How are RNAs sorted for export vs. degradation in the nucleus? In collaboration with @heick.bsky.social’s lab we (@clemensplaschka.bsky.social and @juliusbrennecke.bsky.social labs) discovered a direct mechanistic link between the export and decay machineries: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... (1/x)

I am excited to announce that I will be moving to IMB Mainz next year! The Winter call for the IPP PhD program is now open; if you are interested in maternal #mRNA regulation and #translation in early vertebrate development, please apply! Deadline: 16 October. More info: www.imb.de/students-pos...

Love RNA biology? Join us to explore the piRNA pathway with structural and genetic approaches (see 👇👇). PhD student/postdoc position co-supervised by Clemens Plaschka & myself. DM or email us if you’d like to know more! @vbcscitraining.bsky.social @imbavienna.bsky.social @impvienna.bsky.social

My first first-author paper is out!🎉 Here we propose a model where a silencing complex, PIWI*, assembles on target RNAs to recruit effectors and shut down transposon activity. Huge thanks to the Brennecke and Plaschka labs, especially Julius and Clemens, and all co-authors!

PIWI clade Argonautes are essential for transposon silencing. Without them, animals are sterile due to massive transposon activity. But how does piRNA-guided target interaction translate into silencing? PhD student Júlia Portell Montserrat has an intriguing answer www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Close inter-lab collaborations with shared PhD students and postdocs are the future! Julia is the hero of this work, she is currently looking for postdoc labs …

Target RNA recognition drives PIWI∗ complex assembly for transposon silencing

New paper by our Plaschka lab with Brennecke’s lab at IMBA! Researchers at the Vienna BioCenter have solved a 20-year-old mystery in genome biology, revealing how PIWI proteins engage partner molecules to silence “jumping genes” that threaten genetic stability.

So happy to see the PhD work of Emilio Santillán published—what an amazingly elegant piece of work!! Working with him and Luisa at the IMP was a great and formative experience.

1/ How do animals develop immunity against a newly encountered transposable element from scratch? Our study reveals that the mobility of TEs is their Achilles heel, allowing hosts to develop a powerful small RNA-mediated silencing response. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

My colleagues Baptise Rafanel et al. investigated how a newly invading transposon can be silenced. They found that not only antisense insertions in piRNA clusters such as flamenco, but also insertions in the 3‘UTR of genes can drive potent silencing.

Pls. share widely Calling all transposon fans & lovers of genetic innovation MOBILE GENOME welcomes you in Heidelberg, Nov. 4–7 2025 → Vibrant & friendly community → Cutting-edge talks from mechanisms to physiology → Plenty of surprises (TEs never stop innovating) submit abstract by July 29

We found a new asymmetry in the large-scale chromosome structure: sister chromatids are systematically shifted by hundreds of kb in the 5′→3′ direction of their inherited strands! The work was led by Flavia Corsi, in close collaboration with the Daniel Gerlich lab. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/

📖 Happy to share our recent preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We discovered how SINEs are kept silent: the ChAHP protein complex acts as a molecular brake on POL III transcription retrotransposons. A 🧵:

The fascinating work spearheaded by Kirsten Senti on the diversification and adaptation of endogenous retroviruses in the host gonad 'ecosystem'' is officially published.

I freaking 😍 this paper. The ecology of the genome is one thing. The ecology of the Drosophila ovary another.

🚨📢 New paper alert! A study led by Kirsten Senti and Julius Brennecke offers new insights into how ancient endogenous retroviruses diversified to exploit different cell “niches” in the fruit fly ovary, and how the host’s defenses adapted in return. https://imba.science/Brennecke_EMBOJ

REFEREE 1: “I conclude with a simple, direct statement - this is the best paper I have read all year!” #TransparentPeerReview Co-evolving infectivity and expression patterns drive the diversification of endogenous retroviruses @juliusbrennecke.bsky.social et al www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

The @viennabiocenter.bsky.social PostDoc Program call is now open! We have 16 fully-funded positions for scientists with a PhD in biology, chemistry, physics, bioinformatics etc. Apply here: training.vbc.ac.at/post-docs/vi... #VBCPostDoc

Highly interesting work from Riedelbauch et al. from Peter Andersen‘s Lab @germline.bsky.social

Earnshaw, Goloborodko, Dekker & Mirny labs are excited to present our latest work, "Rules of engagement for condensins and cohesins guide mitotic chromosome formation" - now accepted!! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... A short clip describing the key results: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmvO...

A thread from the Postdoc who led the work on bacterial Telomeric transposons. A wonderful collaboration with the Barabas lab. Officially out in the journal today!

IMBA is recruiting a Junior Group Leader! Are you interested in starting your own lab, pursuing curiosity-driven basic research in the life sciences? Apply now to our group leader position. The deadline is May 28. Link is below.

1. For the past thirty years I've had the best job in the world. 
I've had the opportunity to follow my curiosity; explore the workings of nature and society; mentor students and junior colleagues in the same process; and teach generations of students about it all.

1/ Transposable elements are often called "jumping genes" because they mobilize within genomes. 🧬 But did you know they can also jump 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 cells? 🤯 Our new study reveals how retrotransposons invade the germline directly from somatic cells. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A short thread 🧵👇

I am thrilled to share our story online at @cellpress.bsky.social . Big thanks to all authors: Zhiping, Bill, @lubanlab.bsky.social, Keith & bluesky-less! authors.elsevier.com/c/1kjdaL7PXu... How to tame a genome invader? It takes wild koalas 🐨🐨 to learn it. #Retrovirus #koala #piRNA More below 👇

"Scientists have to organize, they have to protest, they have to make their case to the public. They must never give in." Quote from Paul Nurse (2001 Nobel) from upcoming interview in @annualreviews.bsky.social with him and Bruce Alberts (former President NAS). @standupforscience.bsky.social‬ today

Beautiful work on the copia retrotransposon by Sven Klumpe (ex-MPI, soon IMBA/IMP) and Kirsten Senti from the Brennecke Lab!

- EMBL with EMBL outstations - Max Planck institutes in Germany (e.g. Dresden, Goettingen) - Vienna BioCenter (IMP, IMBA, GMI, Max Perutz Labs) - FMI Basel - ETH Zürich - CEITEC Brno - CRG Barcelona - Hubrecht Institute (Netherlands) - EPFL Lausanne

we recently found some really neat RNA-guided DNA-cutting systems in phages. Despite remarkable similarities to CRISPR systems, including encoding guide RNAs in arrays, they appear entirely evolutionarily distinct (but definitely related to snoRNAs 🤓) We decided to call them TIGR-Tas systems 🐯

Join us from May 7-9 at the Vienna BioCenter for the 19th Microsymposium on RNA Biology.

#Argonautes2025 update ... it will happen this August (27-30) @imgprague.bsky.social. Our ITs are finishing and testing the website, the registration will open on March 1st. More info will be provided later (once all speakers reply to my e-mail, just saying, not pushing 😁). Poster announcement:

Our lab is now on Bluesky! 🚀 Kicking things off by sharing @fedeteloni.bsky.social latest preprint on the role of cohesin in homology search. Check out the thread for more details!

Thrilled to announce that the EMBO workshop «Mobile Genome» will be back in Heidelberg, Nov 4-7th 2025 @EMBLEvents @EMBO. Registration open soon but you can already register interest. Organized with fantastic colleagues @juliusbrennecke @GonzalezLab_BCN @JoePetersLab www.embl.org/about/info/c...

So happy to see that energy and community vibe from the early days in the old place, looks like #SciSky is reaching critical mass 😍 Reporting for duty with tales of the weird and wonderful cell biology you never knew you needed to know 🫡 🧪🌏🦠

The amazing work of Ulrich and other colleagues from the Brennecke and Plaschka labs is now out, reconciling decades of mRNA export research with elegant biochemical and structural data.

⏰✉️!! Registration open until March 3rd!! 13th NON-CODING GENOME International course for Master, PhD students and postdocs #NGC2024. Special session on transposons #TE > Apply here: training.institut-curie.org/courses/non-co… 📅 May 22-29, 2024 📍 @institut_curie, Paris FR

Join us in Vienna for the 18th Microsymposium on RNA biology. Registration link: events.vbc.ac.at/imba_events/...