Michael Borg

Thrilled to share what we learned from re-annotating the mobilome of the brown algae model [Ectocarpus] 🌊🌿🏖️

genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

A wonderful collaboration with @ericadinatale.bsky.social, @cssmartinho.bsky.social, @rorycraig.bsky.social, and Susana Coelho! 🎉

So happy to see my first first-author paper published! 🎈
A short thread on how Ectocarpus and its TE secrets have kept me busy lately:

rdcu.be/eITQH

Please share! I'm looking for a postdoc. The position is to lead one of the following projects: 1) regulation of plant specialized metabolism by cell fate, or 2) foliar embryogenesis in the succulent plant Kalanchoe.

Learn more abt projects: cxli233.github.io/cxLi_lab/res...

The Tübingen & Amsterdam crews have landed in Barcelona for #ESEB2025! Cooling off with helados before the science (and festivities) begin🍦

So excited to be at #ESEB2025 presenting poster 221 today!☀️

Check out our chromosome-level genome of Bostrychia, a red alga from the complex Ceramiales order, revealing massive genome expansion by giant Plavaka DNA transposons, the evolution of expanded gene families and UV sex chromosomes!

Transposable elements in brown algae? 🌊
Yes, they’re full of surprises ✨
Come meet Ectocarpus at #ESEB2025!

📍Room 113 - S28.03
🗓️ Thursday, 2:30pm

Rewinding the tape: historical contingency and functional constraints have shaped the evolution of APikL virulence effectors in the blast fungus Protein evolution is influenced by historical contingencies and functional constraints, but their combined impact on rapidly diversifying pathogen virulence effectors remains poorly understood. Here, ...

We’re excited to share our latest work on plant pathogen effector protein evolution @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social. With @kamounlab.bsky.social and Abbas Maqbool.

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

The histone core domain evolves at single-residue resolution to directly orchestrate transcription Nucleosomes are thought to be structural barriers to transcription, establishing a restrictive ground state that must be destabilized for gene express…

Happy to share our new paper out today in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social in collaboration with @tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social @akihisaosakabe.bsky.social about how evolution can do big things with small changes. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Long-read detection of transposable element mobilization in the soma of hypomethylated Arabidopsis thaliana individuals - Genome Biology Background Because transposable elements (TEs) can cause heritable genetic changes, past work on TE mobility in Arabidopsis thaliana has mostly focused on new TE insertions in the germline of hypometh...

Paper led by @movillome.bsky.social on unbiased detection of (somatic) #TE insertions in #Arabidopsis with @pacbio.bsky.social long reads out after peer review. Thanks to academic editor Leandro Quadrana for shepherding it through the review process.
#plantscience
link.springer.com/article/10.1...?

A roadmap to developing unified streptophyte algal model systems Carrillo-Carrasco and colleagues highlight the importance of the establishment of streptophyte algal model systems and the community efforts towards this goal.

We've tried to gather and unite the streptophyte algae community all around the world to join forces and develop tools and methods for these critters. Learn more about it on @currentbiology.bsky.social!
With @jandevries.bsky.social, @dolfweijers.bsky.social, and (many) others!

tinyurl.com/29n4zwen

1/2 Somatic TE transposition in plants is getting traction again (70 years after McClintock's discovery of "controlling elements")! A very large collection of somatic TE insertions in A. thaliana described by Ambreen et al.(www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...).

Hassan Salem Interview with Hassan Salem, who studies beetles and their microbial partners at the Max Planck Institute for Biology.

Grateful to the folks @CurrentBiology.bsky.social for the fun Q&A!

Come for the beetles, stay for the symbionts — and forgive the basketball detour 🪲🦠🏀

www.cell.com/current-biol...

We are looking for a student to continue our work on chromatin evolution:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The project with @seanamontgomery.bsky.social will focus on chromatin state readers across eukaryotes.

More info: recruitment.crg.eu/content/jobs...

Excited to share our latest review on histone-mediated chromatin organization in prokaryotes and viruses! 🧬 @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social

The art of arranging marine algae into designs, bouquets, and even sometimes intricate little scenes, was surprisingly popular in the 19th century. See an album of such pictures by a woman named Eliza A. Jordson here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/album-of-seaweed-pictures-1848

A wonderful summary of our recent work in @currentbiology.bsky.social . It’s an honour for it to have been written by such respected researchers in the field. Thank you @multicellgenome.bsky.social & team! 🤩

Congrats, well deserved!!

Omaya Dudin Interview with Omaya Dudin, who uses Ichthyosporea as models to study how and why unicellular organisms evolved multicellularity at the University of Geneva.

90% of you probably don’t need to read this.
But maybe some of you are curious & 10% will feel seen. Or a little less alone. This isn’t about seeking sympathy.
It’s about sharing something hard to say out loud;
partly to heal, partly in case someone needs to hear it too. (1/3)
tinyurl.com/DudinO

Thanks Vikram 🙏🏼

Thanks Pete, hope to see you again soon!

Thanks for the kind words and please enjoy the Plavakas! 🙏🏼

Delighted to see our work now published in @currentbiology.bsky.social. A great place for Bostrychia to stake its claim as an emerging red algal model system. Check it out here: www.cell.com/current-biol...

🎉 We’re hiring! Two ERC-funded #PostdocJobs on insect–phytopathogen mutualisms are available in my lab. Explore the chemical and molecular evolution of symbioses!
🧪Chemical ecology: tinyurl.com/chem-ecol-symb
🦠Phytopathology & mutualisms: tinyurl.com/symb-plantpath
#SymbioSky #PlantPathology

I always say, never trust a scientist who can’t cook!

Wonderful news and well deserved. Congrats Hassan!

Our preprint has now found a wonderful home in @molbioevol.bsky.social. Shout out to our collaborators in the Mozgova lab too 💚

Mind blowing 🤯

New post doc opportunity in our team at Kiel University in the north of Germany. We are looking for a motivated molecular biologists to unravel plant-microbe interactions in grasses. Please see: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...

More to our research and group here: www.environmental-genomics.de

My group is hiring a new Postdoc to work on gene regulation and chromatin in Nematostella. Please RT!
For more information see here:
gahanlab.com
tinyurl.com/34xke35d