Group leader at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, cofounder of Polonium Foundation. Working on evolution of sex in bugs.https://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3muokgpffpk2u🧬 Postdoc ad is now live: evolutionary genomics of Klebsiella pneumoniae phages. How do prophage depolymerases vs SGNH-esterases shape phage host range? Krakow, Poland. Deadline 21 Sept: https://mostowylab.com/job-postdoc-prophage-evolution-2026.html04 Sep 2026 08:31 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3muokgpffpk2uhttps://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3mqodv2osxs2mPhD opening in my lab @jagiellonskiuni.bsky.social: using AI to predict how phage enzymes break down bacterial capsules — joint work with ML group GMUM and Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa's phage lab (Wrocław), spanning genomics, AI & evolution. https://mostowylab.com/job-phd-ai-depolymerase-2026.html Deadline: 15 August 202615 Jul 2026 08:53 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqodv2osxs2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3mqbu67fps22xKlebsiella phages often modify the bacterial capsule instead of degrading it, stripping acetyl groups. Nobody's traced how this evolves. I'm hiring a computational postdoc to find out — Kraków, apply by 21 July. https://mostowylab.com/job-postdoc-prophage-evolution-2026.html10 Jul 2026 09:40 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqbu67fps22xhttps://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3mnw5ko2yqs2mPhage receptor-binding proteins are known for their LEGO-like modularity, but we still do not fully understand their evolutionary potential and how it shapes phage host range. Our new preprint examines this systematically in Klebsiella phages. 🔗 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.12.724579v2 Thread 🧵10 Jun 2026 07:06 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3mnw5ko2yqs2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3mn7ldm43z22xThrilled to share a major milestone from our long-running collaboration with Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa's lab in Wrocław — DepoCatalog, is now out in @natcomms.nature.com: 129 Klebsiella phage depolymerases, 75 capsule types, 5-class structural framework and public database. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-73570-7#Sec1801 Jun 2026 07:41 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3mn7ldm43z22xhttps://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3mkz4wc2orc27Polish phage science meets Polish visual storytelling 🇵🇱🦠 To celebrate our last paper, we collaborated with an artist who previously worked on The Witcher 3 — to create a comic about phages and why understanding them matters in the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Comic below 👇 [contains quote post or other embedded content]04 May 2026 07:17 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkz4wc2orc27https://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3mkmmxapbbs22🎉 New in @plosbiology.org: Temperate phages of Klebsiella pneumoniae show capsule-driven host tropism — but how? The working assumption was depolymerases: enzymes that chew through the bacterial sugar capsule. Turns out that's not the whole story. 🧵 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.300371629 Apr 2026 07:59 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkmmxapbbs22https://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3mfqsjzjxhs2y📢 Hiring a Postdoc in Computational Phage Biology (Kraków, Poland) We study the evolution & structural modularity of prophage-encoded glycan-degrading enzymes in Klebsiella pneumoniae — combining genomics and AlphaFold-based analyses. Details in attached PDF 👇 https://docs.google.com/document/d/189dJMtFV8eBU4o3O-0Hl59ESm9n0gkGx8VwZV9uxKxc/edit?usp=sharing26 Feb 2026 08:44 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfqsjzjxhs2yhttps://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3lsil77bmms27What determines who a phage can infect? We tackled this question for temperate phages of Klebsiella — a bacterial pathogen — using a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and a massive protein testing effort. 👇 A thread!26 Jun 2025 07:12 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3lsil77bmms27https://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3lplm6i3ixs2wI'm looking for a postdoc in computational evolutionary phage genomics, with the goal to better understand how protein innovation arises in viruses, at @jagiellonskiuni.bsky.social in Krakow (Poland). Drop me a line if it sounds cool! Deadline: 20.06. Link here: https://mcb.uj.edu.pl/documents/150912362/158627317/ogloszenie-ENG_MCB_129_25.pdf20 May 2025 07:52 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3lplm6i3ixs2whttps://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3lgx7glivrk2h🚀 Follow-up on my recent MANIAC tweet: our new MMseqs2-blased tool is optimised for ANI and alignment fraction (AF) calculation in viral genomes. Unlike many other tools, it excels at ANI ~70%, an important range for viral taxonomy & evolution. Here’s why that matters ➡️ a thread! 🧵30 Jan 2025 09:49 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3lgx7glivrk2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3lgx35pwvvk2xAnd now with the working link! https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/msystems.01661-24 [contains quote post or other embedded content]30 Jan 2025 08:33 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3lgx35pwvvk2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/rafalmostowy.bsky.social/post/3lgv6fkvufc23Our new paper out in mSystems! https://journals.asm.org/eprint/ISRAZYSUQFH2S67SZNZI/full We created a tool called MANIAC to estimate ANI between virus pairs. We found that: 1) MANIAC can reliably estimate ANI ~70%, 2) dsDNA phages exhibit ANI gap around 80%, 3) taxonomic assignment in temperate phages is tricky. Try it!29 Jan 2025 14:26 +0000at://did:plc:tlm6zhx6ldxso5vb2ucsllkt/app.bsky.feed.post/3lgv6fkvufc23