Award announcement for Dr. Mauricio P. Contreras from University of Tübingen, Germany, receiving the Early Career Research Award at The Biochemical Society 2027 Awards.

As an emerging leader in plant innate immunity, we're thrilled to present Mauricio Contreras with a 2027 Early Career Research Award! Alongside advocating for Open Science and preprint review, Mauricio's "activation-and-release" and "NLR resurrection" models are already referenced worldwide.

AlphaFold 3 captures oligomeric states and interaction dynamics of MLO ion channels www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...

#ProtistsOnSky
no 'swimming' by 𝘝𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘺𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢, definitively no 'staying still'. just a relaxed walk towards the lunch...

The Sainsbury Laboratory is delighted to announce that it has received $2 million in funding as part of Google.org's $20 million AI for Science Fund to support organizations focused on cutting-edge AI for science research.
@kamounlab.bsky.social @amiralito.bsky.social

www.tsl.ac.uk/news/the-sai...

With the new year, is my time to say bye to @gmivienna.bsky.social as I move to @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social in Tuebingen. I will start my solo Group Leader career as a Emmy Norther fellow. Thanks to everyone that helped on the way. I will be advertising PhD and Postdoc positions soon, stay tuned!

🚨We’re hiring! Please help spread the word!
Our lab at @TheSainsburyLab is recruiting a pre-doctoral intern to work on plant immunity research. Ideal for those who are planning to pursue a PhD and seeking research experience. tatsuyanobori.com

Evolution of protein domains and protein domain combinations provides insights into the origin and diversification of land plants www.cell.com/cell-genomic...

Paintings of hammerhead sharks depicted in the "Oki National Products Illustration Notes". From Japan, Edo Period, ca 1735

A pair of happy hammerhead sharks
(ca. 1735 Edo period Japan)

Engineering plant tandem kinase immune receptors expands effector recognition profiles Plant intracellular immune receptors are widely deployed in breeding to protect crops from disease. In addition to nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat receptors (NLRs), tandem kinase proteins (TKPs...

Excited to share our #plantimmunity preprint on engineering cereal TKPs
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
A short thread below 👇

Super-happy sharing my Lab's new work on engineering plant HMA-containing tandem kinase immune receptors. Congrats to all authors (@danielsyu.bsky.social and @njw33.bsky.social on here). Work only possible in collaboration with Soichiro Asuke. See linked paper to follow!
bsky.app/profile/bior...

Check out this awesome preprint on the cloning and characterisation of the HMA-containing tandem kinase immune receptors Rmo2 (barley) and Rwt7 (wheat). Great collaborators!

Engineering plant tandem kinase immune receptors expands effector recognition profiles www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12...

📣 VACANCY: Predoctoral Intern in the Nobori group @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social

Join the team to work on plant immunity research at single-cell and spatial resolution 🌱

Apply online, deadline 26 Jan 2026

www.tsl.ac.uk/working-at-t...

#PlantSciJobs #PlantScience #STEMJobs

2.1 Reading Trees Chapter contents: Systematics — 1. Taxonomy — 2. Phylogenetics —— 2.1 Reading trees ← —— 2.2 Building trees —— 2.3 Character mapping —— 2.4 Phylogenetic trees and classificationParts of a tree A phylo...

If you're a #teacher interested in a great #openaccess write up on reading #phylogenetic trees, check out www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/system... created by @jonhendricks.bsky.social and Elizabeth Hermsen.

the top half shows two panels with microscopy images. Left is a light-microscopy image of a group of algal cells. The cells are round with different sizes. Two arrows point at sporangia: one looks as if someone stuffed 8 footballs in a thin elastic bag. The other is perfectly round and contains many small spores within. The right panel shows the same group of cells, but in fluorescent microscopy, where green color shows chloroplasts. In each cell the chloroplasts are globular with small lobes sticking out. The bottom half shows a photo of Xanthoria lichen - bright yellow and leafy growing on a tree branch

Our paper on the #genome of the Trebouxia #photobiont from Xanthoria is now out in @newphyt.bsky.social! Check below for a near-chromosome level assembly, secretome analysis, evidence of ancient HGT, and transcriptomic comparison of the alga in symbiosis and in pure culture
doi.org/10.1111/nph.70728

New paper led by @metalichen.bsky.social from our group presenting a chromosome-level assembly of the Trebouxia photobiont alga from the lichen Xanthoria parietina - a resource we hope will enable significant new insight into the symbiosis @newphyt.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/nph....

My new Emmy Noether Group is recruiting!

🔬 Two PhD positions in plant pathogen evolution

🧬 Start: April 2026 (flexible)

📍 Dept. of Phytopathology & Plant Protection @rstam.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de

⏰ Apply by 15 Dec 2025

🔗 More info: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...

Do get in touch or share 😊

The rise and fall of the Phytophthora infestans lineage that triggered the Irish potato famine The strain of Phytophthora infestans that caused the Great Famine in the late 1840s was caused by a single genotype that is distinct from, but closely related to, the most prevalent modern genotype.

We sequenced the genome of the Phytophthora infestans from that particular historical sample back in 2013 to characterize the genetic makeup of the strain that cause the pandemic outbreak of potato late blight. elifesciences.org/articles/00731 @kamounlab.bsky.social

Undermining the cry for help: the phytopathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae secretes an antimicrobial effector protein to undermine host recruitment of antagonistic Pseudomonas bacteria During pathogen attack, plants recruit beneficial microbes in a ‘cry for help’ to mitigate disease development. Simultaneously, pathogens secrete effectors to promote host colonisation through vario...

📣 Now announcing the journal publication 📄 of our work in @newphyt.bsky.social on how Verticillium undermines the plant's 🌱 "cry for help": terrific work by @antonkraege.bsky.social & @wolki95.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/nph....

5!

Spooky season has arrived! 👻
We held our annual Pumpkin Carving Competition at @thesainsburylab.bsky.social —vote for your favourite carve! 🎃🕯️

New pre-print from the team!

The manuscript is @emma-raven.bsky.social's PhD work showing that whether a leaf is a carbon sink or a carbon source influences how they execute immune responses.

Have a read!

#PlantScience
@johninnescentre.bsky.social

Gene expression divergence following gene and genome duplications in spatially resolved plant transcriptomes After gene and genome duplications, expression divergence across cell types is not random, and it can be explained by a combination of gene age, gene funct

Our paper on the evolution (duplicated) gene expression divergence in spatially resolved plant transcriptomes is now out @theplantcell.bsky.social

w/ @yvdp.bsky.social

#PlantSci #Evolution

academic.oup.com/plcell/advan...

Sophien Kamoun, the Google DeepMind team and Nick Desnoyer are pictured inside one of The Sainsbury Laboratory’s growth chambers, surrounded by growing plants.

Nick Desnoyer is pictured showing the Google DeepMind team growing plants inside one of The Sainsbury Laboratory’s growth chambers.

The Google DeepMind team alongside The Sainsbury Laboratory group leaders, GetGenome lead James Canham and members of the Kamoun group.

Fantastic hosting the @GoogleDeepMind team at TSL with @kamounlab.bsky.social 🌱

From AI in plant health to building scientific capacity, our missions clearly resonate!

Tools like AlphaFold can accelerate scientific breakthroughs in our field -holding real promise for global food security 🌍

Beyond Immunity: Uncovering the Hidden Diversity of Bacterial NLRs (SCHLIMPERT_J26DTP) | Doctoral Training Partnership Join us in exploring the hidden functions of ancient immune proteins in bacteria. Bacteria, like plants and animals, have evolved sophisticated systems to detect and respond to threats.

We have a PhD opportunity available in our group @johninnescentre.bsky.social through the NRP Doctoral Training Partnership. Help us uncover the Hidden Diversity of Bacterial NLRs.

Start date: October 2026. For more information and how to apply👉 biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/bey...

Vanishing Virulence: Investigating pathogenicity loss in a plant pathogenic fungus (TALBOT_T26DTP) | Doctoral Training Partnership What makes a plant killer lose its edge? This project will investigate why fungal pathogens lose virulence when they are grown in laboratory culture away from their host plant. Use cutting-edge…

New PhD opportunity in my group @thesainsburylab.bsky.social through the BBSRC NRP DTP Programme - see details of host to apply below

biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/van...

How do cells communicate when it’s hot? (FAULKNER_J26DTP) | Doctoral Training Partnership Plant cells are connected to their neighbours via ‘tubes’ called plasmodesmata, creating an interconnected cytoplasm that joins cells within and between tissues and organs.

We have a project available for 2026 NRP Doctoral Training Partnership entry (i.e. PhD studentship opportunity!)

How do cells communicate when it's hot?

Don't know? Me either! Come work with us @johninnescentre.bsky.social and figure it out

biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/how...

Understanding Host Compatibility in the Marchantia-Phytophthora System (CARELLA_J26DTP) | Doctoral Training Partnership The fossil record demonstrates that filamentous microbes invaded ancient plant cells with intracellular hyphal structures over 450 million years ago. To this day, a rich diversity of extant land plant...

New opportunity to undertake a PhD in my group ⁦‪at the John Innes Centre - if you’re interested in plant immunity and evolution check out the link!

Huge congratulations to PhD students @lenaknorr.bsky.social, from the Ma group, and @amiralito.bsky.social, from the @kamounlab.bsky.social, for their 2025 ASM poster awards! 🎉🌱

A secreted citrus protease cleaves an outer membrane protein of the Huanglongbing pathogen Plants secrete a variety of proteases as a defense response during infection by microbial pathogens. However, the relationship between their catalytic activities and antimicrobial functions remains la...

1/13 Thankfully, both you and your plants have a lot of sophisticated ways to fight off invading pathogens.
In our new preprint, we describe a new way in which animals and plants share a common strategy to ward off harmful bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...