Matt Doyle

And now published as an Observation! Many congrats to @weeboont.bsky.social for discovering that AsmA superfamily proteins, YhdP/TamB/YdbH, localize to the cell poles in E. coli, curiously AFTER division has occurred! 1/3 #MicroSky
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

My predictions are that grant delays have a much more severe impact on Australia's productivity than any real foreign interference enabled by any ARC grants.... maybe the delay was always the intended interference.

Grant delays feared as ARC ramps up ‘due diligence’ Researchers brace for renewed funding uncertainty as security checks prove ‘more time-consuming than imagined’

DELAY: the work associated with protecting Australian research from foreign interference are causing hold ups and issues for grant applications. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/grant-d... “The requirements we now have to go through…are more extensive and time-consuming than we had imagined,”

Antiparallel stacking of Csu pili drives Acinetobacter baumannii 3D biofilm assembly - PubMed Many Gram-negative nosocomial pathogens rely on adhesive filaments, known as archaic chaperone-usher pili, to establish stress- and drug-resistant, multi-layered biofilms. Here, we uncover the mechanism by which these pili build three-dimensional (3D) biofilm architectures. In situ analyses of Acine …

A. baumannii is one of the most notorious multidrug-resistant pathogens, capable of forming drug-tolerant biofilms that make infections exceptionally difficult to treat. But how are these complex microbial fortresses built? Just published in Nat Comms. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41654547/

Beautiful work Deb! Check out these structures? Biofilms are very interesting. 🧶🧬

Fabien Munder - New strategies to fight AMR.

Bacterial competition via L-type pyocins; targeting (1) BamA EC loop 6, (2) beta-strand 1.

Inhibit beta barrel assembly by blocking the BAM barrel lumen. Increase cell permeability - holes in the OM. 👏

(EMReady post-processing) 🤓

#lorneproteins2026

Certainly very beautiful work!

Really beautiful cryoET of periplasmic flagella structures and amazing animations

Kate Michaels at Lorne Protein

Kate Michie talking about her work on archaeal cytoskeleton. @lorneproteins.bsky.social

Neg charged lactate binds pocket when His positively charged. Lactate binds favourably, but only lactic acid can leave.

Proton enters to charge His, attracts negative lactate, proton neutralises lactate to lactic acid, then LA leaves.

First speaker Ashleigh Kropp of the most fun session of the Lorne Protein Meeting the Anders Young Investigators session. @lorneproteins.bsky.social

Yan Jiang is the next Anders session speaker presenting her work on the SLC1A transporter. @lorneproteins.bsky.social

Emily Furlong (UQ alumnus 😄) talking about her new work on ABC transporters. @emfurlong.bsky.social @lorneproteins.bsky.social

Session 7 ⚡️🌩 talks time!! Jack Zeng Unravelling Promiscuity - OCT1 gating - structures of ligand bound states. Interrogating binding and transport specificity and mechanism.

#lorneproteins2026

No, I was wrong. The ARC just posted on X – you know, the platform that whose offices have been raided by French police because it produces and hosts child exploitation materials? Yes, that X.

Just noting that ARC is still on X/Twitter. Despite it now being clear that that platform produces child exploitation materials, they remain active there.

If you interact with ARC staff, I really think they need to answer this question. It's moved being simply "disconnected from researchers" to … 🤢

The Resistance-Nodulation-Division efflux pump EefABC is highly conserved within lineages of E. coli commonly associated with infection Resistance-nodulation-division (RND) efflux pumps confer multidrug resistance in Gram-negative bacteria and are critical for many physiological functions including virulence and biofilm formation. The...

The coolest finding of my PhD is finally out! E. coli has a 7th RND pump that is present in phylogroups B2/D/E/F but absent in A/B1/C. As a result EefABC has been absent in all K-12 RND studies! Co-authored by the very talented Dr. Lizzy Darby. @jessicamablair.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1099/mgen...

Finally a big shout out to Laurence Luu (@laurenceluu.bsky.social) at UNSW who helped us analyse the effect of our inhibitor against Australian clinical isolates of B. pertussis!

(6/6)

This work is only a first step but it shows the potential for the development of pan-anti-virulence drugs. This strategy could be used to disarm pathogens without killing them, and thereby reduce the selective pressure for the development of resistance.

(5/6)

Our inhibitor potently blocked secretion of essential virulence factor filamentous hemagglutinin from multiple species. Our data suggests that our inhibitor works by binding to a conserved groove that stabilises the inactive state of FhaC.

(4/6)

To explore the potential of this "blue sky" idea my student Alfred Hartojo (@itzfredz.bsky.social) teamed up with the lab of Richard Johnson at ECU.

We used Baker Lab's RFdiffusion to design an inhibitor of FhaC — an essential TPS transporter for Whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis).

(3/6)

What if we had a drug that suppresses the virulence of many bacterial species? A broad-spectrum anti-virulence drug would provide clinicians with more options for critical infections that require rapid intervention prior to the identification of the infecting species.

(2/6)

First inhibitor of a bacterial two-partner secretion system. Two-partner secretion system transporter proteins (TpsB) are widely conserved across Gram-negative pathogens. TpsB family proteins secrete exoprotein virulence factors that perform a myriad of functions such as adhesion and immune modulation. Despite their incredible importance in bacterial infectious disease, TpsB inhibitors have not yet been discovered. Here, we describe a potent inhibitor of FhaC, a TpsB protein produced by Bordetella spp . FhaC secretes the exoprotein FhaB that is essential for the establishment of whooping cough. We designed a peptide called P1 that we predicted would prevent substrate binding and lock FhaC in a secretion-inactive state. Simulations and biochemical assays supported our hypothesis and identified interactions important for P1 binding to FhaC. Strikingly, we observed that the peptide strongly inhibited FhaB secretion from clinical isolates and broadly reduced correlates of virulence. Together, this work provides a strong case for further development of a novel class of anti-TpsB anti-virulence compounds. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, R21AI180112

💊 We are excited to share our preprint that describes an inhibitor of the widespread and highly conserved Two-Partner Secretion (TPS) system that is critical for Gram-negative pathogens to export a multitude of diverse virulence factors.

(1/6)

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to finally share the amazing results of our long-term collaboration with Karin Reinisch’s lab on how bridge lipid-transfer proteins (BLTPs) cooperate with partner proteins to orchestrate lipid delivery. A quick thread (1/7)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

ARC grant scheme timetable, including open, close and anticipated outcome announcement dates for Expressions Of Interest and full applications, plus rejoinder periods and selection meeting dates.

#ARCschedule Jan26 update

ARC announced huge delays & 3-month announcement windows (used to be 2 weeks).

Delay in months per scheme:
🔹LP25: 1–4
🔹IC/IH26: 1–4
🔹FT26: 1–3
🔹LP26: 2.5–5.5
🔹LE27: 2–5
🔹DE27: 1.5–4.5
🔹DP27: 3–6

Just … appalling. Unworkable.

Data ▶️ docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Black text on white background. Screenshot of ARC’s Network Message regarding delays to grant announcements because of new security arrangements.

⁉️The ARC has delayed outcomes of ALL grants 1–4 months & increased scheduled outcome windows from 2 weeks to 3 months!

This reverses 4 years of progress in providing greater certainty & ability to plan for researchers, their families & unis.

Their excuse? Security checks under new ARC legislation👇

The ARC’s processes are back to being farcical, @jasonclaremp.bsky.social

You advocated for a streamlined, efficient, faster ARC, but all that progress has been undone.

How can they claim to fund “innovation” with more than a year between initial proposal & outcomes? It should be 6 months, not 16!

ARC’s new schedule is at www.arc.gov.au/funding-rese...

It will now take A YEAR, or more, for researchers to know whether their grants are successful or not.

For example, early-career researchers are to submit DECRA proposals 11 March this year but they may not be announced 'til 9 March NEXT YEAR!

Structural basis of sodium ion-dependent carnitine transport by OCTN2 Nature Communications - Carnitine uptake by OCTN2 supports fatty acid metabolism. Here, authors report cryo-EM structures of human OCTN2, revealing the mechanism of sodium ion-dependent carnitine...

Our paper on the human carnitine transporter OCTN2 (SLC22A5) is out in @natcomms.nature.com! We solved structures of OCTN2 in multiple states and explored how carnitine transport is Na⁺-dependent, providing a framework for understanding SPCD disease causing variants and drug interactions.

Congrats to #USYD's A/Prof Yu Heng Lau for landing a $958,564 ARC Discovery grant to develop tiny protein cages to improve how plants use carbon, water & nutrients + boost crop yields. Sydney Analytical + Sydney Mass Spectrometry look forward to continuing our collaboration.
@yuhenglau.bsky.social