May 22, 2020

Quarantine Newsletters!

In order to keep my lab entertained during the time with restricted lab access, I have written weekly newsletters. Over the past weeks, the readership and also the contributions have grown beyond my own lab.

I hope you enjoy the past editions:

Week April 2 – the very first edition:

Week April 7– Note the beautiful picture of Dennis Claessen

Week April 17 – chemotaxis themed easter egg, and Eveline discovered the flying spaghetti monster

Week April 20– Alise is an amazing artist, Journal club on the Septer lab’s paper showing that Vibrio  fisheri  have enhanced activation of type 6 secretion system (T6SS) mediated killing upon the exposure of a host like, high-viscosity hydrogel

Week April 28- ‘girl with a pearl ear ring’, journal club of Marc Erhardt’s flagella paper

Week May 4- treasure hunt, behind the paper

Week May 11– Ouyang’s experiences traveling to China, SsgB paper Gilles van Wezel

Week May 18– Chemotaxis Diary, Dennis Classen’s chickens

Week May 25– Lizah’s tips for working from home, Dennis declares love to Rodlins

Week June 1– Macroscopic news and Journal club: How to use the type VI secretion system for targeted killing of selected bacterial species in mixed populations

Week June 8- thoughts on unconscious bias and ‘behind the paper’ by Lindsay O’Neil Yoder

Week June 15– CryoEM advances

Week June 22– behind the paper “Microbial piggy-back: how Streptomyces spores are transported by motile soil bacteria”, Quarantine Puzzle

Week June 29– the entertainment edition: the microbial movie and a story out of ‘1001 microbes’

Week July 6– FtsZ tread milling in B. subtilis– behind the paper by Kevin Whitley

Week July 13– a look back to the first year of Wen Yang and Eveline Ultee, who are both ready to defend their theses!

Week July 20– Introduction of new PhD student Janine Liedke and ‘Small things considered’ blog post by Christoph Weigel on our piggy-back manuscript

Week July 27– Behind the Moore grant

Week August 24– back from summer break! Dennis visits NeCEN

Week August 31– coffee chat with IBL microbiology faculty, Vintage advertisement, Journal club “Signals from the dead” and welcome bachelor Flori to the lab

Week September 7- progress of the squid lab and 10 years at IBL of Dennis Claessen

Week September 14 – Anne van der Meij feature and Ákos Kovács writes about a Leiden student in his lab

Week September 21– Feature Laura van Niftrik, Art in Ariane’s office, and published papers (chemosensory systems in Vibrio, Polysaccharide length affects mycobacterial cell shape and antibiotic susceptibility)

Week September 28– Grant Jensen’s legacy and ‘Behind the paper’ –Bacillus endospore appendages form a novel family of disulfide-linked pili- by Janine Liedke

Week October 5– Introduction of Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski and new equipment funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore foundation arrived!

Week October 12– self-interview with Willem Noteborn, Dennis revisits nanotubes and Ariane is chair of the next BLAST meeting

Week October 19– two ‘behind the paper’ contributions: bacterial chemoreceptor architecture in Treponema by Alise and bacterial bleach sensors by Arden Perkins

Week October 26- ‘behind the paper’ by Justin Nodwell and first illustration of ‘Microbial behavior from A to Z’ from Shraddha Shitut

Week November 2– picture gallery of the first 5 years of the Briegel Lab at IBL!

Week November 9- ‘behind the paper’ from Danielle Sexton, journal club on synthetic microswimmers

Week November 16– Interview with Dennis Claessen about his promotion to full Professor

Week November 23– updates from former lab member Susanne Brenzinger

Week November 30- behind the scenes of the IGEM team Leiden win!

Week December 7–  a glimpse behind the scenes of Eveline’s defense in pictures- ‘seeing through microbial eyes’ from the one and only Mark Martin- letter G of the microbial alphabet by IBL’s own Shraddha

Week December 14– Christmas event, Journal club “Vibrio cholerae Type VI activity alters motility behavior in mucin’ and letter H for ‘hide’ of the microbial behavior Alphabet

Week December 21– Announcement about the atlas of bacterial and archaeal cell structure by the Jensen lab and ‘behind the paper’ by Emily Furlong

Week January 4– Briegel Lab Trailer!

Week January 11– journal club on hitchhiking phage and letter K in the microbial alphabet

Week January 18– Artwork from Dennis Claessen’s daughter Romany, the introduction of Veronique, journal club: Bacillus has a circadian clock

Week January 25–  Introduction of Marjolein, how we integrated SciArt into a scientific conference, and of course the amazing Microbial Alphabet from Shraddha

Week February 1-  Twitter entertainment, a new paper on bacterial membrane vesicles, and of course the microbial alphabet

Week February 8-  the Briegel lab’s most beautiful snowman and snowomen gallery, journal club and the microbial alphabet!

Week February 15- Lizah’s science art journey!

Week February 22- Lab updates, behind the paper: DNA origami as cell membrane protein labels, letter Q in the microbial alphabet

Week March 1- journal club on Myxococcus xanthus, Singelwalk in Leiden, and letter R in the microbial alphabet

Week March 8– Dr. Laura Jennings on Pseudomonas aeruginosa exopolysaccaride production in cystic fibrosis sputum, and Dennis reports on his labs’ studies on  MurG in collaboration with Gilles. And last but not least Shraddha’s microbial alphabet!

Week March 15– interesting papers from the last week and letter T in the microbial alphabet

Week March 22– thoughts from cluster leader Dennis, a controversial paper on “Viable but non-culturable cells”- are they dead? And of course the microbial alphabet from the one and only Shraddha

Week March 29– Interesting papers from last week and letter V in the microbial alphabet

Week APRIL 12- Briegel lab members ‘fun facts’ quiz!

Week April 19– behind the papers: Navish Wadhwa (flagellar motors) and Felix Ramos Leon (SepH in Streptomyces)

Week April 26- Prof. Baumeister turns 75 this year and Journal club by Dennis Claessen

Week May 3–  highlighting our updated website, two new and noteworthy papers and The last microbial alphabet from Shraddha

Week May 10- IBL’s ‘Freek Vonk Couch’, journal club about a new paper about a predatory bacterium, and the new “This week’s doodle’ from Shraddha

Week May 17– A short history on the Leiden Observatory and journal club about a PNAS paper on TypeVI secretion

Week May 24– News about the Leeuwenhoek microscope and a behind the paper from Jori Messelink, Muriel van Tesseling and Chase Broedersz on chromosome organization in baceteria

Week May 31– ‘Behind the paper’ on ‘asymmetric localization of the cell division machinery in B. subtilis by Dr. Kanika Khanna

Week June 7– ‘Squids in Space’ by Katrina Gundlach

Week June 14– Thoughts on uncurious bias and graphical summary of the IBL symposium by Shraddha Shitut

Week June 21– Updates on the first hatched squid in the Briegel lab

Week June 28- lab news and new and noteworthy publication and press releases

Week July 5– field trip to the seed company Enza Zaden, new and noteworthy papers on bacteriophages

Week July 12– Dennis’ new inherited Toga,  a new paper on matrix-trapped viruses, and the brilliant doodle art from Shraddha

Week July 19– ‘behind the paper’ by Jonathan Schneider on their study on muscle sarcomere contraction using cryo-ET, the Briegel Lab pets, the new preprint on membrane protrusions