Amy Webster

Epimutations: raw material for evolution? - The EMBO Journal Epigenetics is fundamental to cell differentiation as it enables cells with identical genomes to adopt distinct fates. Some epigenetic information can also be transmitted between generations, in a pro...

Need a bit of escapism? Not exactly Lord of the Rings, but in similar vein:
doi.org/10.1038/s443...

No contest. Just read the first two sentences of the abstract. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

From nematode to Nobel: How community-shared resources fueled the rise of Caenorhabditis elegans as a research organism - a perspective written by 11 scientists, six of whom are Nobel laureates

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Make males live more than 400% longer and prevent sexual disfunction late in life?! We're down with it. Our latest preprint: Disruption of the insulin signaling pathway in C. elegans dramatically increases male longevity and enhances reproductive health late in life. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Homepage - Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference Visit our website to learn more.

Save the date! #PEQG26 June 9-12 2026 in Asilomar, CA. Happens only every 2yrs, but is my favorite conference. Full website coming soon, and registration and abstract submission opens November 14, but I'm allowed to tease that keynotes will be @jnovembre.bsky.social @jennytung.bsky.social and me!

Just out in press in eLife, a cool and brilliant piece of work by @amywebster.bsky.social: Gene expression variation across genetically identical individuals predicts reproductive traits. elifesciences.org/articles/106...

Pro-longevity compounds extend Caenorhabditis elegans male lifespan and reproductive healthspan Sex differences in aging are robust and ubiquitous. Demographic differences in aging generated by sex have long been recognized, but the underlying biological basis for these differences and the poten...

Fresh on the heels of #worm25, our new preprint just dropped: Pro-longevity compounds extend Caenorhabditis elegans male lifespan and reproductive healthspan, by @rosealsaadi.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Fantastic Nobel Moment at #worm25 with Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun.

It was great to participate in this virtual workshop yesterday (recorded for those who missed it)! Looking forward to the rest of #worm25

University of Minnesota Genomics Center Model Organism Sequencing Service Flyer. $25 for a 30x Drosophila genome.

Hey fellow Drosophila researchers - if you haven't heard, the UMGC is offering ultra low-cost genome sequencing! See here to learn more: z.umn.edu/UMGC-MOSS #Dros25

A systems-level, semi-quantitative landscape of metabolic flux in C. elegans - Nature A strategy is introduced that infers whole-animal metabolic flux wiring from transcriptional phenotypes in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and several features in its adult metabolism are discover...

A systems-level, semi-quantitative landscape of metabolic flux in C. elegans

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

NEW: NSF confirmed that they fired 168 employees today, out of their staff of ~1,500 feds.

This includes some people who'd finished their 1-year probationary periods, which were extended to 2-years last month without explanation. More to come.

An RNA Splicing System that Excises Transposons from Animal mRNAs All genomes harbor mobile genetic parasites called transposable elements (TEs). Here we describe a system, which we term SOS splicing, that protects C. elegans and human genes from DNA transposon-medi...

One of the coolest and most novel findings I’ve seen in years. This is why I work in worms. To find things no one even really knew to look for. Like a conserved system that splices transposons out of mRNAs to prevent otherwise lethal insertions in essential genes! - www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

On January 6th, 1995, my (now ex) wife and I boarded a flight from Heathrow to JFK on a one way ticket. We had two suitcases and about $900 in cash - this was everything we owned and we were moving to the US. We thought it was maybe for 2-3 years. I had visited the US once, for a conference, and

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

In the present discussions about NIH and the need for reform, two recurring points I am seeing are:

(1) NIH doesn't fund truly high impact research

(2) NIH needs to experiment with alternative approaches to peer review, particularly for high risk-high impact research

1/n

Very happy to see this out! It was great to think deeply about integrating epigenetic variation into the genotype-phenotype map, from historical perspectives, to current research, to future possibilities. I hope others interested in these topics find the framework and scope of this review helpful.

The eLife Model: An update on progress following changes in Web of Science indexing status Following the decision that eLife will not receive an Impact Factor in 2025, we share an update on how our model is doing since we were first placed “on hold” by Web of Science, and what we’re up to…

Following the news that eLife will not receive an Impact Factor in 2025, we’ve shared an update on how our model is doing since we were first placed “on hold” by Web of Science, and what we’re up to now. Find out more.
https://buff.ly/3ATRAFT

Precise Lineage Tracking Using Molecular Barcodes Demonstrates Fitness Trade-offs for Ivermectin Resistance in Nematodes A fundamental tenet of evolutionary genetics is that the direction and strength of selection on individual loci varies with the environment. Barcoded evolutionary lineage tracking is a powerful approa...

Important new preprint from the lab: Precise Lineage Tracking Using Molecular Barcodes Demonstrates Fitness Trade-offs for Ivermectin Resistance in Nematodes. First use of random barcodes for the analysis of natural selection in a multicellular animal! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

My C. elegans biology lab is looking to hire a technician. You can find the ad at FSU jobs with job ID 58889 for the next week, or feel free to email me a CV and cover letter anytime. Could be a good fit for people about to graduate or recent grads. Please share!

jobs.omni.fsu.edu/psc/sprdhr_e...

I will be recruiting at all levels, including technicians, postdocs, and graduate students, so feel free reach out by email if our interests align, and check the website (amykwebster.github.io) for additional info and formal job ads as they become available.

I am very excited to announce I am starting my lab as an Assistant Professor @FloridaState this week! We will be focused on understanding the basis of individual variation in complex traits using a variety of genomic approaches and primarily using C. elegans as a model.

Now officially online at G3: Heritable epigenetic variation facilitates long-term maintenance of epigenetic and genetic variation, by @amywebster.bsky.social academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...

Thank you!

Check out our preprint on the basis of phenotypic differences across genetically identical individuals!

Histone methylation regulates reproductive diapause in Drosophila melanogaster Author summary Fluctuating environments pose significant challenges to developing organisms. To better match the immediate, local environment, many organisms follow distinct developmental trajectories...

'Using an inbred line from a natural population with high diapause plasticity, we demonstrate that diapause is determined epigenetically: only a subset of genetically identical individuals enter diapause and this diapause plasticity is epigenetically transmitted for at least three generations'