1/8 What if the genomic features we associate with fungal pathogens were also used by mutualists? We assembled 41 scale lichen genomes across 11 Peltigera species with 30 chromosome scale and 5 T2T revealing an unexpected genomic toolkit behind lichen symbiosis. doi.org/10.64898/202... #lichen

Thoroughly enjoyed this collaboration with @usadellab.bsky.social & @faltegoer.bsky.social groups in the @mibinet.bsky.social framework to characterize Peltigera lichen symbioses with major contributions from @ciarankelly.bsky.social & @yukiyosato.bsky.social

Very happy to share results from the first year of my PhD: we found that the model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii engages in a mutualistic interaction with Verticillium fungi. With @hroevenich.bsky.social and Urs. Graphical abstract: 🟢 + 🍄= 💚 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

📣 New preprint on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social: Bacteria rewire fungal antimicrobial gene expression in microbial arms races www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... This work, led by outstanding @jinyi-zhu.bsky.social, shows that bacteria suppress fungal antimicrobial protein expression to evade antagonism

🎉 📰 Very happy to share the journal publication of our manuscript "Plant-associated fungi co-opt ancient antimicrobials for host manipulation"! #ScienceAdvancesResearch @science.org @teamthomma.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🍂🌱 An international research team led by @teamthomma.bsky.social has discovered the surprising evolutionary origin of fungal effector proteins: molecules that pathogens use today to infect their hosts appear to have evolved from ancient antimicrobial proteins. More: ➡️ uni.koeln/UCMWQ #UniCologne

Happy to share the third chapter of my postdoctoral adventure at @mpipz.bsky.social ➡️doi.org/10.64898/2026.04.20.719616 We used C. chenopodiifolia's ability to produce explosive aerial fruit and non-explosive underground fruit to identify REVOLUTA's role in cell fate and wall patterning🌿💥 ⬇️🧵

Congratulations to @ciarankelly.bsky.social for winning a prize for his poster on his @mibinet.bsky.social project describing lichen antimicrobial proteins at the @vaam-microbes.bsky.social annual conference in Berlin!

Can't attend #ECFG17 this year, but watch out this afternoon CS 2.1 Plant pathogenic fungi (The Liffey B) at 16:30 by @wolki95.bsky.social: Undermining the “cry for help”: how a fungus secretes an antimicrobial to undermine host recruitment of antagonists

And tomorrow, Wednesday, in CS 3.5 Symbionts and endophytes (Liffey Meeting Room 3) at 15:30 by @ciarankelly.bsky.social: Understanding the role of antimicrobial effector proteins secreted by the lichen-forming fungus Peltigera rufescens

Honoured to have contributed to this work by Andreas Keppler and the Vorholt lab 🦠🌱