Since moving to @stowersinstitute.bsky.social, we are now 100% focused hemipteran effectors. We have many opportunities in the lab: computational, volume EM, live imaging (multiple scales), field work, cell biology, biochemistry, etc. Interested? Reach out! Will consider any career stage.
This work led by Fatema Bhinderwala in Gronenborn lab and Aishwarya Korgaonkar in mine!
New paper from the Stern and Gronenborn labs on structure and evolution of aphid bicycle effector proteins.
We show how alphafold can generate accurate predictions for these rapidly evolving proteins and that these proteins are diverse in every possible way.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
A new Science Magazine commentary highlights #research from the Halfmann Lab exploring how immune signaling proteins act like a “phase-change battery,” storing energy until cells need to respond. 🔋
Read here: bit.ly/4rUEOv9
Junk RNA
New Preprint! When one enhancer allele changes another's regulatory output, is that bad? We found it could be a feature — interallelic cis-regulatory dominance buffers outputs AND enables evolutionary innovation. Two for one!
Led by @ottilie.bsky.social from @embl.org
doi: doi.org/10.64898/202...
Tiny brains. Big ideas. 🐝
Join us April 15 for #BIGIDEAS: The Minds of Insects at the Institute—an evening exploring how insects think, learn, and shape the world around us with @larschittka.bsky.social and @gallseeker.bsky.social.
🎟️ Registration is now open: bit.ly/4aFHJ5A
Remember her name: Aliya Rahman
Her testimony is everything and it deserves to be heard, by everyone. Decide for yourself.
It’s powerful. It’s gut-wrenching. And no one should have to survive what she did.
ICE MUST GO‼️
The invasive soybean pest Helicoverpa armigera has acquired resistance to Bt toxins from native H. zea in Brazil. We showing this in a time series of genome data from nearly 1000 individuals over 10 years, plus a lab strain experiment that verified the function
Excited about our new preprint showing bidirectional adaptive introgression between invasive and native crop pests over ecological timescales www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Fantastic!
How has this pun never occurred to me?
Watch the video.
Classroom learning has approximately nothing to do with being a scientist.
I fondly recall John sitting in the front row of seminars, shielding his eyes from the Powerpoint garbage so that he could listen intently to the spoken words. A true inspiration.
Mamdani talking lucidly and passionately about trans rights and history in a video that should frankly shame every politician who has hemmed and hawed and triangulated and said, "Well, but sports..." It's not that hard to tell the truth and stand for what's right. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEvV...
Why would a healthy cell decide to die? Investigator Randal Halfmann joined @npr.org's "All Things Considered" to discuss his #research on how and why cells decide to self-destruct—a process known as programmed cell death. #SciSky
🎧 Listen here: n.pr/3L4i1gF
In the history of authoritarian regimes promoting pseudoscience for ideological reasons, one that I just learned about: "World Ice Theory" and the Nazis.
www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/s...
Very sad to learn of the death of Sir John Gurdon. He made a huge contribution to developmental biology & should be an inspiration to anyone whose potential is dismissed in school. It was a pleasure to work with him when he was Chair of the COB Board. www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/john-gurdon-...
Figure from the preprint showing sensory neuron morphology with different levels of Cas9 expression.
High levels of Cas9 are toxic in sensory neurons. Reducing Cas9 levels with uORFs avoids toxicity and is compatible with efficient editing. From @thompsonpeerlab.bsky.social. Fly lines @vdrc-flies.bsky.social
#CRISPR #Drosophila
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”
Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943
FlyBase Update – October 2025 The termination of the NIH/NHGRI FlyBase grant has placed the long-term sustainability of FlyBase at risk. However, thanks to the generous support of several key individuals and institutions, we are pleased to announce that FlyBase will remain operational through the coming year. We extend our deepest gratitude to Yukiko Yamashita, Cassandra Extavour, Hugo Bellen, Thom Kaufman, the Genetics Society of America / Drosophila Board, the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center, an anonymous donor and the Wellcome Trust. We are especially thankful for a generous gift from Seemay Chou, Jed McCaleb, and The Navigation Fund. We also greatly appreciate the continued support from the broader Drosophila community – your donations and service fees have been vital in helping us stay afloat. Special thanks also go to Jessica Manning for her tireless administrative work at Harvard, to Ruth Lehmann, Hugo Bellen, and Paul Sternberg for advice and efforts, and to the Board of the European Drosophila Society for all their efforts. Sadly, we must also share that several long-standing FlyBase team members have recently moved on. We are immensely grateful to Susan Russo-Gelbart, Lynn Crosby, Gil dos Santos, Kris Broll, Victoria Jenkins, and TyAnna Lovato for their many years of dedicated service and contributions to FlyBase. Looking ahead, ensuring FlyBase’s sustainability beyond the next year – and successfully integrating with the Alliance – will require new funding sources. We kindly ask for your continued support: • European labs: Please consider contributing to the Cambridge, U.K. FlyBase group • U.S. and other non-European labs: Please consider contributing to the U.S. FlyBase groups • Both U.K. and U.S. FlyBase are working diligently to establish an invoicing system. We appreciate your continued patience. For more information on how to support us, please visit: Contribute to FlyBase wiki page https://wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase:Contribute_to_FlyBase
There's an update on the state of FlyBase on the FlyBase.org front page. You can contribute to FlyBase at this link wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase...
We express enormous gratitude to the people, labs, groups, and foundations who have already helped us.
#FlyBase #Drosophila
Agrawal lab logo. A fly in the UBC colors, with dots framing its body.
The Agrawal lab is moving! This January we will be setting up shop at #UBC in Vancouver, in the department of #Zoology! We are actively recruiting at all levels, especially masters and PhD students. These position are #funded! Please send anyone interested my way!
Haha. Part of the lab will be working to shorten their lives. But, yeah!
Thanks Arnaud. Sorry to be leaving the DMV, but onward, upward, and westward.
Thanks Fillip!
Thanks James. Much closer to Utah...
Thanks Alicia! Very exciting opportunity!
(Part 1) Hear from @hhmi_news Investigator David Stern about his research program and what he's uncovering in the lab.
Stern will join the Institute in February 2026, bringing his lab and HHMI appointment to Kansas City. @hhmi.org
Read more: bit.ly/4np96Fb
(Part 2)
“From my first visit, I was struck by the energy and excitement...It feels like being a graduate student again, chasing curiosity wherever it leads."
@hhmi.org Investigator David Stern will join the Stowers Institute in Feb. 2026 from @hhmijanelia.bsky.social.
Read more: bit.ly/4np96Fb
It's official! We are moving to Stowers!
Very exciting opportunity to expand our studies of insect-plant interactions. We have many opportunities available in biochemistry, development, behavior, genetics, evolution, genomics, AI, and even pest control. Interested in any of these things? Reach out!
I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA
10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
