Studying archaea across diverse environments offers unique insights into life’s adaptability, and I am glad that our work on extremophiles contributes to this broader EMBL effort.
Many thanks to Ivy Kupec for helping bring this topic to a wider community!
www.embl.org/news/science...
Last week I attended the M-FED 2025, where I presented the discovery of uncharacterized microbial ecosystems in the Central Andes 🌎
I also joined the workshop “Grow your own microbial mat” and we visited the UNESCO Geopark Heeseberg! ⛏️
A great week of microbialite science!
Some years ago, we discovered a modern microbialite reef under conditions resembling primitive Earth 🌋
Now we show how seasonal extremes drive microbial shifts and mineralisation, offering a window into processes that shaped Earth’s first biostructures 🪨
www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02764-6
I recently participated in the GRC on Applied and Environmental Microbiology 🦠, where I had the opportunity to serve as a Discussion Leader and to present my work on modern microbialites as a Speaker.
Many thanks to the chairs @deniseakob.bsky.social, Marianne Haines, and @jlrolando.bsky.social!
We’ve uncovered Asgard chromatin structures formed by a Hodarchaeal histone : closed hypernucleosome conserved in archaea and an open form resembling the H3-H4 eukaryotic octasome. Fantastic work by @harshranawat.bsky.social!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#Chromatin #Asgard #Archaea #cryoEM
🚨 New preprint alert 🚨!
👉🏼 @fedevignale.bsky.social
🏔️ Our latest study explores seasonal biogeochemical variations in a modern microbialite reef at Laguna Pozo Bravo 🇦🇷 - a site with conditions reminiscent of early Earth 🌍🦠
📖 Read here : doi.org/10.1101/2025...
@embl.org @cssbhamburg.bsky.social
Exciting work on the Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) genome providing new insights into convergent evolution of caffeine biosynthesis 🧬🧉
Amazing work from our postdoc Federico Vignale and our STO @lucasdefelipe.bsky.social
@embl.org @cssbhamburg.bsky.social
🔗 elifesciences.org/articles/104759
The Chamber of Secrets has been opened... but for yerba mate! 🧉 🧬
Combining genomics, biochemistry, structural biology, and ancestral sequence reconstruction, we characterized how yerba mate synthesizes caffeine differently from coffee and tea plants 🌱 #yerbamate #caffeine #science
A cup of yerba mate on a wooden surface and some dried yerba mate next to it.
Scientists at University of Buenos Aires, EMBL Hamburg, and others mapped yerba mate’s genome, providing surprising facts about its biochemistry and evolution of caffeine biosynthesis. 🧉🧬🧪
Find out more: www.embl.org/news/science...
@spcembl.bsky.social
