Just your friendly neighborhood lab cryptid

🌱Cellular biology, microbiology, and general life sciences content delivered whenever I feel like it🌱

[the-bio-babe]

Blog Intro

Hello and welcome to @the-bio-babe! This is one of my side blogs, specifically my biology and science related blog. I’m a grad student studying microbiology and immunology, specifically bacteriophages and their applications in treating AMR infections.

On here you’ll find:

Mainly biology and microbiology related content

General science content I find interesting

Random musings on biology and science in general

(Anything original is tagged under #biobabe, I also have a tag catalogue for specific topics)

My other blogs:

@atomic-madness: my main blog

@eco-skunk: eco-friendly and environmental activism content

I go by atomic online and I use she/her pronouns. Asks and dms are open so feel free to say hi!

- Atomic

(Last updated 6/2/26)

[demilypyro]

Why do you think your words can hurt me. I'm literally a hot girl with big boobs. I've already reached the pinnacle of existence

[hellsitegenetics]

String identified: t ca t . ' ta a t g t g . ' aa ac t ac tc

Closest match: Vibrio phage 1.187.O._10N.286.49.F1, partial genome Common name: Vibrionaceae-infecting bacteriophage

(image source)

[demilypyro]

What in the world is going on here

[cudo29]

バクテリオファージは細菌に感染するウイルスです。これを使った細菌感染症治療薬はかつてからありましたが、抗生物質の登場により下火となっていました。しかし、抗生物質耐性菌の出現により、再びファージを使った治療が注目されつつあります。今回はそのようなお話です。

詳しくは今月の分子「318: 治療用ファージ（Therapeutic Phage）」をご覧ください。

日本語訳（PDBj）

治療用ファージ (Therapeutic Phage) | 今月の分子 | PDBj 入門

自然界にある細菌の天敵を利用し抗生物質耐性感染症と闘う

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. While bacteriophages have long been used to treat bacterial infections, their use declined with the advent of antibiotics. However, with the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, phage-based therapy is once again gaining attention. This article will discuss that topic.

For details, please refer to the Molecule of the Month article 318: Therapeutic Phage

Original English Article（RCSB PDB）

PDB101: Molecule of the Month: Therapeutic Phage

Using the natural predators of bacteria to fight antibiotic-resistant infections

[the-bio-babe]

Tag catalogue:

Science related stuff

Cellular biology: #cell bio

Micro biology: #microbio

Molecular biology: #molec

Bacteriophages: #phage

Papers and articles: #reading

Lab related stuff: #lab

Miscellaneous

Original posts or additions: #biobabe

Personal favorites: #favorites

(Last updated 6/2/26)

[escuerzoresucitado]

Generative Design Of Novel Bacteriophages With Genome Language Models - Astrobiology

Out of about 300 phage genomes the scientists synthesized and tested in dishes full of E. coli, 16 were functional.

src

[showmeyourxylophone]

That's so cool! An actual use case for LLMs that I'm excited about? And some of the genomes actually worked?

[escuerzoresucitado]

It's all fun and games until they lock you into a Disease‑as‑a‑Service plan, and you’ve got 48 hours to pay for the premium cure, or your trial period ends permanently.

[the-bio-babe]

I can’t tell if you’re being facetious or not, but as someone who actually studies phage biology I can promise you that this research is a good thing. The main reason phage isn’t widely used as a treatment for bacterial infections is because you generally have to make new cocktails of phage for each unique infection (especially if it’s a polymicrobial infection) since phage host ranges are so small. That means that the majority of phage treatments already have to be customized to individual patients, which takes LOTS time and $$$$. So the idea that phage treatments would be expensive, inaccessible, and customized by phage companies for individuals (à la "data-as-a-service" compaies that are paid to manage existing data for individuals) is already the current state of the field. The rising antibiotic resistance crisis is only going to make that worse, as traditional antibiotics become less effective and only the rich can afford to pay for custom phage cocktails.

Making novel phages easier to create won't change the fact that phage treatments need to be customized. That's just how the organism works due to the narrow host range. What it WILL do is allow cheaper, more accessible phage treatments to be created for people with antibiotic resistant infections. Hell, maybe customizing phage genomes will even allow us to create phages with broader host ranges. I do raise my eyebrows at the use of AI, but I think (sparingly) using LLMs for scientific research that will meaningfully improve the lives of others is a pretty decent use case.

TL;DR There's likely never going to be a "universal" phage cocktail. Companies aren't hiding it from you, it just doesn't exist due to nature of the organism. Companies creating expensive cures for common diseases and selling them back to patients at a premium isn't because of scientific research. It's a byproduct of capitalism and the American healthcare system exploiting the discoveries made from said research. If that's your concern, then you're better off reforming healthcare instead of taking a reactionary stance and shitting on research that will actually make it easier and more cost effective to create custom treatments for people once antibiotics inevitably become ineffective due to overuse

[mr-viwick]

Go my phage

[deerspace9]

Hmmm where did all my bacteria go?

The hungry bacteriophage: Ѫ

[ralzei1997]

look at this little fella :3

[dannythekorneater]

For all my nerdz out there

[roosenora]

working for an engineer as a biologist core:

me: do you want me to make mEI plates for this week’s testing?

eng grad: i’m not sure.

dawg this is YOUR dissertation im crine 😭😭😭

[the-bio-babe]

Being An Academic is just like. I’m a genius. I’m a fucking dumbass. I’m the most incompetent person to ever step foot in a lab. My model organisms are sabotaging me out of spite. Wait nevermind I got my experiment to work. My data is as insignificant as I am. I’m the most brilliant student there ever was. I’m a failure and my PI should execute me. Reviewer 2 has a blood feud with me personally. Wait my paper got published??

[ratbugs]

there isn’t a single living organism i don’t like, don’t think is cute, or don’t love and appreciate.

in fact, even the rocks are beloved critters to me. the sand and the stones. the wind, the water, the chemicals and the clay.

no one aspect of the natural world is worth more than another to me. not to me, and not to nature.

when we learn to love ALL the earth, that is when we learn to protect it.

i love my planet. all of it.

[the-bio-babe]

Man these grad school applications got HANDS

[the-bio-babe]

Update: just got my first acceptance 🥳

[the-bio-babe]

Update: I ended up getting in everywhere I applied and I’m going to be attending my top choice program in the fall 🥹

[headspace-hotel]

plant based? as far as I'm concerned, all plants are based

[the-bio-babe]

Man these grad school applications got HANDS

[the-bio-babe]

Update: just got my first acceptance 🥳

[beemovieerotica]

every time I see some bigshot scientist revealed as a fraud my knee-jerk reaction is "hell yeah elisabeth bik got 'em good" AND IM RIGHT

PubPeer enables scientists to search for their publications or their peers publications and provide feedback and/or start a conversation ano

SHE NEVER QUITS!!!!

ICONIC!!!!

[beemovieerotica]

> Elisabeth Bik is on patreon <

She is not directly paid for her work to vet papers, she has been hit with legal action & death threats by scientists who hate that she's exposing them and their financial fraud, and she keeps at it every single day, combing through thousands of papers to make science more fair. Please consider supporting her!

[beemovieerotica]

Who is Elizabeth bik?

She's a microbiologist who has a supernatural level of perception that she's been using to catch fraud in scientific papers.

Specifically, scientists will try to get away with duplicating parts of images they publish in order to make something look more meaningful, or to prove something that they actually didn't prove. They'll copy and paste western blot bands, cells, etc, and she can catch these tiny almost imperceptible jpeg artifacts and see repeats or cuts in extremely nondescript imagery, and know that it's been manipulated.

Bik combs through hundreds of papers in a day and doesn't get directly paid for this work other than through her patreon. She gets death threats from shady scientists who don't want their misuse of data and financial fraud to come to light.

The extent of what she has uncovered has been massive. It includes potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds that have been granted to scientists who have falsified data. She was also behind the unmasking of the Alzheimer's research scandal 2 years ago. She is legitimately changing the entire landscape of scientific research, and bad scientists are scared.