Matt Mead

Pop star Bad Bunny needed a Puerto Rican history scholar. UW–Madison had just the one. Bad Bunny collaborated with UW–Madison history professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo on Puerto Rican narratives that accompany the new album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.”

Anybody know if #BadBunny needs a Fungal Bioinformatics advisor? #OnWisconsin news.wisc.edu/pop-star-bad...

If you know anyone who might have a few dozen North or South American squash genome assemblies lying around I’d love to get in touch for a fun collaboration on American domesticates. We have chile, maize, beans, sunflower, amaranth, cotton, tomato, and maybe even strawberry!

Flier for conference with list of name of speakers and discussion leaders, Title for conference "Evolutionary Perspectives of Metabolic, Cellular and Genomic Diversity in Fungi", 50th Anniversary Conference Chairs: Bridget Barker & Elaine Bignell. held June 20-21 GRS, June 21-26, GRC. URL https://www.grc.org/cellular-and-molecular-fungal-biology-conference/2026/ and list of speakers names.

2026 is the 50th anniversary of the Cellular and Molecular Fungal Biology GRC. It will be June 21-26, 2026. Consider attending this is a great meeting if you work in the fungal biology field at genetic / genomic / molecular scale. www.grc.org/cellular-and... 🍄🧬🖥️

Do I by any chance know someone in the Boston area who winter commutes on a gravel bike that could use new 700x42c studless winter tires?

🚨Last chance! Submit an abstract to #Fungal26 by tomorrow, December 4: buff.ly/1AMwJhf

They can cover an array of topics including #ComparativeGenomics #FunctionalGenomics #Pathogenic #GeneRegulation #CellBiology #Biochemistry #Metabolism #FungalEcology #Evo #DevelopmentalBio #PopGen and more.

"Museomics"! Love this approach to increasing fungal genome sequencing and identification. K-mer methods will hopefully provide more accurate info than one or a handful of markers but will still be robust to fragmented and/or incomplete genomes!

‪Thanks for the shoutout Keith! Would love to hear feedback or feature requests from folks! Or if anyone has interest in collaborations.‬

Major thanks and shout-out to @rokaslab.bsky.social for the initial idea and to @jlsteenwyk.bsky.social for being an amazing soundboard and finding some early bugs!

I built a small app (GenomeCheck ✅ - github.com/meadm/Genome...) for assessing genome assemblies and catching mislabeled data. It can be run on Streamlit Community Cloud (genomecheck.streamlit.app), Docker (meadm/genomecheck:latest), or locally via the GitHub repo. Let me know what you think!

The power was inside of you all along!

The new -outfmt 20 in BLAST 😍. No more frustrated googling to remember which column is which.....

some of you need to make like travis kelce and engage with a tailor swiftly

~~ Frontiers of cloning ~~

🍄Mark your calendars for March 17-22, 2026 for #Fungal26! Registration will open October 25, 2025. We can’t wait to see you at Asilomar in absolutely beautiful Pacific Grove, California. Start planning today!

🔗Stay updated on all the important information at buff.ly/BjAlE2j.

And if you are a bioinformatician, I’d still love to hear about any pain points or things you’d like fixed or sped up!

Feel free to reach out to me here if you have ideas or just want to chat about what your current tasks and needs are!

What sorts of #bioinformatic tasks, tools, or processes do you wish were more user friendly or accessible to non-bioinformaticians? I'm looking to potentially build some tools (especially for the #fungal community) that can help biologists get the most out of their data and speed up their science!

1/27 We have a new paper out! Turns out that snowflake yeast have been hiding a secret from us - they've evolved a (very!) crude circulatory system. Not with blood vessels or a heart, but through spontaneous fluid flows powered by their metabolism. 🧪🔬

www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Big day for the lab at #Evol2025

Curious about machine learning?

Want to learn more about not so silent codon changes?

Love yeast?

We've got talks and posters for you!

Title slide for June 24, 2025 talk "The little plasmid that could: evolution of a small antimicrobial resistance element," in the Bioinformatics & Molecular Evolution Session. Orange slide background with white circular outline around talk information. Presenting/1st author is Megan Phillips (at Emory University), other authors are Robert Petit, Daniel Weissman, & Timothy Read.

I’m excited to present my work on mobile genetic element evolution at #Evol2025 on Tuesday, June 24! Come by the Bioinformatics & Molecular Evolution session at 9:45am for my talk, “The little plasmid that could: evolution of a small antimicrobial resistance element” (room Athena F)

Hyperdiverse, bioactive, and interaction-specific metabolites produced only in co-culture suggest diverse competitors may fuel secondary metabolism of xylarialean fungi | mSystems Saprotrophic and endophytic xylarialean fungi are among the most prolific producers of bioactive secondary metabolites, with numerous industrial uses as antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, and insecticidal toxins. Fungal secondary metabolites are typically ...

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Hang onto your socks, I'm about to tell you the best dad joke you ever done heard.

Did you know that Norway puts barcodes on all of their ships?

It's so that when the ships return to port, they can Scandinavian

YouTube video by The Beach Boys - Topic God Only Knows (Remastered 1996)

One of the best. #RIP www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0lj...

Fungus in "agroterrorism" arrest already widely prevalent in U.S., researcher says Two Chinese researchers were charged with trying to smuggle strains of a fungus called Fusarium graminearum into the U.S.

Nice reporting from CBS on how F. graminearum is already in the USA, an overview of head blight, and the impact of the mycotoxins the fungus produces.
Features a familiar name for many in the Fusarium world—retired USDA plant pathologist Corby Kistler!

www.cbsnews.com/news/fungus-...

We are looking for a Postdoc in the LaBella Lab!

Do you love fungi 🍄, genetics 🧬and bioinformatics 💻 - then this might be a good fit for you!

jobs.charlotte.edu/postings/63307

Applications accepted through July 1

NIH funding supporting the HMMER and Infernal software projects has been terminated. NIH states that our work, as well as all other federally funded research at Harvard, is of no benefit to the US.

A screenshot of the termination notice showing "Outstanding Investigator Grants"

A screenshot of the termination notice with "This award is terminated effective the date of this award, due to unsafe antisemitic actions that suggest the institution lacks concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students." highlighted

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
new preprint on predicting antifungal drug resistance in yeasts is out!

We're gearing up to tackle new kingdoms of life, thanks to generous support from @wellcometrust.bsky.social. Get in touch!

Read more on our blog: cultivarium.substack.com/p/fungi-and-...

Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Defines Developmental Progression and Reproductive Transitions of Pneumocystis carinii Pneumocystis species are host-obligate fungal pathogens that cause severe pneumonia in immunocompromised individuals. Despite their clinical importance, their life cycle remains poorly understood, in ...

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