Historic transposon mobilisation waves create distinct pools of adaptive variants in a major crop pathogen - Nature Communications In this study, the authors analysed a large genomic dataset to trace how jumping genes shaped the global spread of a major wheat pathogen and reveal bursts of activity over decades that drove adaptati...

TEs aren’t just genomic parasites, they’re also engines of genomic novelty.

Our new study with ~2,000 Z. tritici genomes shows repeated TE mobilization waves during global expansion.

With @danielcroll.bsky.social & @guidopuccetti.bsky.social

🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#TEworldwide

There are no words to describe how excited and honored I am to take on the role. Already had such amazing support from the plant pathology community in Switz and cannot wait to grow the team further and see how far we can get in tackling our fungal foes. Look out for jobs starting in May 2026!

This is amazing, congrats!

It’s been such a pleasure to present my work at #iMMM2025. Thanks for the constructive discussions and comments - this remains my absolute favourite meeting! Looking forward to the next iteration 2027 in Toulouse 🍷

Check out @alexguyon.bsky.social’s preprint on membrane compositions upon mutualistic & pathogenic colonisation. Brilliant microscopy included!

Check out @binebrumm.bsky.social’s new study from her times with us in Cambridge!

Was great having you with us, @isabelmonte.bsky.social!

Liverworts and lycophytes growing together in the Cambridge University Botanical Garden

And my UK tour continued to Cambridge! Thanks @fromani.bsky.social, @alanwanke.bsky.social and @dromius.bsky.social for hosting me and for the nice discussions about life and science #Marchantia #EvoMPMI

Front cover of a postcard to advertise an upcoming special issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany titled "Emerging Themes and Technologies in Multi-Organismal Approaches to Understanding Mycorrhizal Functioning". The issue will be guest edited by David Johnson, Alan Wanke & Joanna Weremijewicz. The image shows the ectomycorrhiza formed by Scleroderma on Quercus roots (credit: Marta Brygida Kujawska).

**CLOSING SOON**

Special issue on "Multi-Organismal Approaches to Understanding Mycorrhizal Functioning

Editors: David Johnson, Alan Wanke & Joanna Weremijewicz

Deadline: 31st March 2025

Manuscripts welcomed, please contact us (bit.ly/JXBissues)

#JXBspecialissues 🌱 🌿 🧪 #plantscience

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Great start to the final day of #ICIPS2025 with a talk by @dromius.bsky.social showcasing the work of @davidjhoey.bsky.social about genetic control of marchantia reproductive strategies

Solanum pan-genetics reveals paralogues as contingencies in crop engineering - Nature Gene duplication and subsequent paralogue diversification are major obstacles to genotype-to-phenotype predictability.

🚨New paper published in @nature.com! Using pan-genetics across the Solanum genus🍅🥔🍆we reveal why gene duplications🧬are major contingencies in crop engineering. My postdoc work in the Lippman lab @CSHL, collab. with @katiejenike.bsky.social @mikeschatz.bsky.social chatz.bsky.social and many others!

Great lab, institute & mentor - come and join us!

Elon Musk survives as fellow of Royal Society despite anger among scientists Questions remain over whether further action will be taken after resignations and calls for the Tesla CEO to be expelled

Are you serious @royalsociety.org?? He is trying to destroy science, spreading dangerous misinformation, inciting violence & your response is to do nothing?

So what’s your purpose then? What do you exist for? Other than being elite?

🧪 #academicsky

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

The remarkable Starships - large mobile elements capable of moving large genomic regions in fungal populations. Changes everything we thought we knew about horizontal gene transfer among fungi and the mobility of large proportion of pan genomes ⁦‪Aaron Vogan‬⁩ #ECFG17

Really grateful to have won a postdoctoral poster award at #Fungal24. If you weren't at the conference or couldn't make it during my slot, the poster is now available on Zenodo: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo…. Drop me a line if you have any questions or suggestions 🙏

An ode to Evo-MPMI by AmirAli Toghani at our yearly #SchoBozKaKouDeRella symposium

Save the date promotional image for the Sainsbury Laboratory Symposium, being held 17-19 September 2024 in Cambridge UK. Keynotes by Keiko Sugimoto (RIKEN) and Zachary Lippman (CSHL). Graphic of computer chip with symbols representing the four themes - Reprogramming by 1. Evolution, 2. Domestication, 3. Environment and 4. Engineering.

⭐SAVE THE DATE⭐ Sainsbury Laboratory Symposium | 17-19 September 2024 | Cambridge, UK. Theme: Development - Reprogrammed.
Registrations open 1 March.
ℹ️ www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/sainsbury-la...
Organisers @dromius.bsky.social & Alexander Jones

An illustration of a sorrel leaf. Text reads: Join us as an Associate Professor (or Professor) in Molecular Plant Biology

We have an exciting opportunity to join us as an Associate Professor (or Professor) in Molecular Plant Biology!

Establish or maintain your own collaborative, supportive research group and offer innovative teaching to students.

Deadline to apply is 1 March ➡️ bit.ly/3OgnqQO
#plantsci

To a new year of fun science and lovely people!

Cantabrigians! Do you want to discover more about the intimate relationships between plants and fungi? Interested in learning how to make the invisible visible? 🔎Join Raffy and myself for our course at Cambridge Botanic Garden in May! t.co/6J9UbfgD1I

Mother trees, altruistic fungi, and the perils of plant personification There are growing doubts about the true role of the common mycorrhizal networks (CMN or wood wide web) connecting the roots of trees in forests. We qu…

📜 Mother trees, altruistic fungi, and the perils of plant personification

🧑‍🔬 David G. Robinson, Torgny Näsholm, et al.

📔 Trends in Plant Science

🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#️⃣ (Feeds) #PlantScience #PlantBiology #ArbuscularMycorrhiza #MPMI

Thermospermine is an evolutionarily ancestral phytohormone required for organ development and stress... Abstract. Thermospermine suppresses auxin-inducible xylem differentiation, whereas its structural isomer, spermine, is involved in stress responses in angiosper

📜 Thermospermine is an evolutionarily ancestral phytohormone required for organ development and stress responses in Marchantia polymorpha

🧑‍🔬 Takuya Furumoto, Taku Takahashi, et al.

📔 Plant & Cell Physiology

🔗 academic.oup.com/pcp/advance-...

#️⃣ (Feeds) #PlantScience #PlantEvoDevo #Phytohormones

Spatial IMA1 regulation restricts root iron acquisition on MAMP perception - Nature Microorganism-associated molecular patterns such as flagellin lead to suppression of root iron acquisition through localized degradation of the systemic iron-deficiency signalling peptide Iron Man 1 i...

📜Spatial IMA1 regulation restricts root iron acquisition on MAMP perception

🧑‍🔬 Min Cao, Wolfgang Busch, et al.

📔 @natureportfolio.bsky.social

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#️⃣ (Feeds) #PlantScience #PlantImmunity #PlantNutrition

Commensal lifestyle regulated by a negative feedback loop between Arabidopsis ROS and the bacterial ... The plant immune output reactive oxygen species tames a detrimental bacterial commensal from native microbiota by suppressing a bacterial secretion system, allowing the co-existence and turning it int...

Excited to publish our recent work in Nature Communications@NatureComms!

We showed ROS tames a detrimental bacterial commensal from native microbiota by suppressing T2SS, allowing the co-existence and turning it into a beneficial bacterium to host.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am extremely grateful to everyone who supported me through the application process. Special thanks to @dromius.bsky.social for the incredible mentorship and to Katie Field, @kamounlab.bsky.social and Giles Oldroyd for supporting my application. Huge shout out also to the fab SLCU community!

A good start to the year: I am delighted to announce that this week marks the start of my @leverhulme.bsky.social Early Career Fellowship at @slcuplants.bsky.social, supporting my work on mycorrhizal interactions between Mucoromycotina Fine Root Endophytes and plants. Exciting times ahead!👨🏼‍🔬🧬

Very excited to announce the 2024 Cellular & Molecular Fungal Biology GRC organised by @annaselmecki.bsky.social
& myself with theme of 'Fungal Communication' in all of its diverse forms. Check out speakers & program using QR code below.

A GH81-type β-glucan-binding protein enhances colonization by mutualistic fungi in barley Cell walls are important interfaces of plant-fungal interactions, acting as robust physical and chemical barriers against invaders. Upon fungal coloni…

📜 A GH81-type β-glucan-binding protein enhances colonization by mutualistic fungi in barley

🧑‍🔬 @alanwanke.bsky.social, Alga Zuccaro, et al.

📔 @currentbiology.bsky.social

🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#️⃣ (Feeds) #PlantScience #PlantImmunity

Finally got the chance to meet @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social in person. Great talk and discussions! Thanks for stopping by at SLCU Cambridge - hopefully there are no interruptions on your journey back.

Using both long-read bacterial genomes 🦠and short-read fungal metagenomes 🍄, we realized we are only a few pages in to the novel that is understanding these 🧬-binding effector proteins in an endofungal symbiosis!

Check out our preprint that includes some of my favorite figures I've ever made 👩‍🎨