Last week I attended the M-FED 2025, where I presented the discovery of uncharacterized microbial ecosystems in the Central Andes 🌎 I also joined the workshop “Grow your own microbial mat” and we visited the UNESCO Geopark Heeseberg! ⛏️ A great week of microbialite science!

Some years ago, we discovered a modern microbialite reef under conditions resembling primitive Earth 🌋 Now we show how seasonal extremes drive microbial shifts and mineralisation, offering a window into processes that shaped Earth’s first biostructures 🪨 www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02764-6

I recently participated in the GRC on Applied and Environmental Microbiology 🦠, where I had the opportunity to serve as a Discussion Leader and to present my work on modern microbialites as a Speaker. Many thanks to the chairs @deniseakob.bsky.social, Marianne Haines, and @jlrolando.bsky.social!

We’ve uncovered Asgard chromatin structures formed by a Hodarchaeal histone : closed hypernucleosome conserved in archaea and an open form resembling the H3-H4 eukaryotic octasome. Fantastic work by @harshranawat.bsky.social! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #Chromatin #Asgard #Archaea #cryoEM

🚨 New preprint alert 🚨! 👉🏼 @fedevignale.bsky.social 🏔️ Our latest study explores seasonal biogeochemical variations in a modern microbialite reef at Laguna Pozo Bravo 🇦🇷 - a site with conditions reminiscent of early Earth 🌍🦠 📖 Read here : doi.org/10.1101/2025... @embl.org @cssbhamburg.bsky.social

Exciting work on the Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) genome providing new insights into convergent evolution of caffeine biosynthesis 🧬🧉 Amazing work from our postdoc Federico Vignale and our STO @lucasdefelipe.bsky.social @embl.org @cssbhamburg.bsky.social 🔗 elifesciences.org/articles/104759

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened... but for yerba mate! 🧉 🧬 Combining genomics, biochemistry, structural biology, and ancestral sequence reconstruction, we characterized how yerba mate synthesizes caffeine differently from coffee and tea plants 🌱 #yerbamate #caffeine #science

Scientists at University of Buenos Aires, EMBL Hamburg, and others mapped yerba mate’s genome, providing surprising facts about its biochemistry and evolution of caffeine biosynthesis. 🧉🧬🧪 Find out more: www.embl.org/news/science... @spcembl.bsky.social