Pingtao Ding (he/him)

Can ChatGPT help science writers?

Can ChatGPT help science writers? | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/blog...
"These technologies may have potential as helpful tools for science writers, but they are not ready for “prime time” at this point for the SciPak team."

Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!

My department at UC Davis is hiring a mycologist, broadly interpreted. Please repost, share, and consider applying. recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07339

Our department of Plant Molecular Biology at the University of Lausanne @unil.bsky.social is recruiting a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in the field of Plant-Organism Interactions 🌱🐛🦠🍄! Application before November 30, 2025. See the official job ad for more details: tinyurl.com/mtxdcz6p

We proudly present a new preprint by Leon Pierdzig et al: Wall teichoic acids, glycopolymers specific to Gram-positive bacteria, trigger defense and cell death in Arabidopsis. Cysteine-rich RLKs act as key components in their perception. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Bryophytes hold a larger gene family space than vascular plants - Nature Genetics A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

A milestone for plant genomics just out @natgenet.nature.com

130 bryophyte genomes!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Nice work!

Molecular_Bio - YouTube

Re-upping this: For those of you having new students in the lab, I have curated a YouTube playlist on molecular biology: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

I usually have my students watch it before I show them how to do it in the lab.

Biosynthesis and function of magnetic organelles in magnetotactic bacteria - Nature Reviews Microbiology In this Review, Schüler and colleagues summarize our current knowledge of magnetosome formation and organization within the cell, and they explore their function, diversity and potential applications.

Biosynthesis and function of magnetic organelles in magnetotactic bacteria www.nature.com/articles/s41...

ERAD machinery controls the conditional turnover of PIN-LIKES in plants Plant ERAD machinery governs the turnover of auxin transporters involved in developmental and stress responses.

Thrilled to share our latest story on the ERAD machinery and how it controls the conditional turnover of PIN-LIKES for acclimative growth

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

📢 A Junior Professorship (W1, tenure track) is open at the Center for Plant Molecular Biology at Uni Tübingen (@zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social) — to work on plant protein biochemistry (composition, structure, dynamics, or regulation of protein complexes). 🌱 Great opportunity — Apply by Oct 17th!

Beautiful work Bruno! 😻😻😻 Congrats!🥂

Systematic discovery and engineering of synthetic immune receptors in plants Plants deploy a diverse array of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which perceive microbe-associated molecular patterns to activate immune responses. Leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase subgr...

Very happy to share our latest work “Systematic discovery and engineering of synthetic immune receptors in plants” out in @science.org !

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Systematic discovery and engineering of synthetic immune receptors in plants Plants deploy a diverse array of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which perceive microbe-associated molecular patterns to activate immune responses. Leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase subgr...

Congratulations @brunongou.bsky.social @shirasulab.bsky.social and colleagues www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

For sure great news for plant science, but it's actually *even better* news because you missed at least one! @tinaschreier.bsky.social

Indeed! Sorry @tinaschreier.bsky.social and huge congratulations!

Huge congratulations to #early-career scientists working with plants awarded with ERC-2025-StG @ecologybasel.bsky.social @clemmar.bsky.social @izzysaurlab.bsky.social @pfeilmeier.bsky.social @jiorgoskourelis.bsky.social @vinayshukla.bsky.social

📣 The ERC Starting Grant call results are out!

Find out which early-career researchers will receive funding this year, what they will be investigating, where they will be based... plus lots of other #ERCStG facts & figures for 2025!

➡️ buff.ly/IsafuFh

#FrontierResearch 🇪🇺#EUfunded #HorizonEurope

New tool for clustering bacterial genomes: PanGene-O-Meter, provides a higher level of granularity than ANI when classifying bacterial isolates of the same species. Work of the talented @haimashkenazy.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Reprogramming of microspore fate via BBM-BAR1 for highly efficient in vivo haploid induction In stress-induced androgenesis, BBM and its downstream effector BAR1 mediate microspore reprogramming to trigger haploid embryo formation. Ectopic expression of BBM or BAR1 in microspores bypasses str...

Reprogramming of microspore fate via BBM-BAR1 for highly efficient in vivo haploid induction: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

We have two open Post-Doc positions in my group at the interface with:
1- @ataly.bsky.social for molecular dynamics
2- Bruno Guillotin from protein mobility

Apply by sending CV, two ref letters and a short motivation letter to me : emmanuelle.bayer@u-bordeaux.fr. Deadline 15 sept.

Genetic architecture of a light-temperature coincidence detector - Nature Communications Light and temperature provide critical information guiding developmental transitions in plants. This study shows that blue light signals via PHOT2 and low temperature signals via CAMTA2 are linked, tr...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

First a pentamer, then a hexamer… now an octamer!

The riddle of the enigmatic CCG10-NLR immune receptor family cracked open 🔥

Congrats Guanghao @GuanghaoGuo He Zhang @mhz1989 Selva @M__Selvaraj et al.

#NLRbiology #plantsci #immunology

Nothing can make me happier during my long-term sick leave than receiving this thankful e-mail from my former MSc intern. This has been the sixth MSc student who started their PhD journey after training with us @unileiden.bsky.social #proudPI #ECR #STEMeducation

Friday Flower 001: Mimulus lewisii 🌸✨

Monkeyflowers are masterpieces of design with nectar-guide spots formed by an activator–inhibitor system of MYB transcription factors. These generate reaction–diffusion patterns across the ventral petal.

Don't forget to submit your abstract for the #EMBO Workshop on #PlantEvolution by August 25th!
Join us @gmivienna.bsky.social in November to discuss all things #plantevodevo

Please spread the word! 🙏🦠🌱

#algae #bryophytes #nonseedplants #terrestrialization

Climate change effects on plant immune activation The forecasted global climate changes will expose plants to challenging environmental conditions that further increase outbreak risks and threaten ecosystems and food security. The sole host defense mechanism plants possess is innate immunity. This system relies on extra- and intracellular receptors mediating pattern- and damage-triggered immunity (PTI/DTI) and effector-triggered immunity. Here, we discuss how environmental changes can alter the expression dynamics of extracellular receptors activating PTI/DTI, the so-called pattern-recognition receptors, and cell wall integrity sensors. We examine possible crosstalk between selected abiotic stress and immune signaling and briefly argue how two major abiotic stress-related transcription factor families, such as the heat stress factors and dehydration-responsive element-binding/C-repeat-binding factors, cooperate with immune signaling during acclimation responses.

Climate change effects on plant immune activation #plantscience

Biosynthesis and bioactivity of anti-inflammatory triterpenoids in Calendula officinalis - Nature Communications Calendula, a plant used in traditional medicine for centuries, helps reduce inflammation. Here the authors identify natural compounds that are key to its anti-inflammatory activity, revealing how they...

Our story on the biosynthesis of anti-inflammatory triterpenes from pot marigold is published ☺️ We had a lot of fun working on this beautiful & interesting species. Well done team marigold! 🌼 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our latest on brassinosteroid signaling: Ligand binding spectrum, specificity & selectivity of all BR receptors in Arabidopsis. By @albertocaregnato.bsky.social , @hmchen93.bsky.social and our great chemistry collaborators Mirek Kvasnica, Jana Oklestkova and Mirek Strnad.

Oatk: a de novo assembly tool for complex plant organelle genomes - Genome Biology Plant organelle genomes, particularly large mitochondrial genomes with complex repeats, present significant challenges for assembly. The advent of long-read sequencing enables the assembly of complete...

Oatk: a de novo assembly tool for complex plant organelle genomes link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I’m proud to present the main work from my postdoc, 3+ years in making from scratch, my ultimate #MimulusPropaganda up till now:

The Moment
That
Symmetry
Breaks.

#plantscience #development #imaging #microscopy 🧪🌸🔬
w. Captain Yaowu & @biancatash.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...