Dive into the world of protists! Compared to plants and animals, protists dominate life of earth🌍Yet there are big knowledge gaps in protist diversity, evolution and genetics. What we do know is that protists could be a resource to study these concepts, we just need to utilize them🙌 #scicommUU26

My PhD focuses on the marine centrohelid Meringosphaera. For long it lacked phylogenentic affiliation, its now been found to belong to centrohelids by @zlatogursky.bsky.social I aim to learn more about both the cells and their lifestyle, which could give insights into plastid evolution🌱 #scicommUU26

Everything is better together! ✨ Me and @fburki.bsky.social recently had the opportunity to visit #OIST and the Husnik group in Japan. We sampled alot of water, found amazing cells and got to meet several cool protistology and symbiosis colleauges🙌 #protist #scicommUU26 Evening view from OIST

It is very hard to image small cells🔍 To combat this,we are doing Expansion Microscopy (ExM), a method which enlargens cells and makes it possible to see even small structures with high resolution! Here are ~4x expanded Rhodomonas cells from our latest ExM session😄 #ExM #protist #scicommUU26

In our research group, Burki Lab, we are interested in protist diversity in order to understand chloroplast (plastid) evolution🌱 Unicellular algae are vital in providing us with oxygen and energy. Yet, there are still alot of hidden diversity - which we aim to uncover!🔍 #scicommUU26

Hi! Its time for an introduction🎉 my name is Adam and I'm a PhD student at UU. My work focuses on the protists Meringosphaera. These marine cells are not only intresting to study, they are also quite beautiful! 🌊 #scicommUU26 #protist

Okinawa sampling trip with @amandaadamjasson.bsky.social starting well :-) #protistsonsky

First attempt at #ExM in my lab was a success, after a training boot camp by king of the method @dudinlab.bsky.social. Lots of details to iron out, but here is a pretty picture of Cryptomonas (testbed species) #protistsonsky (confocal: Anne Walraven)