It’s been a busy summer so far with conferences, travel, and the occasional bit of science. As the heat finally starts to relent in Switzerland, we can celebrate two new papers now out in PNAS and Communications Biology!

Two back-to-back conferences took me to Corsica for the Microscale Ocean Biophysics Conference 8.0, and my first as a conference organiser. It was a fantastic two weeks reuniting and interacting with collegagues from across the globe and can’t wait for the next installment. This was followed by my first participation in the GRC Marine Microbes in Barcelona – another jam-packed schedule that has sparked new collaborations already. Excited to see where these lead!

Available now as early access in Communications Biology is the latest work from Sophie Zweifel‘s PhD – driven by her passion for coccolithophores, this work explores the mechanical role these intricate calcium carbonate shells play in defending from bacterial attack. In this, we found that the coccosphere in the heavily calcifying coccolithophore C. braarudii prevents attachment by harmful bacteria, and subsequently prevents mortality of the algal population. See here for a fun behind-the-scenes blog post from Sophie in Nature Research Communitites!

Continuing the theme of phytoplankton, collaborative work with former lab member Zachary Landry and recently-defended Riccardo Foffi have explored the non-ideal diffusion surrounding a phytoplankton. This nutrient-rich area, called the phycosphere, is the crucial link connecting bacteria and phytoplankton through chemical interactions (“chemotaxis”). Using Raman microspectroscopy and modelling, this work shows that this phycosphere also contains extremely sharp chemical gradients, providing a key insight into how bacteria-phytoplankton interactions are mediated at the single cell scale. Both of these projects were extremely exciting to be invovled in and we’re delighted to share them with you now! Press release can be found here.