Ancient DNA reveals 4000 years of grapevine diversity, viticulture and clonal propagation in France - Nature Communications Here, the authors present aDNA from 49 grape pips spanning the Bronze Age to Medieval period in France and surrounding areas. They find evidence of long-distance exchange of domestic varieties through vegetative clones and one Medieval sample that is nearly identical to modern Pinot Noir.

Ancient DNA from grape seeds spanning 4,000 years reveals the domestication, cultivation, and trade of grapes in France over this period, according to research in Nature Communications. The authors find that one Medieval sample is genetically identical to modern Pinot Noir grapes. 🧬 🏺 🧪

Genotype-fitness mapping of adaptive mutants reveals shifting low-dimensional structure across divergent environments Predicting the effect of a genetic mutation on fitness is a major challenge in evolutionary biology. This study uses fitness effects of a large collection of adaptive yeast mutants in multiple lab env...

Really excited that this major work from my PhD is finally published in @plosbiology.org ! In it, we were trying to tackle a fundamental question in evolution - how do genetic mutations map onto evolutionary fitness? (1/n)
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

New paper showing that much of the apparent success of protein language models in predicting mutational effects is a mirage: These models mostly memorize sites. 1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Very proud of this paper, now officially out at PRX LIFE journals.aps.org/prxlife/abst.... Here @mrazo.bsky.social shows that geometry-aware autoencoder architecture can discover low dimensional phenotypic spaces traversed by evolution. 1/2

Beyond Mendel: a new genetics agenda
Most traits aren’t “one gene–one trait”. A Genetics perspective calls for new experimental paradigms to capture polygenic effects in real environmental context—backed by large-scale automated phenotyping and new infrastructure.
www.evolbio.mpg.de/3866699/news...

Job alert: open position for a Professor or Associate Professor of Computational Genomics in Health and Disease at University College London.

Based in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment of UCL, and UGI, and funded by the UCL Health Strategy.

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/... 🧪

Time to move toward a more open and organic model of science validation?

Have you ever wondered 🤔... Does phenotypic variance respond to environmental perturbation? Does it have a genetic basis? Are mean and variance regulating loci exposed to different selection pressures? These and more questions are explored in our new preprint 🔥

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

A huge thank you to Iva and Cynthia @seaprof.bsky.social and the all Riginos lab for inviting me to make a modest contribution to this study.
My first coral paper 🌊🪸 🎉 A dream come true 😊.

I really encourage you to read it #MustRead

Two major take-home messages for hybridization genomics 👇

Can we simulate realistic evolutionary trajectories and “replay the tape of life”? In this work, we propose a flexible, generalizable deep learning framework for modeling how the entire protein sequence evolves over time while capturing complex interactions across sites. 1/n
doi.org/10.64898/202...

I’m now pivoting away from consulting to focus more on research, diving back into polygenic selection, complex traits, and computation/statistics/"AI". More soon.

If any of this resonates, please reach out! Shares are also much appreciated to help me reconnect with the community!
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Dual-kingdom necrobiome succession extends postmortem interval estimation into skeletonization Forensic estimation of the postmortem interval (PMI) becomes increasingly challenging when decomposition progresses beyond the initial weeks, as traditional medicolegal indicators lose their temporal ...

And just out: tracking the "microbial clock" for the forensic estimation of the postmortem interval.
Huge congrats to lead author Elie Tièche, published in FSI Genetics: www.fsigenetics.com/article/S187...

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STRAF 2: New features and improvements of the STR population data analysis software Population data in forensic genetics must be checked for a variety of statistical parameters before it can be employed for casework. Several tools exist to perform such tasks; however, it can become c...

Also been busy in forensic genetics: we released the second version of STRAF, our tool for STR data analysis, developed with Martin Zieger. It’s been great to see this community resource evolve over the last years.

Published in FSI Genetics: www.fsigenetics.com/article/S187...
🧵 4/6

Genomes of Microtus Rodents Highlight the Importance of Olfactory and Immune Systems in Their Fast Radiation Abstract. The characterization of genes and biological functions underlying functional diversification and the formation of species is a major goal of evol

We assembled a new reference genome for Microtus voles, one of the most species-rich group of mammals. The genomes point to an important role of olfactory and immune gene families.
See our paper in GBE @genomebiolevol.bsky.social : academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
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Post-PhD, I took a "hybrid" path as a freelance R&D consultant, working and learning across a broad range of environments, from startups to large corporations.
Throughout it all, I kept one foot in academia through papers, talks, and collaborations. Here’s a look at some of the output:
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Hello again! After defending my PhD in population genomics at University of Bern and taking a multi-year hiatus from the digital world, I’m back to reconnect with the scientific community.
Here is a quick "comeback thread" on what I've been up to:
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Spec-driven development should have been a thing before AI.