Over two billion years, a fierce battle has raged between bacteria and the viruses that infect them. The resulting evolution has shaped the way our bodies fight disease today. @vcallier.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-...

Love Drosophila genetics — this journal club was a great way to share that enthusiasm and pay tribute to the pioneers of transposons regulation 🪰 How classical genetics uncovered key determinants of TE silencing #transposon @igred.fr @igred.fr 👇👇

Germ cells have their own versions of core transcription factors and fertility depends on them. We're hiring a PhD student to figure out how! 📢 Fly genetics + proteomics + genomics. Fully funded. Aarhus University 🇩🇰 Deadline May 1 👇 Please share with anyone who might be interested!

Our current understanding of the Metis defense system - carved in wood By @naamalila.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

How diverse is bacterial immunity ? We report in @science.org how language models allowed us to predict 2.4M antiphage proteins spanning >23K novel potential systems. 👏 @emordret.bsky.social, @alexhv.bsky.social & al doi.org/10.1126/scie... Explore them here defensefinder.mdmlab.fr/wiki/refseq_...

This paper started as an idea @albertomarina.bsky.social had many years ago… which of course means he was right all along 😄. Some of us just needed a few years (and a lot of experiments) to catch up. Grateful (and slightly humbled) to be part of this. Thanks Alberto! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Securing two group leader positions at the same institute is no small feat.  From IMP postdocs to group leaders: Laura Lorenzo-Orts and Ulrich Hohmann started their labs at IMB Mainz this year:

Join us for a day of talks, posters, and discussions, featuring a morning joint lecture with Nobel Laureates Eric F. Wieschaus and Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard! Date: Monday, May 4th, 2026 Location: University of Copenhagen, Mærsk Tower sites.google.com/view/emergin... Free to participate

The demystification of piRNA clusters if you wonder how cells generate piRNAs specifically against transposons & you are looking for a weekend read check out @86dominik.bsky.social's opus magna (or Dominik's great thread) a shared project with the one and only Rippei Hayashi, lab alumnus & friend

How does the piRNA pathway solve the self vs. non-self problem? 🧬 Since piRNAs come from single-stranded RNA, how does the cell choose the right ones? For years, "piRNA clusters" were seen as THE privileged source. But are they really special and earmarked for biogenesis? (1/19)

Check out our new paper in early access at Nature Communications! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The (Yoav) Voichek lab has opened its gates at the Weizmann Institute, and is actively recruiting students and researchers at all levels - come explore gene regulation and computational genomics in a fun, friendly sprouting lab 🤗🥼⚗️🧪 www.weizmann.ac.il/plants/voichek

Intrigued by a long-standing conundrum in small RNA biology—how nuclear Argonaute proteins silence transposons when they *need* target transcription for their own recruitment—we studied the piRNA pathway. And found a hidden RNA-decay axis from Piwi to the RNA exosome.

Lastly, I’m excited to join @imbmainz.bsky.social in 2026 to start my own lab. We'll explore new mechanisms in eukaryotic gene expression, leveraging ‘evolutionary play’ to uncover how regulation, repurposing, and hijacking shape RNA biology. tinyurl.com/y4x29ctt Thanks for reading! 20/20

Are you an early-stage graduate student (2nd or 3rd year) or early-stage postdoc based in the US or Canada, working primarily in Drosophila? Would you like to help improve the experience of all trainees working in Drosophila research? If so, read on. (Please repost to reach a broad audience.)

Some impressions from the rather fabulous #EMBOmobilegenome Mobile Genome meeting in Heidelberg Morning walk through the woods, exciting panel discussion, flash talks, lab community, drosophila friends, … @events.embl.org The transposon community is going very strong. see you all again in 2027!!

When transposons jump, genomes diverge - even in cultured cells. I am happy to share our new preprint: a chromosome-scale genome assembly for Drosophila OSC cells, one of the key model systems in the piRNA field, especially for nuclear piRNA biology. 🧬🧵 (1/12)

1/ How do animals develop immunity against a newly encountered transposable element from scratch? Our study reveals that the mobility of TEs is their Achilles heel, allowing hosts to develop a powerful small RNA-mediated silencing response. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We wrote a review on the free nucleotide pool as a central playground in human, bacterial, and plant immunity – now out in Nature Reviews in Immunology www.nature.com/articles/s41... Was fun to write this piece with Dina Hochhauser! Here is a thread to explain the premises 1/

We wrote a review on Transposable Elements (TEs) and almost all aspects of TE silencing and their roles in biological processes & disease. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Although we didn't make it to a cover, it was so wonderful to work with @mariadiazillus.bsky.social on designing an artwork inspired by our work. Thank you Maria! We love it and will be proudly showing it around. Rover ERV wandering around the chromatin rapped around the moons of the solar system:

🚨📢 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

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....

Flybase lost all of the NIH support overnight - it is a disaster for the community. Please consider donating. I just did! www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/give-to-camb...

Happy #FluorescenceFriday !🌈 Today, sperm cells & developing gametes (Dapi, 🟢🟡🟠🔴) and testis muscles (Phalloidin (🔵🟢) in/on a #Drosophila non-melanogaster (guess the species and you’re the 🐐) #cellbio #devbio #science #sciart #microscopy Scope: Zeiss Airyscan 980❤️@zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social

📣 Our new VIP3 Postdoc program is accepting applications! Wondering what's it's like to do a postdoc at the Vienna Biocenter? Find out here👇 🎉

#drosophila @flybase.bsky.social request emergency funding: "As it stands, by the end of July, 2025, there will be no future updates to FlyBase, and in the worst case scenario access to the website will also be lost" => please donate! www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/give-to-camb...

Did you know? 🧪 "The Interactive Fly" is a wonderful website hosted by @socdevbio.bsky.social where you can learn about their development, the history of gene discovery/name, and it is full of super useful resources for the #DevBio community 🪰https://www.sdbonline.org/sites/fly/aimain/1aahome.htm

Blurring the lines between retrotransposons & viruses! sORF2 enables direct transmission of retrotransposons challenging our understanding of mobile genetic elements. #preprint @juliusbrennecke.bsky.social Lab #preLight from Ally Simpson & Alyss Humphrey! 👉 prelights.biologists.com/highlights/d...

Stop for a second and try to imagine this: a heat shock protein relocalizes to the cell surface and mediates dsRNA binding and internalization! Intrigued? Read our newly minted paper in Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Congrats to all the authors and thanks to reviewers and editor!

We are hiring! Join the BioOptics team as a Data Scientist in Image Analysis and contribute to the team’s mission of providing microscopy applications, flow cytometry, and image analysis services. Link below. #europe #research #lifesciences

Online now at @cp-cell.bsky.social , the culmination of a 12-year effort. 🧵 to follow later this evening www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

💥🥳 At long last, our latest paper is out! Gag proteins of endogenous retroviruses are required for zebrafish development www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Led heroically by Sylvia Chang & @jonowells.bsky.social A study which has changed the way I think of #transposons! No less! 🧵 1/n

I have exhorted others to share positive news even in these uncertain times for US science. I am really excited that @tamanash.bsky.social’s first paper on the remarkable evolutionary gymnastics of dual-host viruses (even in single codons) is now online. Follow along here 🧪🧵

Our field has lost an amazing scientist, mentor, and old friend. Benny, along with Mike Hoffman, had a brilliant idea in the early 1980s. The first oncogenes were being cloned and they realized if we wanted to understand their roles in cancer, we needed to understand their normal function 1/n 🧪

Do you have transposon-related research cooking, with some cool results you are exciting to share? Start thinking about registering to #EMBOMobileGenome workshop! Nov 4-7 2025 in Heidelberg. One of the historical TE meetings, with a diverse and welcoming community. www.embl.org/about/info/c... 1/3

we received so many nice comments for this work on this platform, it is really wonderful. Thank you all so much!!

This new mechanism of retrotransposon invasion will be a landmark finding in retrotransposon biology Very creative and thorough genetic and mechanistic dissection. Excited to see what studies of more transposon-encoded peptides and proteins like sORF2 will uncover! biology is just really cool

In the ‘90s, Pelisson et al. found that gypsy retrotransposons in flies can go viral—literally—thanks to an envelope gene. Now, @mayavoichek.bsky.social uncovers a wild new path to retrotransposon infectivity. A fascinating story—see Maya's thread www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.14.642691v2

1/ Transposable elements are often called "jumping genes" because they mobilize within genomes. 🧬 But did you know they can also jump 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 cells? 🤯 Our new study reveals how retrotransposons invade the germline directly from somatic cells. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A short thread 🧵👇

This #InternationalWomensDay I want to tell the story of Lilian Vaughan Morgan. I learned of Lilian this past year - what a badass. Lilian was a leading scientist when women weren't welcome in the lab, nor even the department. But she contributed immensely to the genetics of sex determination 1/n

More about me and my work in @the_Node SciArt profiles! thenode.biologists.com/sciart-profi...

Because it never loses its relevance. “Measles: A Dangerous Illness” — a letter by Roald Dahl #VaccinesSaveLives

Vaccines work! As measles cases have recently been reported in Alaska, Georgia, New York, Rhode Island and Texas, it's important to remember that prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, measles killed 400-500 people and resulted in ~48,000 hospitalizations per year.

We will soon welcome @svenklumpe.bsky.social to the Vienna BioCenter, where he will use cryo-Electron Tomography to study - among other things - how #transposons shape #germlines. Sven's lab will be @imbavienna.bsky.social *AND* the IMP. Full story: www.viennabiocenter.org/about/news/s...

Hi Friends, Thought I'd kick off my posts on #MEvoSky with a short love letter to my favorite genetic element, the Himar1 mariner transposon! I'll go over some key literature and my plans for this intrepid mariner in my own microbial evolution research. 🧵 1/13

If you have been affected by the fires in LA, or are concerned about your ability to keep precious Drosophila strains going during the latest funding crisis, we will host your strains as a backup. Please email me. Please amplify. If you are also able to host fly strains, add your name as well.

Our paper out @CellCellPress: Structure guided discovery of viral proteins that inhibit host immunity Congrats Erez Yirmiya, Azita Leavitt, Gil Amitai, our collaborators at the Kranzusch lab, and coauthors A 🧵 1/10 www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

I ❤️ Diversity-Generating Retroelements! DGRs are abundant in prokaryotes and have been domesticated to create protein diversity via reverse transcription. This new structural study reveals a unique way of priming RT via precise positioning of the RNA around the enzyme. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A year in the Pauli lab 'in pictures'. It's already a little tradition to look back at the many happy memories of the past year. Excited to see what 2025 will bring - may it be another happy, fun, successful and fulfilling year!