Gitta Coaker

CRISPR-Cas–mediated heritable chromosome fusions in Arabidopsis The genome of Arabidopsis thaliana consists of 10 chromosomes. By inducing CRISPR-Cas–mediated breaks at subcentromeric and subtelomeric sequences, we fused entire chromosome arms, obtaining two eight...

CRISPR-Cas–mediated heritable chromosome fusions in Arabidopsis | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Very nice work from Holger Puchta & colleagues

My son has inherited my organization skills in various ways. He typed and made a pdf for his cousin for easy, healthy college meals. Daughter: they aren’t making that bro.

🌻 Sharing this preprint where we assembled 3 new chromosome-level genomes, including the first for Asteraceae's South American sister Calyceraceae! Asteraceae uses all the tricks when it comes to being the most ecologically successful family of flowering plants. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genetically engineered plant endophytes broaden effector-triggered immunity Hou et al. engineer plant endophytes to express effectors that trigger NLR-mediated ETI upon pathogen infection, regardless of whether pathogens carry recognizable effectors. The sentinel bacterium ma...

Enhancing NLR activation by endophytes carrying recognized effectors that are expressed in the presence of ROS. #plantimmunity
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

A lettuce receptor-like kinase recognizes the highly conserved heptapeptide motif within microbial NEP1-like proteins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.687460v1

Switzerland is joining Horizon Europe!

We are uniting two research powerhouses.

For cutting-edge innovation that will boost our energy security, digital transformation, health and so much more.

Today is a good day for science, and for our EU-Switzerland partnership.

Facts

Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services

Faculty got a standard of living increase from the University of California this month. I used mine to donate to the Sacramento Food Bank, because the majority of politicians in the US do not want to feed those in need. www.sacramentofoodbank.org

I got carded at the supermarket last week but then my teenager who was with me said “Mom, he’s obviously insane.” 🫠

"If it pleases the court, our position is that the poor people should go hungry"

I sent it to my mom and she said “everyone knows you have to put a number after your password”. So Louvre1 … except they didn’t

So my mom was in charge of the surveillance system?

So my mom ran the surveillance system?

Two residues reprogram immunity receptors for nitrogen-fixing symbiosis - Nature An investigation of plant receptor-like kinases identifies regions of these proteins that control whether immune or symbiotic signalling pathways are activated, with minimal changes to specific r...

Cool new paper on receptor specificity.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I think it’s a negative. No matter what, a proposal would have sat (no initial review and no panel assignment) until the government reopens. However, with the deadlines extended until??? it will take even more time to get to review.

Due to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown, staff from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture have been unable to answer questions related to grant applications or provide technical assistance to potential applicants for programs with an open Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs). As a result, application deadlines for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Competitive Grants Program Foundational and Applied Science (FAS) Program (USDA-NIFA-AFRI-011134) will be extended, with new deadlines communicated upon the conclusion of the Radical Left Democrat shutdown. If an application has already been submitted, applicants may revise and resubmit prior to the new deadline.

USDA issued the following statement today, AFRI deadlines extended: www.nifa.usda.gov/grants/progr...

Please register for BAPG at Stanford 12/6, especially if you want to give a talk or a poster. The deadline is Nov 16. bapg2025.github.io/bapg2025stan... And please reshare on bsky!

“I wish Andrew Cuomo the best in private life” - Mamdani’s victory speech

Long lines on UC campus on Nor and So Cal for the special election on #prop50. Ballot called literally 1 second after the polls closed. A blowout. It’s a yes. Voters are mad.

Research Specialist - Torii Lab Primary Work Address: 2500 Speedway, Austin, TX, 78712 Current HHMI Employees, click here to apply via your Workday account. About the Lab We are currently seeking a proactive Research Specialist to s...

🧬🌱Research Specialist Position Open🌱🧬 -Please spread the words
HHMI, UT Austin. NGS-based analyses/single cell biology to investigate environmental and hormonal control of plant stem cell differentiation. Requires both wet lab and bioinformatic skills.
hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

In situ architecture of the nuclear pore complex of the higher plant Arabidopsis thaliana - Nature Plants Using advanced imaging techniques and computer modelling, the authors were able to create a detailed structural model of a nuclear pore complex from a seed plant.

Beautiful work by Ingrid Berenice Sanchez Carrillo on the in situ structure of the Arabidopsis nuclear pore complex.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy Halloween

Natural variation in regulatory code revealed through Bayesian analysis of plant pan-genomes and pan-transcriptomes Understanding the genetic code of cis-regulatory elements (CREs) is essential for engineering gene expression and modulating agronomic traits in crops. In plants, CREs underlying rapid evolution of ge...

🚀 New preprint!
We introduce K-PROB, a k-mer–based Bayesian framework that mines pangenomic promoter and expression diversity to predict cis-regulatory elements driving gene expression variation in crops 🌽🌱
🔗 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.27.684862v1
#Genomics #GeneRegulation #Maize #Soybean

Then I have a lot of art.

Sunset was cooperating during my run but not my dog.

Genome-assisted identification of wheat leaf rust resistance gene Lr.ace-4A/Lr30 - Nature Communications Leaf rust threatens wheat production worldwide. Here, the authors report a high-quality genome assembly of the leaf rust resistant durum wheat landrace PI 192051 and the cloning of the leaf rust resis...

🌱From Nature Communications: A newly cloned resistance gene, Lr.ace-4A/Lr30, provides near-immunity to leaf rust in durum wheat, offering a powerful tool for future wheat breeding. (Jorge Dubcovsky)
▶️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#PlantScience

Job ad for Quantitative Microbe-Plant-Environment interactions position

Job ad for microbial drivers of chronic disease position

Come join us in Knoxville!

The Dept. of Microbiology 🧫🦠 at the University of Tennessee is hiring 2 Assistant Professors (tenure track, 9-month appt.).

Microbial Drivers of Chronic Disease: apply.interfolio.com/173153Quantitative Microbe-Plant-Environment Interactions: apply.interfolio.com/173345

Hey Yaniv Brandvain is not on Bluesky but his most recent biostats ebook is live ybrandvain.github.io/biostats/. His stats resources have been so helpful to me as I develop my own stats course, so check it out. Github repo here: github.com/ybrandvain/b...

Glad to hear you are starting to recover

Lab postdoc appreciation lunch