Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from? Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral reverse transcriptases, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Our new paper on DRT9 is now online @nature.com! This remarkable reverse transcriptase synthesizes homopolymeric DNA to protect bacteria against viral infection. Congrats to all authors! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thought polyA tails were only for mRNA? Here's a protein with a poly-dA tail, that it synthesized itself!