mara lawniczak

thanks to Sunil Dogga who led this work and the rest of the folks here at Sanger and in Mali who contributed in lots of important ways.

when we compare a couple different long read assemblies within each species. this started out as a Malaria Cell Atlas side project as we had remaining material after doing single cell RNAseq on these samples (more on that to come soon)...

new reference genomes for Plasmodium ovale wallikeri and Plasmodium malariae (& Pf too) direct from blood taken from children carrying these parasites -- this was done with as little as 2 ng of DNA. all sorts of craziness going on in the subtelomeric regions ...

Preprints of pandemic potential - new historical piece from me on the history of bioRxiv/medRxiv, their role in the pandemic, and the way forward. 1/n journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

i do believe that is anders carlson.

A breakthrough from 60 years ago: “General nature of the genetic code for proteins” (1961) In 1961, Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner, together with two Cambridge colleagues, published an article in Nature that used simple genetic experiments to demonstrate that the genetic code was almost ...

Don’t forget that the 1961 triplet code paper only became elegant when it was written! The experiments were all a bit of a mess... I suspect the same was true of the other classic papers!

Open Senior Bioinformatician position at
@sangerinstitute.bsky.social
Tree of Life, to work on the Biodiversity Cell Atlas initiative with @marakat.bsky.social and me.

📅 Apply by January 18
🔗 sanger.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Wellco...

Please share with anyone who might be interested!

Join our Tree of Life Programme as a Group Leader in Biodiversity Genomics at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. Lead ambitious, large-scale genomics research to understand life’s diversity on Earth.

🔗 Learn more and apply: sanger.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Wellco...
📅 Closing date: 8 February 2026

🧐 Looking for a #PhD? University of Glasgow @glasgow.ac.uk @sbohvm.gla.ac.uk is offering two fully funded PhD positions within the new VectorGrid-Africa network!🦟

More details: www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/mvl...

📆Application deadline: 12 January 2026.

Pangenomics transforms evolutionary biology | Royal Society This Theo Murphy meeting organised by Dr Joana Meier, Dr Henry North and Dr Charlotte Wright, will showcase cutting-edge pangenome tools, applied uses of pangenomes which are transforming health and a...

Are you excited about pangenomics? If so, join us in Edinburgh on 8-9th June to discuss the latest methods & insights from using these approaches across biodiversity! More details here:

royalsociety.org/science-even...

Organised together with @henrylnorth.bsky.social & @joanameier.bsky.social!

De novo assembly of complete Plasmodium falciparum isolate genomes using PacBio HiFi sequencing technology Plasmodium falciparum possesses a highly structured genome with extensive sequence diversity concentrated in Variant Surface Antigen (VSA) families. These genes— var , rif , and stevor —play key roles...

Tired of 3D7? Need real P. falciparum genomes from real infections?
We’ve got you: 43 PacBio HiFi–assembled genomes from The Gambia, with full var/rifin/stevor repertoires in all their wild diversity.
Data now public!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(1/2)

a life changing opportunity made possible by the Nobel Prize funds awarded to John Sulston -- the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social runs the Sanger Prize scheme, open to an undergrad from any LMIC to spend 3 months here learning all about genomics. more details here www.sanger.ac.uk/about/study/...

Open postdoc position at @sangerinstitute.bsky.social Tree of Life to contribute to the Biodiversity Cell Atlas, with a focus on spatial transcriptomics.

Apply by January 4
sanger.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/Wellco...

Please share with anyone who might be interested!

The Biodiversity Cell Atlas: mapping the tree of life at cellular resolution - Nature The Biodiversity Cell Atlas aims to create comprehensive single-cell molecular atlases across the eukaryotic tree of life, which will be phylogenetically informed, rely on high-quality genomes and use...

job details here sanger.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/Wellco...

The Biodiversity Cell Atlas: mapping the tree of life at cellular resolution - Nature The Biodiversity Cell Atlas aims to create comprehensive single-cell molecular atlases across the eukaryotic tree of life, which will be phylogenetically informed, rely on high-quality genomes and use...

please share this postdoc job alert! come join the budding Biodiversity Cell Atlas initiative as a postdoc or senior postdoc at @sangerinstitute.bsky.social working closely with @arnausebe.bsky.social and me to make progress on what we cover in this paper www.nature.com/articles/s41...

a life changing opportunity made possible by the Nobel Prize funds awarded to John Sulston -- the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social runs the Sanger Prize scheme, open to an undergrad from any LMIC to spend 3 months here learning all about genomics. more details here www.sanger.ac.uk/about/study/...

PhD Programmes Sanger are passionate about postgraduate student training, our core aim is to nurture the next generation of world class genome scientists and clinicians.

more details here www.sanger.ac.uk/about/study/...

final week to apply for @sangerinstitute.bsky.social PhD programme (due Nov 27th) -- free to apply, open to anyone anywhere, and a superb training opportunity for students interested in genomic approaches applied to biodiversity, pathogens, vectors, and of course us pesky humans.

Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. In this work, we investigate a widely cited example of urban adaptation, Culex pipie...

How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?

Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.

🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515

Top: Prevalence of Microsporidia in DToL insect genomes. Microsporidian genomes recovered from insect hosts, split by taxonomic order. F: female, M: male, U: unspecified sex. Bottom: Simplified proposed generalized lifecycle for Microsporidia. This proposed model posits that each nucleus is a diploid, and that microsporidian reproduction mirrors reproduction in Fungi with stages similar to karyogamy, plasmogamy, and a stable “heterokaryon” (known as a diplokaryon in Microsporidia). Importantly, both the diplokaryotic and monokaryotic phases are parasitic, and species may spend most of their lifecycle in one or the other phase, giving rise to “diploid” and “tetraploid” lineages.

#Microsporidia are #parasites of growing importance. @amjadkhalaf.bsky.social @mblaxter.bsky.social @marakat.bsky.social &co present 40 new genomes from #DarwinTreeofLife sequencing of their arthropod hosts, revealing insights into #tetraploidy & #reproduction @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/48HsAQJ

new publication by @amjadkhalaf.bsky.social who mined arthropod reference genome data for hidden microsporidia reads and then did a whole lot of assembling and sleuthing! great job @amjadkhalaf.bsky.social !

Science for Biodiversity Synthetic biology: Hope for conservation requires keeping all options on the table.

The fight against #malaria is at a crossroads.

Together with colleagues worldwide, I’ve signed an Open Letter urging #IUCN members to keep the door open to responsible research and new tools that could help reverse stalled progress and save lives.

Add your voice here scienceforbiodiversity.org

Happy to share the Biodiversity Cell Atlas white paper, out today in @nature.com. We look at the possibilities, challenges, and potential impacts of molecularly mapping cells across the tree of life.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Genetic study of malaria-carrying mosquitoes tracks evolution of insecticide resistance | Natural History Museum It crucially also reveals promising genetic targets for potential control.

www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Mosquitoes that have been in the collection for nearly a hundred years are helping us in dealing with an even older but also current problem - malaria

@sangerinstitute.bsky.social @nhm-london.bsky.social

Genomic evolution of major malaria-transmitting mosquito species uncovered Sequencing hundreds of Anopheles funestus mosquitoes provides new insights into the evolutionary patterns of this important human malaria-transmitting species.

One of the most dangerous malaria-carrying mosquitoes is rapidly evolving in response to control efforts, genetics has revealed.

Findings could inform smarter tools to monitor for and fight malaria. 🦟

Read more here ⤵️
http://bit.ly/4pwQKDv

Our paper Genomic diversity of the African malaria vector Anopheles funestus was published in Science today! It features inversions, selection in action, museum specimens and putative new ecotypes. doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is ...

How many chromosomes can an animal have?

In our paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that the Atlas blue butterfly has 229 chromosome pairs- the highest in diploid Metazoa! These arose by rapid autosome fragmentation while sex chromosomes stayed intact.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

🚀🧬🔥 Hot off the press — 2025!
Don’t miss this must-read publication: bit.ly/4mJwFb7

This groundbreaking paper sets the stage for Earth BioGenome Project Phase II — where EBP is gearing up to scale genome sequencing 10× faster than ever before! 🌍✨

Malaria ‘back with a vengeance’ in Zimbabwe as number of deaths from the disease triple Withdrawal of USAID funds threatens decades of progress, say experts, with cuts to research and shortage of mosquito nets putting thousands at risk across the country

Malaria cases surge in Zimbabwe largely due to abrupt cut in USAID that affected mosquito net provision and surveillance measures. The Zimbabwean government trying to step up but can’t make up for the damage the sudden cessation. Climate change further increases mosquito burden too

Postdoc position opening in my group! Research projects: pangenomes for diverse organisms, genome evolution, biocomputing, language models. Please reach out if interested!