Intrigued by a long-standing conundrum in small RNA biology—how nuclear Argonaute proteins silence transposons when they *need* target transcription for their own recruitment—we studied the piRNA pathway. And found a hidden RNA-decay axis from Piwi to the RNA exosome.

Applications for our international #PhD program open until 11th Jan. Come work with us @uoe-igc.bsky.social and @hannahlong.bsky.social to understand DNMT3B in ICF syndrome or with our wonderful colleagues. Details here: institute-genetics-cancer.ed.ac.uk/igc-graduate... #epigenetics Please repost 🙏

While stories of singular DNA changes that drove evolution of human brain/behaviour remain seductive, advances across multiple fields of biology cast doubt on such simplistic narratives of our origins. A new paper from my lab shows how biobanks may speak to this fundamental question.🧪 Explainer🧵👇1/n

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Aujourd'hui c'est le solstice d'hiver dans l'hémisphère Nord. Les journées vont commencer à rallonger! Le soleil ne se lève à l'Est (centre de l'image avec Nord à gauche, Sud a droite) que lors des équinoxes. La position du lever change un peu tous les jours! (©Z. Al-Abbadi)

1/ I’ve reviewed hundreds of bioinformatics GitHub repos in my career. Here’s the brutal truth: most tool documentation fails the people it’s meant to help. And it’s not because the algorithms are bad.

Have you ever wondered how new DNA methylation patterns are established? Paradigm shift ahead! We discovered a new mode of DNA methylation targeting in plants that relies on transcription factors and sequence motifs rather than chromatin modifications to regulate the methylome. rdcu.be/eQ6L5 1/8

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...

Transposable elements can insert into genes, disrupting protein-coding potential. Researchers discover a mode of RNA processing, ‘SOS splicing’, that provides a quick fix @nature.com @harvardmed.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Looking for a postdoc in computational biology? We are looking for a postdoc candidate apply for the fellowship 'Juan de la Cierva' for a project on long-read transcriptomics, multiomics, spatial transcriptomics, single-cell long-reads. Deadline is approaching!! (December 10th)

🔬 Call to create junior research groups at the Institut Pasteur Focus: Infectious diseases, host-microbe interactions, vaccines Special interest: AI methodologies 📅 Deadline: Feb 9, 2026 👥 2-12 years post-PhD Apply now 📝 research.pasteur.fr/en/call/crea... #JobOpportunity #Research

Preprint alert! It is my great pleasure to announce the first manuscript from the lab, a story that started @gmivienna.bsky.social and was mainly accomplished by the intrepid @gesahoffmann.bsky.social at @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social. A brief thread with our findings www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Have you ever wondered how it is possible that systemically infected plants produce (a certain percentage of) healthy progeny? 💚 Check out the first preprint of the @incavirus.bsky.social lab and first preprint of my postdoc! 🍀 We'd be very happy about feedback and discussions!

How to keep in step when your (protein) partner speeds up… Here we investigated the adaptive remodeling of a protein-protein interaction surface essential for telomere protection. Congrats to whole team! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Paper alert! We have created a bacterium that eats plastic! We named it PETBuster! Great work by PhD student Dekel Freund @dekel-freund.bsky.social. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New preprint from our group led by @metalichen.bsky.social on the discovery of a Starship giant transposable element in the genome of a lichen-forming fungus.

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

Still looking for our perfect doctoral candidate as part of @evomg-dn.bsky.social - come and join us to work on the evolutionary pressures that shape gene expression and disease in the uterus! Please RT (or is it RB? not sure how our lingo has changed!)

Our nuclease-protease story is out! We explored a fascinating case of coevolution and modularity in prokaryotic immune systems: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Thanks to wonderful coauthors/collaborators/friends, the whole @doudna-lab.bsky.social and everyone at @innovativegenomics.bsky.social

Having a lot of fun at #EMBOMobileGenome 😃 Perfect timing for our paper from the lab of @toddmacfarlan.bsky.social to be out @natcomms.nature.com!! …and I’m currently on the job market looking for a new scientific home! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @soreklab.bsky.social Sorek lab does it again! Such a cool signal to specifically detect the event of genome degradation by a phage

Some impressions from the rather fabulous #EMBOmobilegenome Mobile Genome meeting in Heidelberg Morning walk through the woods, exciting panel discussion, flash talks, lab community, drosophila friends, … @events.embl.org The transposon community is going very strong. see you all again in 2027!!

How is epigenetic information inherited? We found that CDCA7 proteins are critical players in the inheritance of DNA methylation at CG sites in plants, and this is true both in the lab and in the wild. How does this work? 🧵👇

🚨 First pre-print from my team !! TL;DR: presence of polymorphism (sequence differences between the homologous chromosomes) can *increase* the local rate of recombination in Arabidopsis thaliana, turning cold regions of the genome hot (purple v. grey) !

Happy to share the results of a long-haul post-doc project, now online @science.org, aiming at understanding the rules of transgeneration epigenetic inheritance over TEs in plants and its extent and impact in nature. More below! doi.org/10.1126/scie...

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!

🚀 Checkout our new #nextflow MNase-pipeline nucDetective Features: ✅ MNase QC analysis ✅ high resolution nucleosome maps ✅ detect nucleosome dynamics ✅ multi-condition comparison ✅ nucleosme-repeat-length Try it here: github.com/uschwartz...#nextflow1/2

BOKU University in Vienna is recruiting a full professor for Biochemistry! Check out the description below, apply and join us in beautiful Vienna. @bokuvienna.bsky.social 🧪🧪🧪 short.boku.ac.at/53e6g6

Further evidence that sugar in the plates changes the plant biology you study. Best to avoid putting sugar in the agar, unless you want to study what sugar in the agar does to plants. This paper uses sugar in the agar to study what sugar does. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #plantresearch

Attention plant proteomics specialists: We are looking for a Head of our new Proteomics Unit at our international and dynamic Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social Applications are welcome until 30. Sept 2025: jobs.mpimp-golm.mpg.de/jobposting/8...

Thanks for sharing! All activities were spearheaded by Roberto Torres @lcatmon.bsky.social in collaboration with the "44 Perills" association and with the support of @sesbe-org.bsky.social @eseb2025.bsky.social and @ajuntamentbcn.bsky.social. Big shout out to #eseb2025 scientists that participated!

August’s Nature Plants cover story shows how we integrated large-scale multiDAP and snRNA data to reveal drivers of cell type identity and evolution in flowering plants. www.nature.com/nplants/volu... We packed a lot into this paper! Here’s a single-cell spin on what we found:

Out after peer review, collaborative study from Nordborg & Weigel labs with help from many others. Not the largest collection of new Arabidopsis thaliana genomes, but we hopefully put forward some good ideas for how to think about pangenomes and their analysis! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thrilled to have our spatial single-cell atlas of the Arabidopsis lifecycle in @NaturePlants. Turns out that its easy to make nice images when spatial expression of 1,000 genes is available! 1/n @natanellae.bsky.social @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social @joeecker.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🌱 come join our lab 😀 🔬 PhD: small RNAs & plant stress (36 mo) 🧬CDD researcher: plant molecular biology (24 mo) Apply 👇 PhD: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/Docto... CDD: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U... #PlantScience #PhD #ResearchJobs#ERC#CNRS

Very proud of this work where we define how the MORC2 ATPase directs CpG methylation of active human L1 transposons in early development. Thanks to co-authors, funders & wonderful environment @lundstem.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Brief thread below (do people still do that?) 1/X

I can only recommend working with Heïdi at the GReD, she is a terrific scientist and human being! Clermont-Ferrand has high quality of life, is affordable and the surrounding nature is a beauty.

1/7 I am very excited to announce our🌹NEW PAPER OUT IN 𝑁𝐴𝑇𝑈𝑅𝐸!🌹 𝐃𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐄: Bimodal centromeres in pentaploid dogroses shed light on their unique meiosis With the Ritz and Kovařík labs we show a potential role for centromeres on 𝘙𝘰𝘴𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘢 bizarre reproduction! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/ How many hours do bioinformaticians lose matching sample IDs across assays? Too many. And it’s avoidable. Let’s talk about why this happens—and how to stop it.

I am super excited to announce the first (brief) pre-print purely from my group: Start right to end right: authentic open reading frame selection matters www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... This marks a return to NMD research for me. NMD detects early stop codons but we need to find the true stop!

The rest of Mendel's alleles characterized! So, out of 7 traits, 3 caused by TE insertions!!! (though apparently there are two different green alleles, one cause by a TE insertion, but another a promoter deletion allele) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 Preprint alert!! Thrilled to share our new story where we report the discovery of a new sporophytic maternal-effect mutant in Arabidopsis. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🧪 A new method called MagIC-Cryo-EM allows scientists to use powerful #CryoEM techniques to examine proteins that have been difficult to study so far.

The pitfalls of class prediction in omics 🧵 1/ You think you’ve built the perfect omics predictor. The accuracy is high. The p-value is low. But is it real—or just a story your data whispered back?

A three year postdoctoral position is available in my group, investigating plant centromere structure, function and evolution @camplantsci.bsky.social www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/51488/

Super cool work on the function of intrinsically disordered regions in regulating transcription factor DNA binding.

[Daily Watch] Rice plants inherit cold tolerance through epigenetic changes. Landmark study challenges traditional evolution views. #Evolution #Epigenetics #PlantScience www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Transposable elements are a major driver of intron gain in eukaryotes, and are capable of transmission between diverse species #HGT #evolution - www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A giant virus in the genome of Chlamydomonas - this week in @science.org #plantscience Cryptic infection of a giant virus in a unicellular green alga | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This is wild. Chromosome distributions into different nuclei! Distribution of haploid chromosomes into separate nuclei in two pathogenic fungi www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...