Had great fun this weekend hanging out with @edwardmarcotte.bsky.social and his lab, past and present, to celebrate his lab’s 25th anniversary. Remarkable science, remarkable people. I only spent 6 months on sabbatical there but it had a long shadow on how I think about research and running a lab.
Nice of @thedailyuw.bsky.social to interview me and @bethbuffalo.bsky.social about becoming AAAS Fellows! www.dailyuw.com/article/fe9d...
⏰ Only 2 DAYS left for early registration! Join us at #Yeast26 (June 13-17, Pacific Grove, CA) for cutting-edge research in #genetics, #genomics, #disease, #regulation, #systemsBiology, #cellBiology, #lifeCycle, #syntheticBiology, & more. Register by April 16 to save! 🧬 genetics-gsa.org/yeast-2026/
New preprint with Bonny Brewer and Raghu's lab. Ku mutant genomes just go bonkers during chemostat evolution, but in very interesting ways! Telomeric amplicons of SUL1 and Y' in yeast are generated by microhomology-mediated break induced replication occurring in cis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Seattle locals, my student Rachel is giving department research reports today. Special time of 2:00 in Foege auditorium! Come hear about yeast centromere evolution.
The image consists of two sections. The top section has text with a header that reads "GENOMICS" followed by the title "Q&A with Dr. Maitreya Dunham: Reflecting on MSS 2026 and Looking Ahead to the Future of Genome Science." Below this is a quote: "Any time is the best time to be in this field." Image is of a person (Maitreya Dunham) with glasses standing at a podium with a microphone.
Fabulous Q&A with Dr. @maitreya.bsky.social @uwgenome.bsky.social "Reflecting on MSS 2026 and Looking Ahead to the Future of Genome Science"
@brotmanbaty.bsky.social @varianteffect.bsky.social #VariantEffect26 ➡️ brotmanbaty.org/news/q-and-a...
Well now I'm even more curious about what will eventually turn up in one of his future books!
Whaaaaaat. So cool! I knew he must have talked to an insider since the part about getting what you selected for, but not what you meant to select for, is so real and happens to us all the damn time haha. Also, those space chemostats, always causing trouble.
Oh gosh, I'm so sorry to hear this. I got to interact w/Don quite a bit thanks to both of us being involved with a CIFAR program. He was always insightful in addition to being a delightful person to interact with. Occasionally made me wonder about the alternate universe where I became a worm person.
Took the lab to see Project Hail Mary tonight. Not every day a method you use in your research saves the universe :)
Here's a better picture of @afrubin.bsky.social's daughter's awesome rendition of my deep mutational scanning experiments as "The Yeast Wars" from my talk at #VariantEffect26 :) Great meeting!
Now out in AEM @asm.org! 🎉🧪
*High school student-isolated mutants 👉🏻 novel genetic causes of biofilm-associated adaptations
*We learn how diversity arises quickly and is maintained
*EvolvingSTEM enables scalable research in classrooms & promotes scientific literacy
journals.asm.org/eprint/FBU9M...
Thanks, Alex!
Thank you, Judy!
I’m so pleased to be named a AAAS Fellow! I remember opening the original email thinking wow, which of my awesome faculty won this nice thing (a perk of being chair is getting emails like that) but it was me! www.washington.edu/news/2026/03...
Congratulations to my grad student and first author @taykatwang.bsky.social, and to grad student Abby and summer REU student Omar for getting this project started!
Now published! Short title could be: How to do genetics with dead things. A cross-species rescue by mating method to interrogate gene essentiality across the Saccharomyces genus doi.org/10.17912/mic...
Thank you, Caiti! :)
David Botstein was one of the giants of genetics and genomics, and my mentor, colleague and friend for more than 40 years. I’m sad that he is gone, but his larger-than-life persona comes through here. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/s...
We’re hiring a new student helper! This is a crucial position that supports lab infrastructure, including glassware, autoclaving, lab maintenance tasks, etc. Looking for someone reliable and detail-oriented! UW students please apply! (Login required) app.joinhandshake.com/emp/jobs/108...
Registration for MSS26 in Melbourne will close next Monday - we still have a few tickets available, and an amazing line-up of speakers across all areas of variant effects work, so if you were on the fence, check out our program and then smash that "Register now" button!
www.mss2026.org
There is a nice discussion about this book in this interview with Felsenstein as part of the "Reflections on Modeling and Theory in Population Biology" series, presented by the Society for Modeling and Theory in Population Biology. Discussion starts at 48 minutes:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSSx...
Wow, incredible opportunity for a new Head of fermentation etc at Garden Path. Whoever takes it, please collaborate with me! gardenpathwa.com/2026/03/10/j...
🍺 Fixing brewing #Yeast! 🧬 Experimental evolution corrects mother-daughter separation defects in ale strain over 200 generations:
✅ fewer large clusters
✅ reduced foam accumulation during fermentation
🧪 #YeastResearch #SGD #MoreGoodPours @micropub7n.bsky.social
www.yeastgenome.org/reference/S1...
This happens all the time. David Botstein worked on so many important things over the years. He died last week and I haven’t known what to say about it. But I do know I will keep running across echoes of him forever, in the field and in myself.
I went to a medical genetics talk today and searched the disease gene name just out of curiosity to see if there’s a homolog in yeast. Turns out the gene was discovered by my PhD advisor’s lab back in 1982.
Latest version of the browser is deployed here. You can look through all of our accumulated @yevolab.bsky.social data from our various high school and college partners, and you can also upload your own yeast mutation datasets. yevo.org/mutation-bro...
Check out the new, improved version of our Mutation Browser preprint. We worked with a team from the Broad including their outreach office, a great summer intern, and the G2P project to add a new browser panel that maps mutations onto yeast protein structures! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
David Botstein, a titan within the scientific community, died last week. GSA mourns his passing and celebrates his legacy.
Read more about his significance to our community in this thread ⬇️🧵
a headshot of David Botstein
We are deeply saddened to share the news of the passing of David Botstein, a towering figure in modern #genetics and a foundational force behind SGD.
www.yeastgenome.org/blog/in-memo... #yeast #modelOrganism