Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.

1/8 🔥 New preprint dropped: Dynamic co-existence of bacteriophages and their hosts 🦠 in the Arabidopsis thaliana 🌱 phyllosphere
Work led by the indomitable @sheilaroitman.bsky.social‬
#plantscience #microbiome #holobiont
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Preprint alert 🚨 (1/10) 🧵

𝘈𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘢𝘨𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘹 𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺:
It can promote resistance, susceptibility, or restrict cell death 🤯

So what is its actual role?

We show it acts as a spatial organizer of immunity across cell types 🌱🦠 #proteostasis

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

Really cool story on spatial dynamics of #immunity & #autophagy!!! Congrats @suaybuestuen.bsky.social and everyone involved!!!

Wow congratulations Borg et al.!

Undaria pinnatifida gametophyte

Our work on chromatin evolution in brown algae is now published in @natecoevo.nature.com! We show that developmentally complex brown algae evolved without epigenetic silencing pathways long thought universal, underscoring why non-model lineages are important to study. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Preprint alert!

I am extremely happy to finally (!) share our work on the redox-dependent regulation of the CRKs in plants!

We integrated high-throughput interactomics, redox proteomics, structural modelling, and genetics to map a ROS-dependent CRK interaction landscape in Arabidopsis.

Do you both give the same exact talk, but with french and spanish accents, respectively?

Next speaker is @incavirus.bsky.social who will talk about virus vertical transmission in plant stem cells and gametes #MBP2026

Securing two group leader positions at the same institute is no small feat. 

From IMP postdocs to group leaders: Laura Lorenzo-Orts and Ulrich Hohmann started their labs at IMB Mainz this year:

New OA Brief Comm: "Cross-kingdom RNA interference promotes arbuscular mycorrhiza development" rdcu.be/e72nc

Symbiotic fungi forming widespread arbuscular mycorrhiza symbioses use cross-kingdom RNAi to silence plant genes and promote their colonization of host roots.

Two scientists in lab coats analyzing plant samples in a greenhouse filled with yellow flowers.

📢New paper alert:
🍄 Friendly #fungi hijack #plant regulator to promote #symbiosis - study uncovers #mechanism that helps fungi to colonize plant #roots
👉 Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@an-pocheng.bsky.social @carogutj.bsky.social

Excited to announce I’m starting a new lab at @gmivienna.bsky.social (Vienna BioCentre) in Sept 2026

We study how carbon fixation is inherited and maintained in algae using cryo-ET, imaging, environmental sampling&more

Looking for people who want to build the lab together, get in touch!

#teamtomo

We’re thrilled to welcome @incavirus.bsky.social to #SeedCon2026! 🌿

From PhD work at IBMP to the Gregor Mendel Institute, Marco now leads his own lab at @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social. He’ll be sharing his research on antiviral immunity in plant stem cells and germlines!
seedcon.org
#SeedCon #Virology

There is a week left to apply for two available positions in my lab @ipbhalle.bsky.social

- PhD: ipb-halle.mhm.jobs/12-phd-posit...

- Postdoc: ipb-halle.mhm.jobs/13-postdocto...
Earliest start date: 01/05/2026.

We are interested in plant immune receptor biochemistry and evolution. Please share!

Thank you for coming @thorstenlangner.bsky.social
I hope the new start is smooth sailing :)

I really enjoyed the very nice and interesting day @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social yesterday! Thanks again to everyone for the great discussions and special thanks to @incavirus.bsky.social for inviting me!

Really happy to see this one out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Alibek's drive & great coll w/ friends @gekaragoz.bsky.social & E. Hallacli resulted in a cool story that starts with our beloved #Marchantia and ends with iPSC-derived neurons 🤩🤪 A short 🧵

Wooohooo felicitations Pierre! Fantastic!

Long in the making, but happy to present the Chlamydomonas chlororibosome!
Cryo-ET🔬reveals a large new domain on the small subunit, built from multiple extensions in conserved ribosomal proteins.
bioRxiv 📖: shorturl.at/q44tG
This suggests greater chlororibosome diversity than expected!
1/n 🧵

Postdoctoral position in biology (m/f/d) (2/2026) Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (Halle) offers a Postdoctoral position in Biology

Please share! We are looking for a postdoctoral scientist (2 years, extension possible) starting from 01/05/2026 at
@ipbhalle.bsky.social! The project focuses on plant immune receptor biochemistry and structural biology.
Deadline 09/03/2026.

Apply at: ipb-halle.mhm.jobs/11-postdocto...

It was a great pleasure to host Nick Irwin from @gmivienna.bsky.social here at @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social, where he talked about their work on horizontal gene transfer, its effect on evolution and on the development of new molecular pathways. Looking forward to follow future developments!

Duckweeds are an important plant research model but have been challenging to modify genetically. A study published in @newphyt.bsky.social by the Marí-Ordóñez group at the GMI, presents a new and highly reproducible method for genetic transformation in the duckweed species Spirodela polyrhiza.

Please share!
My group at @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social is offering a post-doctoral position (4 years). We look for a structural biologist with experience in Cryo-EM/Cryo-ET to investigate the mechanisms of host invasion by pathogenic fungi. Deadline February 28th!
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

Germline fate determination by a single ARGONAUTE protein in Ectocarpus | PNAS ARGONAUTE (AGO) proteins are a highly conserved family of RNA-binding proteins that play central roles in gene regulation and developmental process...

One protein. One pathway. A whole germline fate.

New paper from my postdoc @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social out in PNAS:
Germline fate determination by a single ARGONAUTE protein in Ectocarpus www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New OA Article: "Long-distance transport of siRNAs with functional roles in pollen development" rdcu.be/e1pxk

...These mobile small RNAs support proper pollen development, revealing that non-cell-autonomous small RNAs are crucial for successful plant reproduction.

Thank you @zivirus.bsky.social for visiting and sharing your lab's science!

Ziv Spiegelmann (left) and Marco Incarbone (right) standing outside near an office building in snowy weather. They are both smiling in the camera.

Thanks a lot to @zivirus.bsky.social visiting us from @volcaniinstitute.bsky.social to talk about the #tobamovirus revealing a crossroad between viral movement and #PlantImmunity 🍅🦠

Thanks as well to @incavirus.bsky.social for hosting! 🙏

Here we go again! Join us in Vienna, May 21–22, for two days of plant science—talks, discussions, and celebration of what makes plants both beautiful and essential 💚Full program + registration here: www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/news-eve...
Come be part of it — each of you counts!

A warm welcome goes to
@miyapan.bsky.social
who has joined the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen as a new Max Planck Research Group Leader! Read more about her "Insect Sex Determination and Development" group here:
tinyurl.com/9sbj5b3u
We wish you a great start Miya!
#MaxPlanck #Biology