Apologies - registration still possible until 21 April!

Still time to register — deadline extended to 17 April!

Join us this summer in Scotland to discuss how we can translate epigenetic insights from model systems into crop plants.

Looking forward to great discussions and new connections!

forms.office.com/pages/respon...

Still time to register — deadline extended to 17 April!

Join us this summer in Scotland to discuss how we can translate epigenetic insights from model systems into crop plants.

Looking forward to great discussions and new connections!

forms.office.com/pages/respon...

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...

Nice paper!

Cambridge offers botany course that inspired Darwin after rare archive uncovered University’s botanic garden will use study materials created by John Stevens Henslow, the naturalist’s mentor, 200 years ago

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Cambridge offers botany course that inspired Darwin after rare archive uncovered University’s botanic garden will use study materials created by John Stevens Henslow, the naturalist’s mentor, 200 years ago

Cambridge offers botany course that inspired Darwin after rare archive uncovered
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Check out the four-week residential program being offered - application deadline 7 April. www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/learning/cer...

📌Have a look at this meeting¡

It sounds too good to miss✨

Aline Probst, @alineprobst.bsky.social, one of our @episeedlink.bsky.social supervisors, is one of the keynote speakers 👏

Registration link below:

forms.office.com/pages/respon...

🌱 We’re excited to launch the BBSRC-funded UK Plant Epigenetics Network (UK-PEN) with our inaugural workshop (free!):

“Plant Epigenetics: From Model to Crop Species”
📅 11–12 June 2026
📍 Uni of Dundee (hybrid)

We look forward to welcoming you!

Feel free to repost to help us reach the community

How much protein diversity can Life on Earth actually generate?

With DIAMOND DeepClust, we show how billions of proteins across the tree of life can be clustered at low-identity for downstream analytics tasks.

📚Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
💻Code: github.com/bbuchfink/di...

🔥Fantastic paper!🔥

TE with a role in vegetative phase change and gametogenesis, mediated by 24-nt siRNAs acting in trans to a wide range of genes. Found by GWAS in A. thaliana 🌱. Congratulations to the authors! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
#epigenetics #plantscience
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I am extremely grateful to receive a Research Leadership Award from the Leverhulme Trust to study the epigenetic mechanisms underlying environmental stress memory in crops @dundee.ac.uk and @hutton.ac.uk 🍓🍅🌱

I’ll be advertising positions in our group soon - stay tuned!

buff.ly/pI5Bqoo

Systematic investigation of interindividual variation of DNA methylation in human whole blood - Genome Biology Background Interindividual genetic variability is well characterised, but we still lack a complete catalogue of loci displaying variable and stable epigenetic patterns. Results Here, we report a catal...

Excited to share our latest publication on interindividual variation of DNA methylation in human whole blood, spearheaded by the amazing Olivia Grant and co-led with @leo-schalkwyk.bsky.social and Meena Kumari.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

Plant genome sequencing workflow. Details: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-026-12623-z

Need a genome sequence of your favourite plant? We laid out instructions for a complete workflow based on ONT sequencing:

"Cookbook for plant genome sequences"
doi.org/10.1186/s128...

#Genomics #LongReads #PlantSciences #Bioinformatics
@puckerlab.bsky.social @unibonn.bsky.social

We are shaking our tissue culture lucky charm for you. We just got out of bad contamination, fingers crossed it won't come back 🤞

One single protein, one big decision: how brown algae know when to reproduce. New press release on how researchers in the Department of Algae Development and Evolution have discovered a remarkably streamlined strategy for developmental control in brown algae.
Read on here: tinyurl.com/3taptpba

This paper is also a reminder of why I love comparative biology: sometimes, the most “minimal” systems reveal the clearest logic of how complex regulatory networks really work.

It turns out… a lot.
In Ectocarpus, this single ARGONAUTE integrates small-RNA pathways with germline fate determination, showing how deeply RNA silencing can be wired into developmental decisions.

Back in 2021, a simple question started this project for me:
Why do land plants have many ARGONAUTE genes (Arabidopsis has ~10), while brown algae have just one?
What does that single ARGONAUTE actually do?

Thank you to all the authors who made this work possible, and to Dr Susana Coelho for her role as co-corresponding author and for her contributions to the project.

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/...

I am excited to offer a postdoctoral research position in my lab in Oxford studying the distribution of small RNAs during plant sexual reproduction. shorturl.at/7Goxt
Reposts appreciated!
Obligatory cat video to brighten your day. :-)

Excited to share @robynemm.bsky.social and I will be co-chairing a session on plant epigenetics in development and plasticity at @sebiology.bsky.social Annual meeting in Florence

Registration is now open! Submit your abstracts and enjoy some fantastic chromatin biology in beautiful Italy ☀️ 🧬

An expanded registry of candidate cis-regulatory elements - Nature The existing ENCODE registry of candidate human and mouse cis-regulatory elements is expanded with the addition of new ENCODE data, integrating new functional data as well as new cell and tissue types...

Our paper on the newest version of the Registry of candidate cis-Regulatory Elements (cCREs) is out 🧬

Huge thanks to the many collaborators, experimentalists, analysts and software developers who made this work possible — truly a team effort!

A "meme-torial" of the science is coming soon 👀

New paper on genome editing in brown algae by Dr. Claudia Martinho, former member of Susana Coelho's Algal Development and Evolution Department, in collaboration with Masakazu Hoshino, Morgane Raphalen, Viktoriia Bukhanets, Anagha Kerur, @kbogaert.bsky.social, Rémy Luthringer, and Susana Coelho

Do plants and animals evolve organs under different molecular evolutionary constraints? 🌱🐾

A really nice paper just out in Cell.

We’re very happy to share this method with the community and hope it will be useful 🌿
If you try it out and your algae have opinions about it, we’re always happy to chat!

Importantly, the protocol is transferable across species, including Scytosiphon, and ecologically and economically important kelps such as Laminaria and Undaria.