Phil Wigge

Call for a tenure-track position at our Department of Plant Molecular Biology in Lausanne! We are searching for promising early-career researchers in the broad field of plant-organismal interactions. Deadline: November 30, 2025 - Please re-post!

career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...

We have a new paper out in Molecular Ecology, led by @devinbendixsen.bsky.social ! Reproductive isolation due to divergent ecological selection is accompanied by vast genomic instability in experimentally evolved yeast populations onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Amazing talk by @wigge.bsky.social at #ICAR2025!

Plant have genetically encoded thermometers using phase separation 🌡️!

Interest in ROS and condensates? See my talk on Friday morning at Concertzaal!

@igzleibniz.bsky.social

#heatstress #plantscience #consensates #thermomorphogenesis #arabidopsis

A man stands in front of a slide that says "Temperature sensing in plants"

The same man in front of a slide that says "Cherry trees have been blossoming earlier due to warming spring temperatures"

Now Phil Wiggle is talking about the ongoing global experiment about how plants sense and respond to stress, illustrated by the rapid acceleration of flowering in Japanese cherry trees. #ICAR2025
@wigge.bsky.social

Christa Testerink discussing how salt profoundly influences root growth! #halotropism #auxin #ICAR2025

Great talk by Julia Bailey-Serres : combining fundamental research in plant biology with breeding to create crops resilient to climate change. #ICAR2025

A woman at a podium speaking in front of a slide that says "Hanging tight: fight or fight under stress"

First up on day 2 of #ICAR2025 is Julia Bailey-Serres, speaking on plants "Hanging tight: fight or flight under stress. She says, Don't call plants sessile, they are movers and shakers when it comes to stress!

Transparent peer review to be extended to all of Nature’s research papers From today, all new submissions to Nature that are published will be accompanied by referees’ reports and author responses — to illuminate the process of producing rigorous science.

From today, every paper submitted to Nature -if published - will be accompanied by peer reviewers comments & authors rebuttal.

We started the trial in 2020; we now want to open up the review process & showcase its role in shaping & improving papers
🧪 #AcademicSky

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🌿 Excited to chair a session on "Temperature sensing in plants" at #ICAR2025 in Ghent, Belgium!🌡️🌱
🗓️ June 20, 2025 🕘 9 AM
Don't miss talks from amazing speakers on how plants perceive & adapt to temperature.
#ICAR2025 #PlantBiology #TemperatureSensing #ClimateResilience

In defense of funding foundational plant science Abstract. Plants are essential for life as we know it on Earth. They oxygenate the atmosphere, regulate the climate, and comprise much of the primary produ

📜 In defense of funding foundational plant science

🧑‍🔬 @jfriesner.bsky.social, @cargueso.bsky.social, @plantteaching.bsky.social, Shuang Wu, @roederlab.bsky.social, et al.

📔 @theplantcell.bsky.social

🔗 academic.oup.com/plcell/advan...

#️⃣ #PlantScience

It is sad that even basic research needs to be defended with utility. For me, basic research is in the same category as art: civilized societies can't do without it, because we all want to know who we are and what our place in the natural world is -- questions that only science can answer.

Single-cell transcriptomics reveal how root tissues adapt to soil stress - Nature Single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomic approaches reveal major expression changes in outer root cell types when grown in soil versus gel conditions, and also uncover how root tissu...

Plant roots adapt to their environment including to soil conditions. Using single-cell transcriptomics, @nature authors report on the rice root responses and adaptations to soil-related stresses at individual cell level. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The transcription factor MYB30 promotes iron homeostasis by maintaining the stability of the FIT transcription factor A MYB transcription factor acts as a regulator to prevent degradation of a key component of the iron deficiency response involved in maintaining iron homeo

The transcription factor MYB30 promotes iron homeostasis by maintaining the stability of the FIT transcription factor
academic.oup.com/plcell/advan...
#plantscience

Early Flowering 3 (ELF3) inhibits hypocotyl phototropism in light-grown Arabidopsis seedlings. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.09.647958v1

Biologist whose innovation saved the life of British teenager wins $3m Breakthrough prize Prof David Liu is among the winners of 2025’s ‘Oscars of science’, with honours also going to researchers for landmark work on multiple sclerosis, particle physics and ‘skinny jabs’

“To me, slashing funding and people from science in the United States is like burning your seed corn. It’s not even eating your seed corn. It’s just destroying it,”
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Congratulations Mohan!! 🎊🎉👏

The DOMPS #PlantScience Paper of the Year 2024 was awarded to Sharma et al., from Thomas Laux's group. Congratulations! 🥂
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

VRN2-PRC2 facilitates light-triggered repression of PIF signaling to coordinate growth in Arabidopsis Osborne et al. show that the angiosperm-specific PRC2 subunit VRN2 is enriched in hypoxic regions of the Arabidopsis shoot, where it is required for stable deposition of H3K27me3 in key PIF4 target ge...

Now with the #plantscience #epigenetics hashtags 😅

Excited to see our work led by @drosborneplantsci.bsky.social & @djgibbs.bsky.social out in Developmental Cell. 🌱 We show that VRN2-PRC2 in meristematic hypoxic niches epigenetically limits growth through PIF targets.
www.cell.com/developmenta...

Good morning!

VRN2-PRC2 facilitates light-triggered repression of PIF signaling to coordinate growth in Arabidopsis Osborne et al. show that the angiosperm-specific PRC2 subunit VRN2 is enriched in hypoxic regions of the Arabidopsis shoot, where it is required for stable deposition of H3K27me3 in key PIF4 target ge...

www.cell.com/developmenta...

There are five *very* long phelological time series, ideal for teaching #rstats #econsky

Enthalpy-entropy trade-offs in the evolution of ligand specificity in a superfamily of transcription factors Proteins operate through ligand and solvent interactions governed by thermodynamics, yet the enthalpy-entropy trade-offs that guide their functional evolution remain poorly understood. The LacI/GalR f...

Really interesting paper on the trade off between enthalpy and entropy for TF binding in response to climate breakdown www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Really important point. And Covid19 is still very much with us and destroying lives.

Exclusive: NIH to cut grants for COVID research, documents reveal Studies on climate change and South Africa are also on the latest list of grants to be terminated, according to updated documents obtained by Nature.

The pandemic may be over but we’ve so much to learn from how it unfolded, how we responded and how to prepare for the next one. Why oh why do we fail to appreciate that examining the past holds the keys to a better future (not to mention long COVID)

#MedSky 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Spatial cell clusters based on the expression of 99 genes analyzed by smFISH at three stages of wheat spike development.

Expression profiles of genes differentially expressed during spikelet development.

We’re excited to share our new preprint on wheat spike development! We used spatial transcriptomics and scRNA-seq to take a closer look at the different cell types and expression domains during key developmental stages of the wheat spike. Check it out here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Professor Uauy appointed as Director of the John Innes Centre | John Innes Centre Following an international search, Professor Cristóbal Uauy has been appointed as the next Director of the John Innes Centre. Professor Uauy is internationally recognised for his significant…

PRESS RELEASE - Professor Uauy appointed as Director of the John Innes Centre

Following an international search, we are delighted to announce that Professor @cristobaluauy.bsky.social has been appointed as the next Director of the John Innes Centre.

www.jic.ac.uk/press-releas...

@ukri.org

Does chromatin accessibility explain the dynamics of shade-regulated gene expression. Are PIF binding sites accessible prior to a shade treatment? What regulates changes in chromatin accessibility? Check what we found here www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@unil.bsky.social congrats to all authors!

Ten simple rules for developing good reading habits during graduate school and beyond

journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

Hey fellow #plantscience Have we found an solid answer to the mechanism of thermotropism? My quick research shows a lot of conflicting arguments.

Our latest @pnas.org! Preventing inappropriate signals pre- and post-ligand perception by a toggle switch mechanism of the plant receptor kinase ERECTA.

Its unique C-terminal alpha-helix domain inhibits the receptor active state. Congrats, all!🌱🥰
www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....