Nate Himmel

Very pleased to say we have an Assistant Professor job opening (tenure track) in the Department of Genetics at Trinity College Dublin! 😀
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOA399/a... - deadline is August 19th! Please repost!

I’m excited to share that I'll be joining the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at Rutgers University-New Brunswick as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in January 2026! Thrilled to launch my independent lab and be part of this vibrant research community 💖 #newPI

Drosophila picticornis, a Hawaiian fly with patterned wings

Wish I could be at #Evol2025 this year! I’ll be starting a new lab at NYU this fall, and will be recruiting at all levels. Please spread the word if you know anyone who wants to work on evo. genomics, phylogenies, and comparative development of inverts (like Hawaiian Drosophila!) shchurch.github.io

Due to popular demand, I am creating starter packs for a) Biology PIs looking for PhD students and b) Biology PIs looking for POSTDCOCs! Please respond saying if which packs you would like to be added to (or if you want to be added to both).

I'm recruiting PhD students, so please add me! Thanks for the effort making this.

go.bsky.app/8zZNEGV

Great resource to connect early career folks with more senior scientists looking to hire postdocs! 🧪

Are you a PI in a biology field looking for students to join your lab as a PhD student? I made a Starter Pack to help PIs and potential PhD students connect! If you would like to be added to this pack, please let me know! go.bsky.app/EFj87fi

Great pack! I'll be recruiting this year, so I'll re-follow it periodically. Good luck to everyone -- it can be a slog!

I’m thrilled to announce that next summer I’ll be joining the University of Maryland Department of Biology as an assistant professor! The Van Etten lab will study how horizontal processes (DNA and gene transfer + organelle acquisition) drive and are driven by ecology and evolution. vanettenlab.org

We're hiring! Need a microscopy wizard to help build the world’s first synthetic plant chromosome! Bring your lights, lasers, & lens-craft to characterise new artificial chromosomes. Join our ARIA-funded project at UWA in Perth & ‪@plants4space.bsky.social‬. Apply: bit.ly/3GKSRSA

🙋‍♂️Great packs, thanks! If you're still adding, mind including me?

A lyophilized open-source RT-LAMP assay for molecular diagnostics in resource-limited settings A critical bottleneck for equitable access to population-scale molecular diagnostics is the limited availability of rapid, inexpensive point-of-care tests, especially in low- and middle-income countri...

A great collaborative effort of many labs across continents: @vbcscitraining.bsky.social, WACCBIP, TReND in Africa and more. Now a first paper on #open-source RT-LAMP #diagnostics is out: urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...
Congrats to the whole team. We hope this pushes affordable diagnostics in #LMICs

Is the deuterostome clade an artifact? There is a long-standing consensus that the animal phyla closest to our own phylum of Chordata are the Echinodermata and Hemichordata. These three phy…

Fresh off the presses in @currentbiology.bsky.social : Is the deuterostome clade an artefact? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We (yours truly, Paschalis Natsidis, Laura Piovani and co-leads Paschalia Kapli and @maxjtelford.bsky.social) set out to try to answer this question.

Why? (1/12)

Also: I'll be at the European Symposium for Insect Taste and Olfaction and the CSHL Neurobiology of Drosophila meetings later this year, if anyone wants to meet up in person.

In Fall '26 the Himmel Lab will open at NJIT Biological Sciences. I'm beyond stoked!

Interested in a PhD/postdoc in the function/evolution/origins of the senses (computation or experimentation)? Message me and come join a great department in the NY metro! Sharing is appreciated. Info: himmellab.org

The entire nation should protesting this utterly unwarranted, unprecedented, & probably illegal on-going attack on a university. It's right out of the authoritarian playbook. It's an assault on possibility free speech, free thought, & dissent.
Fascism is coming small step by small step, not at once.

The Laursen Lab (U. of Washington) is recruiting all career stages!

We use genetic tools to understand how mosquitoes and other pests sense the world and how this influences their behavior. We welcome applicants from a wide range of backgrounds. The lab (and mosquitoes) can’t wait to meet you!

If you're in the US, considering Europe for your PhD, and you identify as a minority, I will chat with you and review any application documents you need 🧪

Graduate Reductions Across Biomedical Sciences (2025)

I created a brief spreadsheet of reductions I've heard of so far. Any additions you know of (especially if you have the links/receipts) would be great: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

New journal co-founded by NIH nominee raises eyebrows, misinformation fears The Journal of the Academy of Public Health claims to open up scientific communication. But its unusual editorial policies have some scientists concerned

In light of today's devastating announcement of a 75% cut to NIH overhead, it scarcely seems newsworthy that couple dozen COVID contrarians are cosplaying PNAS.

But two of them are slated to lead the NIH and the FDA.

Is this how they'll stand up for science?

NIH cuts billions of dollars in biomedical funding, effective immediately The move halts a large slice of money for most universities and research institutions virtually overnight, imperiling vital research in everything from cancer to heart disease.

NIH has cut billions of dollars in biomedical funding, effective immediately
The move halts a large slice of money for most universities and research institutions virtually overnight, imperiling vital research in everything from cancer to heart disease.

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

Asgard archaea reveal the conserved principles of ESCRT-III membrane remodeling Asgard archaea have two ESCRT-III subunits with the conserved traits that drive stepwise membrane remodeling in eukaryotes.

Happy to share our paper’s final version on the evolution, structure, and membrane binding / remodeling of Asgard ESCRT-III proteins! And my first 🦋 post! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Exclusive: how NSF is scouring research grants for violations of Trump’s orders The US National Science Foundation has unfrozen grant funding, but it continues to scrutinize research projects, sowing turmoil.

NEW: We obtained the directions NSF program officers are following to review all grants for compliance with the Trump EOs and the turmoil it has created in an agency mandated to broaden STEM participation. Our story: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Multilayer regulation underlies the functional precision and evolvability of the olfactory system Sensory neurons must be reproducibly specified to permit accurate neural representation of external signals but also able to change during evolution. We studied this paradox in the Drosophila olfactor...

New pre-print #2: Jérôme Mermet profiles living and dying lineages in the olfactory system to begin to explain how these sensory pathways are robustly specified but also evolvable: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

An integrated anatomical, functional and evolutionary view of the Drosophila olfactory system The Drosophila melanogaster olfactory system is one of the most intensively studied parts of the nervous system in any animal. Composed of ~60 independent olfactory neuron classes, with several associ...

New pre-print: an one-stop shop for everything you wanted to know about the fly olfactory system: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I made the Insect Sensory Neuro starter pack - let me know in the comments if you'd like to be added! (and also I'm sure I missed tons of people - tag them in!)
go.bsky.app/JW7c5LN

I made a starter pack of speciation researchers. Please let me know if you or someone you know would like to be added. I am particularly sad that so far there are not many speciation researchers from the Global South represented.
go.bsky.app/J7qDY56

Rothman and Winter. Very floral. When in doubt, I always follow Death & Co's recommendation.

I'm thrilled to be opening my own lab this Fall at the @maxplanck.de MPI for Brain Research in Frankfurt. The lab is going to investigate the neuronal and genetic underpinnings of behavioral evolution. We are hiring on all levels. Don't hesitate to share widely and reach out if interested.

I don't have anything new since ditching the other platform... so here's the last paper we published (so I have something to pin):

Thanks to AlphaFold, we think homologs of insect Odorant/Gustatory receptors span the tree of life. Neat! doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

#phylogenetics #smell #taste