Amelia Barber

The VEO Group at @uni-jena.de @microverse.bsky.social has an open position for a Bioinformatics Technician until the end of 2032! Join us to unlock the secrets of the Microverse from big datasets: jobs.uni-jena.de/jobposting/0...

Do you work with the Aspergillus fumigatus model isolates Af293 or CEA10? If so, we want to collaborate with you! In return for your lab's participation we will sequence your strain for free and provide co-authorship on the final paper.

Learn more here: asp-fumi-seq-project-2025.vercel.app

Genomic and physiological signatures of adaptation in pathogenic fungi - Nature Communications Emerging fungal pathogens have detrimental impacts on crops, animals, and humans, however little is known about their transition to a pathogenic lifestyle. This study demonstrates that the transition ...

What enables a fungus to invade a mammal host? @marco-guerreiro.bsky.social unravels signatures of translation adaptation among pathogenic and non-pathogenic species of Trichosporonales. See more: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This article is now published! academic.oup.com/nargab/artic...
We’ve added a few new analyses. First off, we show that, while gene presence absence variation (PAV) scales with evolutionary distance in both plants and animals, the base level and rate of accrual are both twice as high in plants.

Sharing our lab’s first publication! Probing clinical isolates of Cryptococcus, a disease-causing fungus of the lungs and brain, we found multiple heat-mobile elements that ‘jump’ in the genome at body temperature (!) with the ability to drive adaptive changes. journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Looking forward to bringing the 🍄 perspective to this exciting meeting on AMR and microbial genomics!

We've got ISSUES. Literally.

We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do?

arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563

A 🧵 1/n

Black field with a macro image of a bright orange lichen Xanthoria in one of the corner. Little diagrams showing a structure of a lichen thallus with different layers in grey and green, a phylogenetic tree, and an alphafold generated structure of a protein. White text says "PhD position in Stockholm University / SciLifeLab. Lichen Biology, Symbiosis, Microbial Ecology & Evolution,Meta-omics Fully funded for 4 years. Start Apr-Sep 2026. Deadline for application: Feb 1st."

⚡️Fully funded #PhD position in my lab at Stockholm University / SciLifeLab! If you’re interested in #lichens, #symbiosis, fungal biology, or meta-omics, please apply. Deadline Feb 1. Read more here: su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Zoom in, look closer! Our Microverse Wimmelbild hides the faces, ideas & discoveries that made 2025 unforgettable. Can you spot them all? Season’s greetings & here’s to a curious, collaborative 2026! Illustration: Hannes Naumann

Anyone looking for roommates for #Fungal26 in Asilomar?
I will participate and I am looking for someone to share a room for the week!

I'm a female PhD student, looking to share a room with another female. Please DM me if you'd like to team up with me 😄
Reposts appreciated!

Six smiling people stand in two rows in a seminar room. Each is holding a large piece of paper with drawing summarising the presentations of another group member.

Six smiling people are standing together outside, dressed in winter coats and hats. In the background is the Wartburg Castle.

Six smiling people sit around a table playing the board game Mycology

Third lab retreat in the books! We once again headed to the city of Eisenach for two days of project presentations, soft skills workshops, and science discussions. We also played the beautiful Mycology board game!

Six smiling people stand in two rows in a seminar room. Each is holding a large piece of paper with drawing summarising the presentations of another group member.

Six smiling people are standing together outside, dressed in winter coats and hats. In the background is the Wartburg Castle.

Six smiling people sit around a table playing the board game Mycology

Third lab retreat in the books! We once again headed to the city of Eisenach for two days of project presentations, soft skills workshops, and science discussions. We also played the beautiful Mycology board game!

Image of yeast spotted on an agar plate. Some grow well, others are dying.

We're looking for a PhD student! If you're interested in #fungal #genomics & #TEs, meiotic drive, or pathogens, please consider applying. The project is about toxin/antidote genes in the human fungal pathogen A. fumigatus. uu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Historic transposon mobilisation waves create distinct pools of adaptive variants in a major crop pathogen - Nature Communications In this study, the authors analysed a large genomic dataset to trace how jumping genes shaped the global spread of a major wheat pathogen and reveal bursts of activity over decades that drove adaptati...

TEs aren’t just genomic parasites, they’re also engines of genomic novelty.

Our new study with ~2,000 Z. tritici genomes shows repeated TE mobilization waves during global expansion.

With @danielcroll.bsky.social & @guidopuccetti.bsky.social

🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#TEworldwide

@tobybarilbio.bsky.social and I are very excited to release MycoMobilome! A very extensive effort to discover, QC and annotate TEs across the fungal kingdom.

👉 Ready-to-use for your own genome with a simple tutorial!
👉 Metadata about TEs discovered in your genome!
👉 Contribute and get recognition!

1/ Ever needed to annotate TEs in a fungal genome, but didn't know where to start?

We have released #MycoMobilome, a community-focused non-redundant database of transposable element consensus sequences for the fungal kingdom, constructed from >4,000 fungal genomes!

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

A great turnout for our latest Microverse Seminar! 🍕🔬

@ameliabarberphd.bsky.social, Junior Group Leader #FungalInformatics, shared fascinating insights in her talk “From Ecology to Genomes: Unraveling Fungal Pathogenicity Across Scales.”

Lively discussions and great connections followed!

The heading reads, 'Congrats Phillip!!'. Below that, there is a four image grid from a zoom meeting and depcting a graduation mortarboard and 3 people/groups smiling and celebrating.

Congrats to the group's first PhD student, the newly minted Dr. Brassington!!

Phillip relocated back to Oceania in the period between submitting his dissertation and his oral defense, so we had to make do with a virtual defense, but I am still incredibly proud of him.

Homepage - 33rd Fungal Genetics Conference Visit our website to learn more.

Registration open for #Fungal26 genetics-gsa.org/fungal-2026/ at Asilomar.

Population structure in a fungal human pathogen is potentially linked to pathogenicity - Nature Communications Genetic diversity between clinical and environmental fungal isolates of Aspergillus flavus is poorly studied. Here, the authors analysed genomic data from a global set of clinical and environmental A. flavus isolates and report that clinical prevalence is associated with population structure.

Population structure in a fungal human pathogen is associated with clinical prevalence

#Aspergillus flavus

@annemakerofhats.bsky.social ‪@ameliabarberphd.bsky.social‬ @rokaslab.bsky.social

#fungi #infection #PopulationGenomics #mycology

Very excited to see the final version of our kingdom-scale fungal genome defense manuscript out in @plosbiology.org !

This work has been a major project of @tbadet.bsky.social during his time in our lab.

We hope to stimulate much more exciting work on fungal TEs.

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Massive congrats Michael!!! Also, Bsky leaves much to be desired - why did I not see this before today??

Open Positions ERC-funded project on the mechanism of horizontal transfer of entire fungal chromosomes PhD PostDoc

Want to understand how entire fungal chromosomes can be horizontally transferred?
Join us to unravel the mechanism/consequences of horizontal chromosome transfer in a fungal pathogen as part of an ERC-funded project. Postdoc/PhD positions available.
fungal-evolutionary-genetics.de/open-positio...

If you saw my talk on the population structure of #Aspergillus flavus at Fungal Genetics in 2024, you might have heard someone ask "how does Aspergillus oryzae fit into the picture?"
If so, you heard my answer was "wait and see--we're working on this exact topic"
Well, the wait is over! Preprint ⬇️

Wow, congrats Megan and great to have you closer to 🇩🇪!!

Open postdoc position in in my lab in Berlin @mpiib-berlin.mpg.de.

Join us to push the frontier in ancient microbial genomics. Please apply until Oct 17th. Reach out in case you have any questions.

www.mpiib-berlin.mpg.de/2193291/job_...

Fabio doing some excellent scicomm about his postdoc project in the group!

Commensal yeast promotes Salmonella Typhimurium virulence - Nature Commensal Candida albicans enhances the virulence and dissemination of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium.

Excited to share our new publication, out today in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41.... @kanchanj.bsky.social led this fascinating fungal-bacterial interaction project. We are grateful for our wonderful collaborators Brian Peters and David Underhill.

Just a few more days to apply! ⏰