsamayp's-lab on
Bottleneck size drives the evolution of
cooperative traits in an aggregative multicellular
myxobacterium
just out @plosbiology
Congratulations to all coauthors.
https://t.co/KJB1o9es5n
In the same theme, TAs Betsy and Erin (PhD students in my lab) presented on thinking of migration of bacteria between upper & lower respiratory tract through the lens of island biogeography. Heavily inspired by this awesome paper & others https://t.co/vourvGUlDW
Our last two guest lectures in Ecology @CmuScience were part of our theme thinking of infection as an ecologist (human = environment). First, Dr. Yasmin Hilliam (Bomberger Lab at @GeiselMed) discussed how respiratory viruses change nutrients in airways, impacting microbiomes.
Our latest guest lecture in @CmuScience Ecology class was Dr. Gus Ramirez (@zombiephylotype) discussing research cruises, biogeochemistry, & microbe-octopi interactions at sea mounts. Stunning & mind boggling to hear how you sample this stuff that is 1000s of meters underwater.
Last week, I had the privilege of attending the @2025ASMBiofilms in Portland, OR. It was an honor to be selected to present my research on the parallel evolution of a novel transcriptional regulator in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, conducted with @catarmbruster at @CarnegieMellon
Starting this week, I set aside one hour each week to meet ECRs outside my group who want to discuss career development, mentorship, or any non-technical professional questions.
Blog post explains my motivation for this and how to schedule a meeting:
https://t.co/ZvaRZtY6QL
Today’s guest speaker in Ecology @CarnegieMellon was perfect for Halloween: Arkadiy Garber @theironark from the McCutcheon Lab at ASU, discussing bacterial endosymbionts that support the junk food diets of sap-feeding insects! 😈