Dr. Sarah Signor

The autoclave is next to my office and it beeps when it's done until you go open it 😅

When I was a grad student the government paid me to go to Taiwan and try to start collaborating.

Last night in North Dakota

My lab at Indiana University is searching for a *postdoc* and *technician* to contribute to our work studying the evolution of social behavior using fruit flies as a model system. Details below, feel free to email me with any questions! More info on our research: saltzlab.com

Machine learning, genomics. He's very good with Rust

Best conference for a computational guy looking for an industry job? I can only think of PAG

Hydei?

Mystery flies

Recent horizontal transfer of transposable elements in Drosophila Transposable elements (TEs) are genetic elements also known as "jumping genes" that increase their copy numbers within a host through various mechanisms of transposition. TEs can also move between spe...

My awesome grad student Shashank and I wrote this paper trying to look at broader patterns of HT in TEs. HT is happening everywhere! DNA transposons jump further than other classes! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I had such a great time visiting the University of Minnesota yesterday. Yaniv Brandvein is such a cool scientist and human

Transposable elements drive much of naturally occurring genetic lethality in Drosophila melanogaster https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.16.682755v1

Graphical abstract: The Drosophila OSC Genome as a resource for transposon and piRNA biology. The figure illustrates the workflow and key findings. Left: De novo genome assembly using Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) long reads and Hi-C data generates a phased assembly distinguishing unique (blue) and repetitive (orange) sequences. Dot plot comparison between OSC-r1.01 and dm6 reference genomes shows overall synteny with extensive structural variation. Middle: A freely accessible UCSC genome browser session displays multi-omics data tracks including gene models, transposon insertions, chromatin accessibility, transcription, small RNAs, and histone modifications. Right: New insights into flamenco piRNA cluster biology reveal >730 kb transcribed from a single promoter without major splicing. Tethering assays demonstrate long-range silencing effects across the locus, and genome browser tracks show coordinated regulation of piRNA production, transcription, and chromatin state. This resource enables comprehensive studies of transposon regulation and piRNA pathway function in a widely-used Drosophila cell line.

When transposons jump, genomes diverge - even in cultured cells.
I am happy to share our new preprint: a chromosome-scale genome assembly for Drosophila OSC cells, one of the key model systems in the piRNA field, especially for nuclear piRNA biology. 🧬🧵 (1/12)

What would you say if you saw it in another country? What would you say if you had been told in 2015 that this is where we would be?

My daughter commandeered my coffee table to keep her recovering brother company 😊

Join the AAUP and other allied organizations across the nation on October 18 for a day of peaceful and impactful protest as we come together to make clear: America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people!

#NoKings #AAUP #AcademicFreedom #HigherEducation #DefendHigherEd #Education

Tonsils coming out today, but he's mostly interested in sperms whales 🤣🤣

This manuscript was so much fun to write! Who thought we'd find an ongoing invasion in Dmel. TEs are so cool 😎

📣 Our department is hiring an Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Cell and Molecular Biology to join the @weillinstitute.bsky.social PLS spread the word!
academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30607

“Who me? As a tripod fish, I deal with stress and fear by transforming into an eyeless abyssal predatory elder god. What about you?”

🎥 Huge thanks to @frida.yolotzin for letting me use the baby tripod fish video, and @schmidtocean for permission to share the adult video.

Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Computational Ecology and/or Evolution @columbiauniversity.bsky.social.
Deadline to apply September 30.
Reach out if you have questions.

apply.interfolio.com/172496

Yaaay! Congratulations, much deserved.

Genetic and environmental sources of behavioral individuality: a test of the standard model Behavioral variation is typically assumed to arise from the combination and interaction of genetic and environmental variation. However, recent work with genetically identical individuals has found th...

New preprint out from the lab, including @rroyaute.bsky.social:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

In this we test what we refer to as the "standard model" of behavioral variation.

This was inspired by recent work identifying intra-genotypic variation as a major contributor to "individuality".
1/

Tenure seminar, done!

From now on I'm measuring stress levels in terms of old coffee cups. Currently at level 8

Rapid emergence of non-autonomous elements may stop P-element invasions in the absence of a piRNA-based host defence Author summary Transposable elements (TEs) are short, self-replicating DNA sequences found in nearly all genomes. While they can be harmful to their hosts, many organisms have evolved defence systems,...

Germline defence from TEs largely relies on piRNAs. Yet, @divyaselvaraju.bsky.social and I monitored a P-element invasion in Drosophila that was stopped by an internally deleted copy, no host intervention required!
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Many thanks to @rpianezza.bsky.social & @rokofler.bsky.social

Registering a lab server with the university IT department, call if you don't hear from me within three days 🤣

Nooooooooooo

Efficient near telomere-to-telomere assembly of Nanopore Simplex reads Telomere-to-telomere (T2T) assembly is the ultimate goal for de novo genome assembly. Existing algorithms capable of near T2T assembly all require Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) ultra-long reads w...

Heng Li and his lab are just out here propping up our entire field
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

holy shit this is a helluva ad from the Democrat running against Joni Ernst in Iowa. worth every second

ecoevojobs.net 2025-26

The 2025-26 Eco-Evo job list is out. Good luck to those applying!

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...