There are a couple of empty chairs at our table — want to sit with us? Reach out to me or any lab member www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/research... We’ll be hiring two postdocs in 2026. We’re excited about ambitious and creative ideas and are committed to supporting future group leaders 1/2

Check out our latest paper on mirusviruses, one of the most remarkable new groups of protist viruses - extremely diverse, carry lots of spliceosomal introns (including new homing introns) and are at the evolutionary crossroads between tailed phages and herpesviruses! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is a most excellent read. Reducing Rosalind Franklin to simply a victim in the discovery of the DNA double helix inadvertently strips her of her very real contributions.

Canada makes pitch for US researchers to relocate with $1.7bn in new funding. My story for @science.org 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

Excited to introduce Auxenochlorella as a new algal reference organism for fundamental plant science and bioengineering. A paper in two parts: a genetic toolkit for site-specific genomic manipulation, paired with the most unusual genome I’ve ever worked on academic.oup.com/plcell/artic...

Despite the mess, we are grateful to be funded, have exciting science happening, and have an opening for a postdoc! If you are interested in sensory biology and esp in cilia, thermosensation, or interoception, and would like to join an interactive & supportive group - please email. Please RT 🙏

I just made an account and voted for this biology laboratory made of LEGO to "promote biological research and inspire more people into the world of biology". They need 10K votes. Reposting and/or voting below would be helpful. 🤗 beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT📣: I haven’t been this excited to be part of something new in 15 years… Thrilled to reveal the passion project I’ve been working on for the past year and a half!🙀🥳 (thread 👇)

Science chats with photographer Lindsey Wasson, who captured how Nobel winner Mary Brunkow reacted to life-changing news. https://scim.ag/3IX1uuu

Thrilled to share that I’ll be joining @imbmainz.bsky.social in February 2026 to start my own group! We will explore new mechanisms in eukaryotic gene expression, leveraging ‘evolutionary play’ to uncover how regulation, repurposing, and hijacking shape RNA biology. PhD positions available!

Interested in stem cell/developmental biology AND working for a genuinely lovely person? Funded PhD positions are open! 🥳 can’t wait to see what Anzy does with her unreal amount of brain power. 💪🧠

Now that I'm settled in at @umasschan.bsky.social, I'm hiring at all levels: grad students, post-docs, and software engineers/bioinformaticians! The goal of my lab is to understand the regulatory role of every nucleotide in our genomes and how this changes across every cell in our bodies.

Pathway to Independence: a forecast for the future of developmental biology In this Perspective, each of our 2025 Pathway to Independence Fellows discuss future outlooks for #DevBio and how their work will contribute to this exciting new era. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Congratulations to Sakurako Nagumo Wong, former PhD student in Jürgen Knoblich’s lab, who was awarded the 2025 Rabitsch Award for her remarkable contributions to the study of human cortical development and neurodevelopmental disorders. Read more: https://imba.science/4gPHh6l

So proud of Dr. Saku Wong (@saku-wong.bsky.social) for her beautiful doctoral work that this morning won her this year’s Kirsten P. Rabitsch award! Each year, this award recognises the most promising PhD student from @impvienna.bsky.social or @imbavienna.bsky.social and it is so well deserved 🥹🔬🧠

At a time when we need more of her and less of the rest, it is our great loss. Eternally grateful for the kindness with which she lived by example, her revolutionary study of chimpanzees that shifted scientific understanding of animals and nature, and decades of advocating for a humane world.

“Above all, we must realise that each of us makes a difference with our life. Each of us impacts the world around us every single day. We have a choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place - or not to bother.” www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Together with my wonderful cohort of @dev-journal.bsky.social PI fellows, we offer our perspectives about exciting questions to be tackled in the future of developmental biology! 🧬 🧪🔬Inspired by any of the ideas? Reach out to us!

Who defines the distinction between defect and difference? This is an incredibly important conversation and one that is close to my heart. A moving and eloquent article, from top to bottom.

Close inter-lab collaborations with shared PhD students and postdocs are the future! Julia is the hero of this work, she is currently looking for postdoc labs …

How can we understand the earliest events in evolution of eukaryotic immunity? @yao-li.bsky.social reports incredible molecular fossils of complete bacterial-like operons in eukaryotes that illuminate how animal immunity was first acquired from anti-phage defense www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thanks to Katie Pickup (@katiepickup.bsky.social) for chatting with me about my scientific journey and what’s next in the future! If you’re curious about what I do, where I’m heading, and why I used to sleep with a chicken, check out my interview with Development (@dev-journal.bsky.social) below! 🧬

📚 Wishing all developmental biologists an AMAZING new academic year! 🚀 Boost your teaching & learning with SDB CoRe: a FREE, peer-reviewed online database of stunning images, movies & diagrams for all things development! 🌱🐣🦎 Explore here: www.sdbcore.org 🌟 #DevBio

Extremely excited to share that I’m joining Columbia University @columbiauniversity.bsky.social as an Assistant Professor! We will explore how the mobile genome works—how transposons shape us, our DNA and how they can be harnessed to build useful technologies. #NewPI #RNAsky #TEsky thawanilab.org

Sarre, @alexdemendoza.bsky.social et al. study the evolution of methyltransferases and the roles of cytosine methylation in underexplored eukaryotes, revealing a rich ancestral eukaryotic repertoire and an important role for lateral gene transfer. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf176 #evobio #molbio

I'm absolutely cackling that they developed a tool for analyzing ONE MILLION GENOMES and they named it DR EVIL Well played www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltex...

A reminder you/your lab can support FlyBase at Cambridge through the following link. Every bit helps. Please share if you yourself can't donate. www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/give-to-camb...

Thrilled to share the first story from my postdoc! 🎉 A wonderful experiment + simulations collaboration. In the Drosophila wing, we find that 3D cell shapes affect signalling range and fine-tune developmental patterning www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Thread below ⬇️

🔥my latest paper from @odedrechavi.bsky.social lab🔥 we found small RNAs act across tissues to regulate fertlity in C. elegans 🪱. Surprisingly, we also found that O2-sensing neurons inhibit germline maintenance. Follow along our journey👇https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.669182v1

Today, we’re celebrating World RNA Day by highlighting three IMBA research groups focusing on RNA research.

Want to publish a NIH-funded paper in Nature? Well - unless your institution has an agreement with Springer, you'll have to be mega-rich to be compliant with NIH's new no-embargo policy. Springer is insisting on gold OA - that's $12,690 and that's extortion.

This is a useful summary of how some major publishers are responding to the new NIH policy. We've just updated our policies at @biologists.bsky.social: @dev-journal.bsky.social @jcellsci.bsky.social and @jexpbiol.bsky.social will allow authors to deposit the accepted version with zero embargo.

Born #OnThisDay in 1920 was Rosalind Franklin. Her work on X-ray diffraction images of DNA helped lead to the discovery of its structure, but her efforts were only recognised posthumously. Liz Sockett FRS and Isabelle Moss reflect on her enduring legacy:

Pending editorial decision

Vertebrate retrotransposons are the future of gene therapy. But how do they insert their genes? 🔥🔥 Thrilled to share our new work now published with Kathy Collins, @nogaleslab.bsky.social @berkeleymcb.bsky.social where we investigate this with #cryoEM & biochemistry in 🧪 and cells! #RNAsky #TEsky

Happy to announce our paper comparing embryonic gene expression between C. elegans and C. briggsae, work led by Christopher Large with Rupa Khanal and in collaboration with Junhyong Kim and Bob Waterston. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

D.D. Fusca, @katjakasimatis.bsky.social, H. Zhu, @asherdcutter.bsky.social scanned the genomes of 51 Caenorhabditis species for Argonaute genes, identifying over 1,200 genes, novel subfamilies, and repeated gene gains and losses. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf106 #genome #evolution #RNA

🚨📢 New paper alert! A study led by Kirsten Senti and Julius Brennecke offers new insights into how ancient endogenous retroviruses diversified to exploit different cell “niches” in the fruit fly ovary, and how the host’s defenses adapted in return. https://imba.science/Brennecke_EMBOJ

If you love #viruses, #ribosomes, and genomic #darkmatter, this thread is for you!! 💫 We're excited to share our new publication developing Massively Parallel Ribosome Profiling (MPRP), which uncovered ~4,000 hidden proteins in ~700 viral genomes. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Onto the Woodstock portion of the Woodstock.bio2 conference! Goodbye Prague, hello Bohemia #TCTeAC

@gekaragoz.bsky.social representing @viennabiocenter.bsky.social and @maxperutzlabs.bsky.social at #TCTeAC 🥳 #foldproteinsnotlaundry

Some improvisational theatre of deterministic cell fate going on right now, so this seems… correct 😂 #TCTeAC

REFEREE 1: “I conclude with a simple, direct statement - this is the best paper I have read all year!” #TransparentPeerReview Co-evolving infectivity and expression patterns drive the diversification of endogenous retroviruses @juliusbrennecke.bsky.social et al www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

We currently have a call for support that has gone out to European labs, to support FlyBase-UK. We are asking our colleagues from labs in the US and other countries to wait for a similar call to them that will go out in the near future, to support the US sites. We thank you for your patience.

#worm community - if you can, let’s help keep an essential resource up and running so that fly researchers can keep rightfully dragging me for my gene name choices in reviews. Link for donating below 💪

@lewsiferase.bsky.social fighting the good fight to put animal toxin-antidote elements on the map! Quite jazzed to see this story published. Tag yourself, I am the transient blob #teamTAs

I was lucky enough to be part of the second call of this post doc fellowship program and would highly recommend! Many perks in addition to the funding ☺️

A fascinating and wonderfully dissected story by @mayavoichek.bsky.social and the @juliusbrennecke.bsky.social lab! I loved watching this come together through various talks over the last couple years at @imbavienna.bsky.social 🧬🦠

Honestly, the level of enthusiasm that I feel in recommending @imbavienna.bsky.social to start a research group at borders on aggression. More info below, deadline is fast approaching!

Introducing the 2025 PI Fellows of our Pathway to Independence Programme Over the next year, we will be supporting this talented group of eight postdocs, providing training, mentorship and networking opportunities as they apply for independent positions. journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/pi...