I also wanted to be part of ! This is what comes to my mind when I think about "sticky" (word of the day):

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6: STICKY.
At that very moment Gordon realised its flagella were holding him back. Literally.

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5: FERMENT.
Mmmm that sugar sure does taste goooood. I can't stop... mmmm.... Just another bite... Okay, one more. Yum yum... just one more?

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4: INVADE.
This broth ain't big enough for the two of us. I'm coming for you, and there's nowhere to hide.

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3: CONTAMINATE.
Cerise the serratia had the sneaking suspicion they didn't quite belong here. The grub was great, but everyone kept giving them funny looks...

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2: EVOLVE.
Maybe it was born with it, maybe it was a new spike protein... Whatever it was, this virus was going places!

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1: SYMBIOSIS.
Namasté, friend. If you scratch my chemoreceptor arrays, I'll scratch yours? Nirvana awaits!

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Occasionally I get very excited about side projects and will share these with you. These are really important to fuel the creativity and develop the techniques I need to do this job. Like and

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30: CONJUGATION

Sharing antibiotic resistance plasmids by conjugation has turned the much-ignored opportunist A. baumanii into a pathogen of repute. Carbapenemases for the win?

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29 - Colony

I missed yesterday because I was very busy hanging out with my friends ♥️ Catching up with some colonies!

Oh no they are escaping!!

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28: ADHESION

Infectious disease can be caused by mere stickiness, as with misfolded Prion proteins. We all have Prions, but if infectious misfolded Prions stick to them, they mis-fold too & the stickiness spreads.

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DAY 28 // ADHESION
Bacteria like to be sticky

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27 - Strain

This is me straining to crank out all the Microber pieces... Its really amazing to see what everyone is doing, but for me the creativity comes and goes. Some days I struggle with prompts while some other days the art goes brrrrr.

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26: COMPETITION

Dengue fever virus has 5 serotypes that compete for hosts. Primary infection with 1 makes further infection with another much more dangerous. So it’s a real killer competition!

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26 - competition!

I actually had no idea what to draw for 'competition' because everything is a competition for bacteria. Every niche is in a way a competition in which one species will thrive. Have fun with it, I had fun making it!

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Day 26, competition! One way to out-compete other bacteria is to simply grow faster! In optimal conditions, E. coli can duplicate every 20 minutes

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25: TRANSPOSON

Also known as jumping genes, they’re a handy tool in a many pathogen's toolkit. Transposons give Cryptococcus neoformans the genetic room it needs to adapt & resist antibiotics during infection.

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24: ZOONOTIC

Sometimes we're incidental hosts to pathogens. Ebolaviruses mostly infect non-human primates & bats. Our Ebola outbreaks start w. a spillover from these animals, before human to human spread takes over

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