Join us for the @qmulepigenetics.bsky.social annual conference on June 18th in Mile End, should be a nice full day covering various angles on epigenetics, from evolution to disease. See more details here: www.qmul.ac.uk/epigenetics/...

Excited to share our new study on CpG islands (CGIs) regulation by transcription factors (TFs)! CGIs drive most transcription initiation with unclear regulation. We find that chromatin-opening TFs are key players—following a surprisingly simple rule. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/9

Excited to share our first story led by @martinacapriati.bsky.social! How do cells control the expression of viability genes? We find that single transcription factors can drive both chromatin opening and gene activation from densely co-bound CpG island promoters, including at essential genes

A very nice piece about our latest paper published in Open Biology by @royalsocietypublishing.org It's about how venom-producing stinging cells use chromatic modifications to determine their biochemical identity: royalsociety.org/blog/2026/04...

Exhausted but extremely happy for the two past days of very exciting Science! The EvoDevOmics Spanish Network gathered together in BCN to discuss about evodevo & omics, lots of great talks, discussions and future collaborations. 🤩 #evodevo

Thanks to Hollie Marshall, James Ord, @alexdemendoza.bsky.social & everyone who joined us this week for the DNA Methylation workshop. It was a fantastic week of discussion, hands-on work, and shared ideas across ecology and evolution. Great to see such strong engagement throughout the course!

We are very happy to kick off the #DNAmethylation course with @alexdemendoza.bsky.social Hollie Marshall James Ord and a great group of attendees from all over the globe! www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...

Very proud of my 2nd PhD student, Pedro Romero Charria, who defended his viva yesterday. Big thanks to @michael-imbeault.bsky.social and Roman Arguello for the discussion. Pedro's main work on #6mA in protists was published late last year (www.nature.com/articles/s41...), but there's more to come!

Super happy to share the published version of our study: “Germline sequence variation within the ribosomal DNA is associated with human complex traits” in Cell Genomics www.cell.com/cell-genomic...!

How come giant mimivirus virions retain icosahedral symmetry like smaller viruses? Chantal Abergel, Hugo Bisio @molbiolgv.bsky.social et al use bioinformatics, genetics & interactomics to elucidate spatial & functional organization of mimivirus virion morphogenesis link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Last day to submit an abstract! This is a meeting aimed at all career stages, but especially geared on early career scientists (PhD/postdoc), don't feel you need to have a perfectly polished story to present!

Nice opportunity to join QMUL as a PhD student (or postdoc). Lee works on cool insect symbiosis projects, and I am co-supervisor on this one. Don't miss it if you're into microbiome / host-microbe interactions.

May 5th: if you are around London, please join the London #EvoDevo symposium at QMUL / Charterhouse campus, as usual we will have selected talks and post-event 🍻. A warm up for #EED2026 in Glasgow. Registration £0, more info here: londonevodevo.co.uk

We're excited to announced that our 2nd Annual QMUL Centre for Epigenetics Conference is happening on June 18th, 2026 at Mile End! To find out more and book your ticket, please follow this link: www.qmul.ac.uk/epigenetics/... The deadline to book your tickets is Monday, June 8th 2026.

Our latest: Independent origins of spicules reconcile paleontological and molecular evidence of sponge evolutionary history, led by @meleonora-rossi.bsky.social with help from friends @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social including @anariesgo.bsky.social @evopalaeo.bsky.social Davide Pisani and many others

Our work on the evolution of the regulatory genome of echinoderms is now out in @natecoevo.nature.com. Led by my former PhD Marta Magri, Danila Voronov & Saoirse Foley. Great collaboration of Arnone, Hinman & Maeso labs, started long time ago with our missed José Luis Gomez-Skarmeta: rdcu.be/eXX8l

Microbial eukaryotes keep challenging assumptions about eukaryotic cell and genome biology. Our upcoming workshop explores the frontier of protist genomics and how it shapes cell biology, ecology and evolution. Please save the date! Talks, posters and ECR events Websites and details coming soon

Extensive horizontal transfer of transposable elements shapes fungal mobilomes @currentbiology.bsky.social by @jromeijn.bsky.social et al from @mfseidl.bsky.social www.cell.com/current-biol...

An early Christmas present for those interested in chromatin and transcription! Fantastic work from @au-ho-yu.bsky.social and @aleksszczurek.bsky.social . Thanks to Inge and Michiel for their help. Please repost! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

It is amazing that @dudinlab.bsky.social beautiful #ExM composition has been selected to highlight our #6mA work for the cover of @natgenet.nature.com. #Protists (and ichthyosporeans in particular) in the cover of NG must be quite unique!

Really happy to have been granted a #ERCCoG, grateful to the team who made this possible, and to the community who considered this work promising! If you (or someone you know) are/is interested in #chromatin evolution and #giantViruses, please do get in touch, there will be positions available.

Unpause! I'm super happy to now be able to share the published version of our paper at Science Advances showing that: 1) active histone mods occur independently of transcription 2) transcription coordinates histone deacetylation at active promoters www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Is it a flagellate? A tiny ball with tentacles? Contamination in my ciliate culture? NEW SUPERGROUP OF EUKARYOTES? Yes to all 4! Meet Solarion - just out in #Nature doi.org/10.1038/s415... Huge congrats to Marek Valt, Cepicka Lab & the star team! Very happy to be part of this project. #ProtistsOnSky

Cellular structure self-organizes through an interplay between internal mechanisms and external cues. The single-celled suctorian P. collini builds a trap structure to capture large prey using microtubule feeding tentacles, creating feedback between cell morphology and prey availability.

And also out, the short Research Briefings summarising our #6mA findings, with an honest explanation of the origins of this project (tldr: this was never planned, but a serendipitous branching point of another project): www.nature.com/articles/s41...

TE x ZFP = Evolution! Writing this with Olga @orpsf.bsky.social & Didier @trono-lab.bsky.social was a major highlight of my 🇨🇭sabbatical. Such a treat! 🍫Hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoy piecing it together.

Fun week for DNA methylation research! Here is a thread of three cool papers that came out, all with an evolution angle. And a bonus 4th that examines DNAme/PcG interplay (certainly an interest for our lab!) #Epigenetics

piRNA-directed DNA methylation may not be a mammalian invention, but can already be found in the germline of axolotl salamanders Donal O’Carroll and coworkers www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

1/ I’m very excited to share my postdoc work with @kseskv.bsky.social, in collaboration with @oligriffith.bsky.social. We explore embryonic DNA methylation reprogramming in the fat-tailed dunnart, an Australian marsupial 🦘🌏 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Out today, our take on 6-methyladenine #6mA evolution in Eukaryotes @natgenet.nature.com. We asked a simple question, is really DNA 6mA common across the eukaryotes? The answer is "yes" if you're a unicellular eukaryote 🦠, not so if you're multicellular 🐝🌱🍄. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/9

🚨 We're hiring! 🚨 Our lab at the University of Málaga, Spain🇪🇸 is looking for a bioinformatician researcher for a postdoc position (1+1 years). Check the ad, and if you're interested, get in touch! 📅 Starting date early 2026, with some flexibility. 🙏Please, RT!

I am delighted to share our latest work on memory gene circuits for plants. This work was led by the phenomenal PhD student @patrickgong.bsky.social A lot of debugging & highlights how even simple components in synthetic biology can have unexpected properties. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨Our collaboration with @centriolelab.bsky.social & @gautamdey.bsky.social is out today in @cp-cell.bsky.social We show that #Expansion #Microscopy is a broad-spectrum modality for Euks, enabling 3D phenotypic maps rooted to phylogeny. #ProtistsOnSky #SciComm #SciSky www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Very happy to see our paper published online natcomms.nature.com. Thank you to @wellcometrust.bsky.social for funding this work during my time with @robklose.bsky.social and David Booth! Thanks also to collaborators @garcialabms.bsky.social @alexdemendoza.bsky.social and the other authors!

Come join the #LondonEvoDevo network half day meeting, hosted at @ucl.ac.uk on Friday November 7th, 2025. Submit your abstract by Oct 27th (or your interest in joining) here: forms.gle/TRbdrCkQTcY2.... Friendly vibes and free registration. More info here: londonevodevo.co.uk.

Did transposable elements shape brain evolution — and if so, which ones, and in which cell states and lineages? Led by @tyamadat.bsky.social, we explored this question in cerebellum development using sequence-based deep learning models! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We are happy to share our latest work in @nature.com . We study the genomic and cellular basis of facultative symbiosis in Oculina patagonica - a Mediterranean coral remarkable for its ability to survive long periods without algal symbionts. Led by Shani Levy and @xgrau.bsky.social rdcu.be/eLbaZ

As a Transposable Element aficionado and a birder, this paper is just the best. Oenanthes are such beautiful birds.

Our latest paper on a histone methyltransferase-independent function of PRC2 controlling small RNA dynamics during programmed DNA elimination in Paramecium is now published in #NAR. #RNAbiology #TEsky #smallRNAs #PRC2 #DNAelimination 1/5 academic.oup.com/nar/article-...

Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports... This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵

"(...) an extremely large transposon, Teratorn, containing a herpesvirus genome, was inserted into the hoxc12a 3' UTR. This insertion decreased hoxc12a expression & (...) also affected neighboring hox genes, resulting in variations in fin size and the presence or absence of dorsal fins."

It was fantastic welcoming back Chema Martin @chemamd.bsky.social from @qmulsbbs.bsky.social at the Centre today 👏 He shared with us his latest work on spiralian larvae evolution, with fascinating insights on the timing of gene expression during development. Thank you for visiting us!

Connecting different “neighborhoods” of a genome has many benefits. For one, it can allow a gene to be regulated by multiple sources, increasing the possibility for more complexity.

A Nobel-winning scientist of great modesty and humour, John Gurdon died on 7 Oct. Not only did he make a discovery that laid the foundations for stem cell research, he also created one of the best environments for research at the Wellcome/CRUK Gurdon Institute wellcome.org/news/sir-joh...

Our latest: combining single-cell RNA-seq from 16 species and HCR validation, we show that monoaminergic neurons share a conserved transcriptional identity across Bilateria. In contrast, we find no evidence for this program in non-bilaterian metazoans. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨 My lab is hiring at all levels! Interested in animal origins & evolutionary cell biology? I'm recruiting a postdoc, PhD students & a research assistant to study the molecular evolution of cell adhesion using marine invertebrates + comparative genomics. 🔗: clarkelab.com/join/ Please repost!

Thrilled to share that the lab has been awarded a @wellcometrust.bsky.social Discovery Award to keep exploring the evolution of 6-methyladenine #6mA in Eukaryotes. We'll open postdoc (3️⃣) and tech (1️⃣) positions to start in 2026, please share with candidates or reach out if you’d like to join us.

Our latest #preprint led by Yumary M. Vasquez & Frederik Schulz @jgi.doe.gov The largest database of giant #virus MAGs (GVMAGs V2) with >18,000 genomes from #marine, freshwater, anthropogenic and terrestrial environments. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Today in @nature.com, we present our work leveraging functional genomics and human blastoids to uncover a human-specific mechanism in preimplantation development driven by the endogenous retrovirus HERVK. Special thanks to the reviewers whose comments improved our manuscript a lot! rdcu.be/eI3tD