Hemsby Beach Norfolk today.

The Norwich Guildhall Plane tree (Platanus orientalis) - probably planted in the 1860’s near the 15th Century Guildhall by Norwich Market one of my favourite trees in the city - highlighted in Paul Wood’s Treehunting book.

If you believe either that Franklin discovered the double helix, and / or Watson and Crick stole her data, ask yourself how you know this. Then take a read of this article.

The opening paragraph to Crick’s thesis - about protein structure - from July 1953. Ok, he was 37, but even so the writing is so clear. Those last two sentences effectively set out a global research programme that would last decades.

Call for PPATH 2026 Session/Workshop Proposals! Norwich | 8–11 Sept 2026 We’re looking for exciting themed sessions, including techniques, pathogens, crops, AI, surveillance, and resistance - anything related to plant pathology! www.bspp.org.uk/plant-pathol...

‘Epigenetic serum’ makes you wonder !

What looked like a hearing organ on a tiny stinkbug’s leg turned out to be something far stranger: a fungal nursery that mother bugs use to coat their newly laid eggs in protective symbiotic hyphae, shielding their offspring from parasitic wasps. Learn more in Science: https://scim.ag/4nDrDNm

Postdoc position in my lab in Cologne starting early next year or latest in spring to get this exciting project started. jobportal.uni-koeln.de/ausschreibun...

A wheat NLR conferring broad-spectrum resistance against powdery mildew by recognizing two structurally diverse AVR effectors. Interested? Check out our newest preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Exciting day for the lab: our 1rst paper is officially out in @currentbiology.bsky.social 🥳 Wonderful collaboration wt @gautamdey.bsky.social showing how Cryo-ExM achieves consistent immunostaining in diverse diatoms, from the lab and the natural environment 1/n #ProtistsOnSky tinyurl.com/2zxaund7

Norfolk Broads this morning

Lichen hunting this afternoon at ⁦‪@IPMBSinica‬⁩ in Taipei

I just published: Google DeepMind visits TSL As long-time admirers of Google DeepMind’s tools and systems, our researchers were excited to show Lila Ibrahim and the team how we harness AlphaFold in our plant health research. kamounlab.medium.com/google-deepm...

When all your PCRs fail, except for the negative control 😱

Lichens enjoying the fresh air and humidity in Taiwan!

Taipei today for a visit to ⁦‪@IPMBSinica‬⁩ to hear about all the great science here.

Crisp autumn morning in Norfolk. I am interested to see how this Winter oil seed rape develops, as it’s been sown with a companion crop of Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) to suppress cabbage stem flea beetle.

Baker lab builds a calcium channel entirely from scratch. This should enable cellular behaviors to be altered in entirely new ways. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sugarcane has the most complex genome of all crops. New genomics paper reveals origins including mysterious unknown ancestors. ‘The genomic footprints of wild Saccharum species trace domestication, diversification, and modern breeding of sugarcane’ Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... #plantscience 🧪

We're hiring! Please spread the word. We have an opening for an Assistant Professor in Plant Synthetic Biology for Strategic Resources Research. See ad for details – and apply to join us here in Athens, GA! 🪴 #PlantBiology #SyntheticBiology #PlantScience #AcademicJobs #UGA

The hunter returns. Orion appearing as well as Jupiter and the Gemini twins.

Marasmius hudsonii - Holly Parachute #FungiFriends

‘Still angry’: more than 50,000 protest in Valencia on first anniversary of floods

Some fungi from Kicin, Wielkopolska (western Poland): Coprinellus micaceus (EN mica cap, PL czernidłaczek błyszczący) and Clitocybe nebularis (EN cloudy funnel, PL lejkówka szarawa). #grzyby #fungi #mushrooms #fungifriends #mycology

Autumn in the woods – Macrolepiota procera. Kicin, Wielkopolska (western Poland). #grzyby #fungi #mushrooms #fungifriends #mycology

Wheat and barley stripe rust pan-genome facilitates discovery of the predominant North American lineage's origin in somatic hybridization https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.24.684071v1

Always fun to spend time at the Gregor Mendel Institute in Vienna. I think he’d like the science here

In the 15th Century Dragon Hall in Norwich at a book festival event. Spectacular medieval building

Cladonia #lichen

For the lichen lovers: Xanthoria parietina #fungifriends #lichen

Rosa Lozano-Durán (@geminiteamlab.bsky.social), one of the newly elected EMBO members 2025, has introduced her research at the @embo.org Members' Meeting in Heidelberg. We are so proud of you! #plantsci

Understanding #microtubule dynamics: The synergy of technology, theory, and experiment. New Perspective from Richard McIntosh @colorado.edu: rupress.org/jcb/article/... #Cytoskeleton #Biophysics #Microtubules

With @jcellsci.bsky.social, we're 🥂 celebrating the Special Issue on Cilia & Flagella, guest edited by myself & @lottepedersen.bsky.social. We've handpicked 4 standout papers – research from our community, for our community – paired with 2 cutting-edge talks showcasing latest breakthroughs. /2

Sadly I heard today that Jim Peacock has died. Jim was the foremost pioneer of plant molecular biology in Australia & globally. He was both my mentor and friend and will be sorely missed by many #plantscience 🧪 www.science.org.au/news-and-eve...

It was such a treat to see you again @CorrieMoreau.bsky.social!! We’re still buzzing after a stellar seminar 🌟 turtle ants are amazing!

Great to welcome Vivianne Vleeshouwers using evoMPMI to find novel sources of resistance to potato pathogens from wild Solanum relatives- to control early and late blight by NLR and PRR-based resistances.

Including a position in my group to work on Evolutionary Genomics of Fungal pathogens

Fantastic hosting the @GoogleDeepMind team at TSL with @kamounlab.bsky.social 🌱 From AI in plant health to building scientific capacity, our missions clearly resonate! Tools like AlphaFold can accelerate scientific breakthroughs in our field -holding real promise for global food security 🌍

Feeling very Autumnal today #Norfolk

New PhD opportunity in my group @thesainsburylab.bsky.social through the BBSRC NRP DTP Programme - see details of host to apply below biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/van...

In summary, this study uncovers a remarkable spatio-temporal coordination in fungal infection. One cell lives, two die, and together they build a weaponized appressorium. (12/13)

These observations provide further evidence that distal and middle conidial cells are programmed for autophagic degradation, and organelle trafficking and de novo mitochondrial synthesis occurs only in the germinating conidium cell and appressorium at the onset of appressorium melanisation. (11/13)

At 7h post-inoculation, we observed a mixed population of red and green mitochondria in the appressorium and apical cell, while photoconverted mitochondrial decreases in the distal and middle cells. (10/13)

Next, we determine timing of de novo organelle synthesis, we fused Scad2 with the photoconvertible protein mEos3.2, which shifts fluorescence from green to red upon UV activation. We tracked red (pre-existing) and green (newly synthesized) mitochondria from germ tube swelling to appressorium.

We found the volume of mitochondria in the appressorium was greater than the starting average mitochondrial the apical conidial cell at 0h. This observation suggests de novo biogenesis during appressorium maturation. (9/13)

We investigated whether autophagy is required for organelle breakdown in conidial cells. Using a ∆atg8:Scad2-paGFP strain lacking autophagy, we found that only the apical cell transported mitochondria to the appressorium, while those in distal and middle cells remained intact. (8/13)

We next asked whether the three-celled conidium of M. oryzae uniformly contributes organelles to the appressorium. Using paGFP-tagged mitochondria, we found that only the apical cell transfers intact mitochondria to the appressorium. The distal and middle cells retain their photoactivated signal 7/

Our observations provide evidence that the three-celled conidium is an open system that facilitates trafficking from all cells to the appressorium. However, conidium-appressorium connectivity is transient. By 6 hpi, cytoplasmic streaming into the appressorium ceases.(6/13)

Given that filamentous fungi possess septal pores for intercellular exchange, we asked whether the conidium behaves as an open system. Photoactivation experiments confirmed rapid cytoplasmic diffusion across cells and into the appressorium, indicating open septal pores early in development. (5/13)

To quantify these changes, we modeled fluorescence intensity over time. The distal and middle cells showed a rapid linear decrease in organelle signal, while the apical cell retained organelles longer, correlating with a steady increase in the appressorium—suggesting directional trafficking. (4/13)