Today I made a small but momentous start to work in 2026 by changing a single number. I renamed the file “Papers to write and submit in 2025” to “Papers to write and submit in 2026”. Stay tuned for more file updates on 1st January 2027.

Questions for those working on #fungi and other eukaryotic #genomes, and the masking done because of repeats. For typing/population biology purposes (like multilocus sequence typing), would it be more informative to remove the masked sequences, i.e. remove repeats?

If you start a PCR with 30 cycles at 22.13pm in December 31st, it will finish right on time for you to find out you forgot to add the polymerase

Evolution of protein domains and protein domain combinations provides insights into the origin and diversification of land plants www.cell.com/cell-genomic...

It was so cool attending the meeting that led to this Viewpoint article and the getting to be a part of the amazing community of co-authors.

Plant Science Research Weekly -- Viewpoint. Green life beyond Earth: frontiers of space plant biology (New Phytologist) @plantimager.bsky.social @ionplants.bsky.social (Summary by Ching Chan) buff.ly/NBz0OeI #PlantaePSRW

Genome editing of goldenberry ERECTA for crop ideotype. Congrats, Zach Lippman, Joyce Van Eck & the team! "Engineering compact Physalis peruviana to promote its potential as a global crop". ERECTA rock😉 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Check out our improved preprint: Functional Characterization of Target of Rapamycin (#TOR) Signalling in #Physcomitrella with more results, e.g. a phylogenetic analysis of #RAPTOR genes. Happy to see that this preprint already received 2 citations. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🌱 Welcome to the official Bluesky channel for #PlantBio2026! Join us as we count down to the premier global plant science meeting, July 18–22, 2026 in Ottawa, Canada, hosted by @aspbofficial.bsky.social and @cspbscbv.bsky.social. This is where plant science grows. 🌿 #PlantScience

Non-seed plant research in the spotlight by @fromani.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/bio/article/...

The NTEU stands with Jewish Australians as they grieve this devastating and targeted act of violence. Violence, hatred and antisemitism have no place in our society. We stand in solidarity, care, and shared humanity.

@jimfouracre.bsky.social discusses vegetative phase change and the ancestral role of miR156 #nonseedUK25

Thanks to everyone who came along to the #nonseedUK25 meeting. Another fantastic day of non-seed science. Thanks to @philcarella.bsky.social and Kayla Robinson for looking after us all so well 👍

Happy to share my lab’s first venture into the world of wheat from an enjoyable collaboration with Chris Burt at RAGT Seeds and Keith Edwards. My team members Katie Jeal and Sophie Carpenter did a terrific job of the bioinformatics and starting the lab work. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

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

Latest issue of curated #engineeredlivingmaterials feed: biomed.news/bims-enlima/... #ELMs via @biomednews.bsky.social #livingmaterials includes research on: synthetic cells, ELMs design principles, muscle-powered robots, & more 🧪

Interesting study suggesting that nucleus, cytoskeleton, and endomembranes preceded acquisition of mitochondria, during eukaryogenesis www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A couple new #PhD opportunities to join my lab at the intersection of #synbio, #plantsci and #biotech as part of the Plant BioDesign doctoral programme spanning the University of York, University of Cambridge, University of Bristol and John Innes Centre. 1/4

We are really proud to announce the publication of our paper 'Angle dependence as a unifying feature of root graviresponse modules' in collaboration with @universityofleeds.bsky.social @ohiowesleyanuniversity @ista www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @suruchiroy.bsky.social @pnas.org

KDM7-mediated oxygen sensing reprograms chromatin to enhance hypoxia tolerance in the root https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.24.690241v1

Very proud to have our latest work now online in @natsmb.nature.com. A wonderful team effort across the centromere community, across @jansenlab.bsky.social @naltemose.bsky.social @dfachinetti.bsky.social and Giunta labs. Happy reading! 1/4 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fun new preprint from the lab, headed up by two incredible undergraduate researchers: Using Experimental Evolution to Correct Mother-Daughter Separation Defects in Brewing Yeast. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It's not just because @torstenseemann.bsky.social is a bioinformatics legend but this may be my favourite #abacbs2025 poster because I'm a #trek tragic 🖖

ARC are considering a restructure in which jobs there will be lost, a source tells me. This seems ridiculous when they're about to completely overhaul the entire grants system – they've never undertaken anything so large before! I've long said ARC needs MANY MORE staff, & should do more, not less.

Photosynthetic sea slugs can decapitate themselves & regenerate whole body from the detached head (without the heart or guts), while the shed body do not regenerate. The process takes ~2-3 weeks. A new model for regeneration? From: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Delighted to report that our group's passion project over the last 6+ years to make DNA cloning more accessible, efficient, and scalable using a software-assisted workflow called CloneCoordinate is now out in ACS Synbio! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

And now we have Arabidopsis plants with 8 chromosomes instead of 10 and no obvious phenotypic differences, this week in @science.org #PlantScience Paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Perspective here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Therefore, the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor had a dual methylation system: 6mA for transcriptionally permissive chromatin and 5mC for silencing. This dual pattern is maintained in some extant eukaryotes but has diverged in many others, including ALL multicellular groups that lost AMT1. 8/9

But is 6mA directing transcription? We checked in 5 different species across stages and conditions, and we could detect plenty of transcriptional changes not followed by 6mA reprogramming. So correlation does not mean causation (as most times with chromatin features). 5/9

However there's been rampant simplifications across the tree of life. We then took advantage of 6mA basecalling with @nanoporetech.com to profile several eukaryotes branching in very distant groups, some encoding AMT1 or not. AMT1 encoding eukaryotes presented symmetric ApT methylation. 3/9

First we traced the evolutionary history of AMT1 (aka MTA1), the main 6mA enzyme in eukaryotes. We find that a complex repertoire including AMT1 and its heterodimeric partner AMT6/7 can be traced back to the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor. Same goes for the RNA methyltransferases METTL3/14. 2/9

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

Two alternative isoforms of PRC2 accessory subunit AEBP2 modulate developmental Polycomb functions in opposite ways - with broadly-expressed AEBP2L acting as an intrinsic inhibitor in somatic cells @adrianbracken.bsky.social @davidovichlab.bsky.social and colleagues www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

I am looking to hire a postdoc interested in combining genetics and evolution to understand why telomeres vary so much in plants. My group has been developing Mimulus a genetic model for studying plant telomeres and we have really cool research brewing. Please check ad for detail. Deadline is 12/31.

Latest research from the Bäurle lab on the function of our favourite memory TF - HSFA2!

TEs aren’t just genomic parasites, they’re also engines of genomic novelty. Our new study with ~2,000 Z. tritici genomes shows repeated TE mobilization waves during global expansion. With @danielcroll.bsky.social & @guidopuccetti.bsky.social 🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #TEworldwide

Gene expression divergence following gene and genome duplications in spatially resolved plant transcriptomes (Fabricio Almeida-Silva, Yves Van de Peer) doi.org/10.1093/plce... #PlantScience @aspbofficial

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...

Such a cool pre-print on making sentinel plants - so much potential! Bioluminescent sentinel plants enable autonomous diagnostics of viral infections www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Powerful read processing with matchbox https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.09.685711v1

Strigolactone perception and nutrient responses #TansleyInsight by Hu et al. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #plantscience

The podcast version of my Raising the Bar talk is now online. If you are interested in "Cosmic Crops" or my work on genetic engineering of plants, please give it a listen (I have not listened to it, I hate listening to myself, so hopefully it is good, but no promises). soundcloud.com/raising-the-...

🌿🍄‍🟫🌱🍄We’re recruiting!!🌿🍄‍🟫🌱🍄 I’m looking for two postdocs and a technician to join my group @sheffielduni.bsky.social @sheffieldpps.bsky.social to work with me on my exciting @royalsociety.org Faraday Discovery Fellowship project, details for each post as follows:

A new method for the precise insertion of large DNA sequences into the genome using engineered recombinases that don’t require DNA cutting or rely on the cell’s repair machinery. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fusing transcription factors (TFs) to intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs), to drive the formation of transcriptional condensates that concentrate TFs at their target promoters. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

PhD opportunity in plant developmental biology for UK based students of Black heritage! How do they know when to grow up? Join us at the University of Bristol to find out. Application deadline Jan 6th www.findaphd.com/phds/project... #PlantSciencePhDs @blackinplantsci.bsky.social

Rewiring protein function through genetically encoded oxidative chemistry https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.06.686050v1

Big update: My the first Lloyd Lab conceived and conducted study has been accepted and published: Start Right to End Right: Authentic Open Reading Frame Selection Matters for Nonsense-Mediated Decay Target Identification www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/16... Now larger and better than the pre-print

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...

Really cool work by the @dodonova-sveta.bsky.social lab @embl.org www.cell.com/molecular-ce... #archea #evochromo