Giovanni Schiesaro

A yeast surface display platform for characterizing CAR T cell responses to cancer antigens - Nature Communications Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy uses engineered donor T cells to recognize and eliminate cancer cells through cognate antigen-dependent activation. Here authors develop an alternative...

Finally out!

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

Can yeast help us fight fungal crop diseases? Every year, fungal pathogens destroy more than 10% of the world’s major crops, threatening global food security, biodiversity, and farmers’ livelihoods. It’s a silent crisis that costs billions and fu...

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Thank you! I didn’t try yet (lack of time). But if you have any interesting targets we can have a chat :-)

And many other things that you can find at the first link!

A big, big, big thank you to all the co-authors of this study and our funding agencies @villumfonden.bsky.social and DTU Biosustain.

In addition, we have found that
- Fungal chemotropism correlates well with yeast mating (measured in diploid frequency).
- Fusarium oxysporum signaled robustly across different abiotic factors, while other fungal GPCR–pheromone interactions were more sensitive to changes

Our study revealed that the supplementation of peptides, identified through screening with YeMaP, can interfere with the cell-cell communication of the phytopathogenic fungus Fusarium oxysporum, reducing roots penetration in the early stage of infection of tomato.

Here, we have developed a tool called Yeast Mating Platform (YeMaP). With YeMaP, we can isolate fungal G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and study the interaction with their ligand (in yeast) in a much faster (high-throughput) way.

Suppose we can understand how fungi “talk” to each other at the molecular level. In that case, we can start designing more precise and targeted antifungal strategies that protect crops without relying on fungicides

Can yeast help us fight fungal crop diseases?🌾

A yeast mating platform for multiplex screening of fungal GPCR–ligand interactions

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

A cellular entity retaining only its replicative core: Hidden archaeal lineage with an ultra-reduced genome Defining the minimal genetic requirements for cellular life remains a fundamental question in biology. Genomic exploration continually reveals novel microbial lineages, often exhibiting extreme genome...

So cool, a novel archaeon with a super small genome and no metabolic genes!
"An unprecedented level of metabolic dependence on a host, a condition that challenges the functional distinctions between minimal cellular life and viruses."
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Distribution of haploid chromosomes into separate nuclei in two pathogenic fungi Nuclei define eukaryotes, enabling macromolecular compartmentalization and cellular regulation. Each nucleus is believed to contain one or more haploid sets of chromosomes (1N). However, we discovered...

This paper makes me CACKLE. Every so often a fungus comes along that is like "oh, you think you understand genetics? lol. You're cute." and completely upends everything we thought we knew.
Distribution of haploid chromosomes into separate nuclei in two pathogenic fungi | Science 🧪 #academicsky 🧵

Exploring crop health and its associations with fungal soil microbiome composition using machine learning applied to remote sensing data - Communications Earth & Environment Crop health is improved by abundance of beneficial soil fungal genera and reduced by abundance of soil fungal pathogens, according to analysis of satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation ind...

Can we link satellite images and fungal community composition in the soil? Yes! How? Check this paper.

It was a pleasure to collaborate on this story. Big congrats to Mathies and all the co-authors.

www.nature.com/articles/s43...

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Out now! We consolidated >600 Dutch yeast and characterised their activity against spoilage yeasts and relevant human and plant pathogens, focusing on yeasts that secrete antifungal proteins. Great resource for biocontrol and beyond.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39875071/

Half way PhD presentation: done 👍🏻.

Our first story “A synthetic platform for multiplex screening of cell-cell communication between soil fungi” is already available on bioarchive: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I highly recommend the documentary "Hunt for the Oldest DNA" on the scientific journey of Eske Willerslev and collaborators. Good science requires perseverance and... time. If your PhD didn’t meet your expectations, remember that there are projects that have lasted 16 or more years.

A big thank you.

Not all yeast heroes wear capes.

Best tattoo ever!