Cauã Westmann

We have an open PhD position (application deadline 9 January 2026) in "Theory of fitness landscapes" at @unibe.ch 🤓⛰️📊👩‍💻🎓: banklab.github.io/positions/

Please share widely!

#QueerInSTEM #DisabledInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #WomenInSTEM #CarersInSTEM #AcademicSky #HigherED

Strong promoters are mutationally robust Mutational robustness is the persistence of a phenotype upon mutation. It facilitates molecular evolution and has been characterized in a variety of biological systems, but studies of prokaryotic prom...

A fun little side project I've been working on with @stepadenisov.bsky.social , Mato Lagator, and Andreas Wagner: "Strong promoters are mutationally robust". Briefly...

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

Forgot to add the graphical abstract :)

Massively parallel interrogation of the fitness of natural variants in ancient signaling pathways reveals pervasive local adaptation The nature of standing genetic variation remains a central debate in population genetics, with differing perspectives on whether common variants are almost always neutral as suggested by neutral and n...

One of the most exciting works of my career, years in the making. We used high-throughput precision genome editing to test the fitness effects of thousands of natural variants. Our findings challenge the long-held assumption that common variants are inconsequential.

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

Thank you so much ☺️

I’m excited to announce the launch of my lab at EPFL in Jan 2026 🎉. We’ll combine evolution & synthetic biology to study and (re)engineer bacterial communication.
I’m recruiting PhD students to start in the first semester of 2026.
Apply via EPFL PhD programs by Nov 1
drive.google.com/file/d/1cm-t...

Intergenic polyA/T tracts explain the propensity of yeast de novo genes to encode transmembrane domains Abstract. New genes can emerge de novo from non-genic genomic regions. In budding yeast, computational predictions have shown that intergenic regions harbo

Why do yeast #de_novo genes have so many transmembrane domains? It's because the genomic regions from which they evolved are super enriched in stretches of A's and T's ! Our work with @timothyfuqua.bsky.social is now published in @jevbio.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Hey y'all, grant-pending, I may be unemployed starting from October. If you have any leads on biotech / postdoc positions in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, I'd greatly appreciate a message. I'm great with Data Analysis, Molecular Biology, and Teaching. (Plz RT!)

More at timothyfuqua.com

EvoSur

Começando com a divulgação do EVOSUR 2025 - uma Escola Sul-Americana de Biologia Evolutiva que estamos organizando no Uruguai, em novembro!
As inscrições estão abertas até 15 de agosto.
Se puderem divulgar entre redes e grupos da América do Sul, agradecemos muito!
sites.google.com/view/evosul2...

Better late than never - Hello world and hello Bluesky! :)