A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand
The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...
How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller?
Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
1/n
13.02.2026 11:42 β π 473 π 195 π¬ 9 π 25
Check out this story by Handler, Brennecke et al. on how the piRNA pathways distinguish transposable element transcripts. Beautiful work!
13.02.2026 15:46 β π 10 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
Thrilled to announce I've been awarded a Marie SkΕodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship! πͺπΊ I'll be joining @pejullien.bsky.social's group at @ibmp-cnrs.bsky.social in Strasbourg. Excited for what's ahead! π
11.02.2026 12:38 β π 25 π 1 π¬ 6 π 0
This week in @science.org, a celebration of plant pangenomes. A pangenome analysis for massively polyploid sugarcane species, and one for Brassica rapa giving insight into subspeciation.
What's all the fuss about pangenomes? Pamela and Douglas Soltis explore this in an insightful Perspective(1/4)
06.02.2026 09:57 β π 30 π 17 π¬ 1 π 0
Here we go again! Join us in Vienna, May 21β22, for two days of plant scienceβtalks, discussions, and celebration of what makes plants both beautiful and essential πFull program + registration here: www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/news-eve...
Come be part of it β each of you counts!
27.01.2026 12:13 β π 23 π 13 π¬ 0 π 1
I am excited to offer a postdoctoral research position in my lab in Oxford studying the distribution of small RNAs during plant sexual reproduction. shorturl.at/7Goxt
Reposts appreciated!
Obligatory cat video to brighten your day. :-)
26.01.2026 16:31 β π 154 π 87 π¬ 4 π 4
π’ Three new #bioRxiv preprints from our team on holocentric chromosomes.
Together, they connect centromere repeat evolution, karyotype dynamics, and meiotic recombination outcomes, revealing how holocentric genomes evolve and function. π§¬π
21.01.2026 14:45 β π 56 π 36 π¬ 4 π 2
After a short break in our webinars we are delighted to be back up & running this month!
First up, on Jan 30th we will be joined by @lucas.farnunglab.com from @harvardmed.bsky.social π¬
Shortly after, on Feb 13th we will be hosting @heardlab.bsky.social from @crick.ac.uk π§¬
Registration details π
15.01.2026 14:59 β π 11 π 6 π¬ 1 π 5
The (Yoav) Voichek lab has opened its gates at the Weizmann Institute, and is actively recruiting students and researchers at all levels - come explore gene regulation and computational genomics in a fun, friendly sprouting lab π€π₯ΌβοΈπ§ͺ
www.weizmann.ac.il/plants/voichek
11.01.2026 20:41 β π 45 π 31 π¬ 0 π 0
REFEREE 1: βI conclude with a simple, direct statement - this is the best paper I have read all year!β
#TransparentPeerReview
Co-evolving infectivity and expression patterns drive the diversification of endogenous retroviruses
@juliusbrennecke.bsky.social et al
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
06.06.2025 14:18 β π 116 π 38 π¬ 3 π 3
Intrigued by a long-standing conundrum in small RNA biologyβhow nuclear Argonaute proteins silence transposons when they *need* target transcription for their own recruitmentβwe studied the piRNA pathway.
And found a hidden RNA-decay axis from Piwi to the RNA exosome.
22.12.2025 18:14 β π 96 π 42 π¬ 3 π 5
Applications for our international #PhD program open until 11th Jan. Come work with us @uoe-igc.bsky.social and @hannahlong.bsky.social to understand DNMT3B in ICF syndrome or with our wonderful colleagues.
Details here:
institute-genetics-cancer.ed.ac.uk/igc-graduate...
#epigenetics Please repost π
19.12.2025 10:31 β π 11 π 9 π¬ 0 π 0
Evaluating the effects of archaic protein-altering variants in living human adults
Promise and pitfalls of using large biobanks to study impacts of archaic protein-coding variants in living humans.
While stories of singular DNA changes that drove evolution of human brain/behaviour remain seductive, advances across multiple fields of biology cast doubt on such simplistic narratives of our origins. A new paper from my lab shows how biobanks may speak to this fundamental question.π§ͺ
Explainerπ§΅π1/n
18.12.2025 13:51 β π 116 π 50 π¬ 4 π 14
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker π§΅
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
19.12.2025 17:20 β π 2376 π 1225 π¬ 68 π 357
Position du lever du soleil en fonction des saisons
Aujourd'hui c'est le solstice d'hiver dans l'hémisphère Nord. Les journées vont commencer à rallonger! Le soleil ne se lève à l'Est (centre de l'image avec Nord à gauche, Sud a droite) que lors des équinoxes. La position du lever change un peu tous les jours! (©Z. Al-Abbadi)
21.12.2025 08:48 β π 969 π 260 π¬ 16 π 11
1/ Iβve reviewed hundreds of bioinformatics GitHub repos in my career.
Hereβs the brutal truth: most tool documentation fails the people itβs meant to help.
And itβs not because the algorithms are bad.
14.12.2025 14:15 β π 17 π 4 π¬ 1 π 0
Have you ever wondered how new DNA methylation patterns are established?
Paradigm shift ahead! We discovered a new mode of DNA methylation targeting in plants that relies on transcription factors and sequence motifs rather than chromatin modifications to regulate the methylome. rdcu.be/eQ6L5
1/8
11.12.2025 21:56 β π 47 π 23 π¬ 2 π 0
Transposable elements can insert into genes, disrupting protein-coding potential. Researchers discover a mode of RNA processing, βSOS splicingβ, that provides a quick fix @nature.com @harvardmed.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
10.12.2025 19:03 β π 25 π 14 π¬ 0 π 2
Great news, congratulations!
09.12.2025 17:14 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Looking for a postdoc in computational biology? We are looking for a postdoc candidate apply for the fellowship 'Juan de la Cierva' for a project on long-read transcriptomics, multiomics, spatial transcriptomics, single-cell long-reads. Deadline is approaching!! (December 10th)
08.12.2025 12:06 β π 4 π 7 π¬ 0 π 0
Congratulations the first story from your lab Marco! To all co-authors and to Gesa for the stunning pictures π
02.12.2025 15:42 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
AGO5 restricts virus vertical transmission in plant gametophytes
The propagation of a viral infection from a host parent to its progeny is known as vertical transmission, or seed transmission in plants. It allows viral infections to rapidly spread locally via polle...
Preprint alert! It is my great pleasure to announce the first manuscript from the lab, a story that started @gmivienna.bsky.social and was mainly accomplished by the intrepid @gesahoffmann.bsky.social at @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social. A brief thread with our findings
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
02.12.2025 12:34 β π 77 π 37 π¬ 2 π 2
Have you ever wondered how it is possible that systemically infected plants produce (a certain percentage of) healthy progeny? π
Check out the first preprint of the @incavirus.bsky.social lab and first preprint of my postdoc! π
We'd be very happy about feedback and discussions!
02.12.2025 13:34 β π 41 π 14 π¬ 2 π 0
Drosophila genetic conflicts
piRNAs | transposons | genomics
Staff scientist in the Brennecke lab - Vienna
Postdoc fellow in the @gerlichlab.bsky.social β’ Genomic integrity and nuclear processes β’ He/him
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0953-8010
Marseillais Brittanique and πΏplant biologist interested in chloroplasts. Also @Ben_Field@mas.to
www.legumegenetics.org Asst Proff @TSUedu | Plant biologist studying peptide signals & the legume-rhizobia symbiosis | GE @ThePlantCell | Past @nobleresinst @JohnInnesCentre
Postdoc in the Plant Quantitative Genomics and Epigenomics Group at IPS2, focusing primarily on transposable element (TE) dynamics.
BlueSky account of the MSCA DN action EpiSeedLink https://episeedlink.eu/
Dark genome, dark proteome & cancer
RNAs, TEs and other sequencing data
IBMP is the largest @cnrs.fr center devoted to #plantscience in France | www.ibmp.cnrs.fr
PhD Candidate studying βjumping genesβ in maize π½ | Hirsch Lab | Bioinformatics & Genomics | she/her
Group leader at @cbgpmadrid.bsky.social working on #epigenetics and #genomics in Arabidopsis and Brassica crops. Tweets science & related stuff in english and espaΓ±ol.
Group leader in Cambridge (UK), interested in germline biology |epigenetics | transposons | development and more
Misses Rio on a daily basis π§π·
The Ramsey philosophy of biology lab at KU Leuven, Belgium.
https://www.theramseylab.org β’ #HPbio #philsci #philsky #evosky #paleosky #cogsci
Ecology and population (epi-) genomics of the responses of trees to global changes ππ¦οΈπͺ²πͺ³πͺ° ππβοΈ
gearaguirang.com
Postdoc π Uni Hamburg | When words fail, I speak music | 1st Gen Scientist | she/her π΅π
PhD student @crg.eu Interested in #bioinformatics #genomics #generegulation #transposons #evolution #popgen
Molecular basis of adaptation in plants; population genomics, evolutionary modeling, phylogenomics, PI at Purdue University, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne; views are my own and do not represent Purdue
Evolutionary biologist (Multicellularity & social evolution). Prof. at Georgia Tech & Director of the QBioS PhD program.
https://ratclifflab.biosci.gatech.edu/
Investigating transposable elements, epigenetics, and genomics. CNRS - University Paris-Saclay. France. https://leandroquadrana.wordpress.com/
Evolutionary cell biology / evolution of morphogenesis / animal origins / choanoflagellates @institutpasteur.bsky.social
https://research.pasteur.fr/en/team/evolutionary-cell-biology-and-evolution-of-morphogenesis/
