Absolutely thrilled to share the latest work from my lab focused on the variation and evolution of human centromeres among global populations! We assembled 2,110 human centromeres, identifying 226 new major haplotypes and 1,870 α-satellite HOR variants. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Fellow yeast enthusiasts, does anyone have the genomic or amino-acid substitution for the cdc20-1 ts mutant - thanks!

Very cool to see Jana’s epic on point centromere evolution published. Congratulations to all! Although, it makes one wonder how these strange centromeres evolved in the first place?

www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.... Our latest now online at EMBO Journal. Read if you are interested in how epimutations mediate antifungal resistance & how this might result in heteroresistance in human & cereal crop fungal pathogens. Big Thx & congrats to Andreas Fellas, Pin Tong & Alison Pidoux

1/ 🐶💤 In Tony Hyman–style LLPS land: Scaffold = the dog bed Clients = extra dogs + toys that hop on Rule of the game: The bed decides where the nap-pile forms. Other dogs can jump on, but somehow they don’t change how the bed behaves.

How do new centromeres evolve while staying compatible with the division machinery? Discover it in our new Nature paper! We show centromeres transition gradually via a mix of drift, selection, and sex, reaching new states that still work with the kinetochore. 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09779-1

Happy to share our latest preprint. We uncover a previously uncharacterised and evolutionarily conserved chromatin architecture in premeiotic gonadal germ cells, revealed through integrated cytological and high-resolution Hi-C approaches. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Thread🧵🔽

Sooo.... um... it appears trump gave bill clinton a blowy? And Putin has photos 😳 Fake news or not, I'll believe this as canon for now on journaliststudio.google.com/pinpoint/doc... drive.google.com/file/d/1uwNM...

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Men will really come up with every stupid reason not to recognize their women colleagues’ contributions. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Apparently termites have spent the past few millennia secretly building the "equivalent to ∼4000 great pyramids of Giza" in Brazil. www.cell.com/current-biol...

New preprint from the lab: we show that the ability to switch mating type was lost at least 13 times independently in the evolution of S. cerevisiae. At least 27% of isolates are heterothallic with a strong association with polyploidy and heterozygosity www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The BUB1 and BUBR1 paralogs scaffold the kinetochore fibrous corona | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Congratulations @vcmentowski.bsky.social for solving a remarkably challenging molecular puzzle

One may argue unicellular life still rules the earth. Us multicellular forms are just really big and especially self-absorbed

People who upload preprints without the supplemental materials should go straight to jail

New preprint from lab adding to recent interest in yeast centromeres. There are dramatic changes in structure, but location is conserved www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Finally out! Check out our new work on how M18BP1, known so far to be important for the epigenetic maintenance of centromeres, supports chromosome condensation when the cell enters mitosis. We also uncover a regulatory ménage á trois between condensin II, M18BP1 and MCPH1.

NEW pub: The role of metabolism in shaping #enzyme structures over 400 million years. Now out in @nature.com Super grateful to have played a small role in this project - congrats to lead/corr authors Oliver, Benjamin, and Markus! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #alphafold #evolution #genomics

We have an opening for postdoctoral training! Please apply by 15th August 2025 for full consideration. Here is the ad: hittinger.genetics.wisc.edu/People/Join/...

A paper I have been working on with Oliver Lemke in the Ralser lab has just come out: www.nature.com/articles/s41... We used predicted structures to gain insight into the evolution of metabolic proteins in yeast. A bit more in this linked-in post (www.linkedin.com/posts/benjam...).

This is a good time to remember that Moas, Emus, and the other ratites diverged so long ago, they FLEW to different continents, and then lost the ability to fly and became giants independently. You can't just sprinkle a few variants to make one into the other. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New favorite worst graphical abstract just dropped.

Finally out in Nature Chem Bio: SNAP-tag2 for faster and brighter protein labeling www.nature.com/articles/s41... Thank you Steffi and Veselin.

Very happy to support someone in applying for a MCSA fellowship to work on either choanoflagellates or Nematostella! If you have a competitive CV then get in contact! marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/post...

This gets passed around like it was instruction manual that trump and co followed. But it’s a parody of America as it was in 2012 (and now). The fact that’s lost on so many is why Americans elected trump.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @vcmentowski.bsky.social reports a direct interaction of BUB1 with the RZZ that is necessary for RZZ recruitment when CENP-E is depleted. This may complete the identification of the receptors of the RZZ required for fibrous corona assembly

the lesson of this is that tucker is a useful idiot for the kremlin and toppling of the Iranian regime is net loss for putin

Insanity. HMMER is a fundamentally critical tool for biomedical research, biotechnology, AI, etc,.

Just out - a collaborative effort examining gene family evolution across yeast species. We found that fast-evolving yeasts lose more genes - especially ones for splicing, metabolism, and cell division. This is consistent with their narrow metabolic niche breadth. www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

De-extinction is outlandishly stupid because 1) it is impossible and 2) it harms living species that are near-extinction. The PR gimmicks Colossal plays and their pseudo-scientific approach only serves to fill their pockets and to harm the ecosystems they espouse to be "saving"

We have the means to defeat AI-abusing students:

Perhaps the solution to the world's current democratic instability is to be in a constant state of perpetual elections where no one wins and no one governs? Germany taking a keen lead in this new format! www.wsj.com/world/europe...

The current administration’s narrative that Harvard (and all universities) feel “entitled” to federal dollars misleads the public. Nor are these funds a “privilege” 1/n

A society that looks forward instead of regressively to the past (e.g., make [blank] great again) is one that is destined to lead the world through the rest of the 21st century.

I hope those who left pre-Trump can be grandfathered in.

>4 megabase synthetic genome assembled in E.coli with 7 of life's 64 codons removed throughout. A new landmark for synthetic genomes. I wonder how well this little cell grows...

Budget released today: 40% cut to NIH 50% cut to NSF If enacted, this will destroy academic research in the United States. It will also have a major trickle down effect on the entire academic ecosystem

Congratulations to Lizza Korolev for being awarded the Hilldale Fellowship to support her undergraduate research! @glbioenergy.bsky.social @uwenergy.bsky.social @tksato.bsky.social

Today I learned that plants evolved before the beginning of time!

It’s out! The evolutionary origins of yeast point centromeres uncovered! “Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It’s out! The evolutionary origins of yeast point centromeres uncovered! “Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Good Thread. My own

A corollary to this, is that the bold visions and promises from certain types of people is why the public is very skeptical of science and medicine. IMO being more generous in our humility of progress and what is achievable would do good for the public's perception of science.

The parallels between Nazi Germany and Poland, and the USA and El Salvador are quite striking. Only difference is this time El Salvador is a happy accomplice in the concentration of Latinos in camps. Currently we are at October 1938. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/u...

This is again another illegal visa revocation by the illegitimate administration running the nation.

It's important to note that whatever imaginary illegal immigration crisis that is currently ongoing is solely an outcome of the Republicans/Trump torpedoing Biden's border security bill. Also its is sick the levels the Republicans and the majority of americans will go to dehumanize Latinos.

Still, never thought I’d see the day that some ancient DNA peeps would so whole-heartedly embrace (a somewhat iffy version of) the morphological species concept.