Amber Hall

The amount of AI generated art in slides at this conference, primarily used by older scientists, is killing me. Scientists please. Don’t use these ai platforms to make your figures or slides. They look bad and I have yet to see them meaningfully improve the message of talks.

Friday Flower 008: Tulip 🌷

Tulip’s pastel colors and waxy cuticle that scatters light give them a soft watercolor look.

The “broken” petals of Semper Augustus, created by a virus, became some of the most famous and valuable flowers in history... and their genome is 34Gb 🤯

A secreted citrus protease cleaves an outer membrane protein of the Huanglongbing pathogen Plants secrete a variety of proteases as a defense response during infection by microbial pathogens. However, the relationship between their catalytic activities and antimicrobial functions remains la...

1/13 Thankfully, both you and your plants have a lot of sophisticated ways to fight off invading pathogens.
In our new preprint, we describe a new way in which animals and plants share a common strategy to ward off harmful bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I didn’t know this was today!! Cuttlefish are one of my favourite animals! To celebrate, here’s a very blurry picture of one (or what I think was one) I saw in the ocean when I was in Symi, Greece earlier this year :) 🦑

Petunias are so cool - defo one of the best flowers 😎

Thanks Nick! Really enjoying working on this project - can’t wait for the next few flowers!! 🌸🌺🌼

Friday Flower 006: Aquilegia 🌸🦋

Columbines vary in stamen number, making them a powerful model for how floral whorls expand.

Darwin marveled at their long nectar spurs, which co-evolve with hawkmoth tongues to reward pollinators that brush the stamens ✨

digital illustration of a person in a white t-shirt and jeans and a green backpack running while checking their watch. they're also holding an insect net

I'M LATE FOR BUGS

Friday Flower 002: Mirabilis jalapa🌺✨

Four O’Clocks, like other Caryophyllales, produce red (betacyanins) and yellow (betaxanthins) petal sectors through differential regulation of betalain biosynthesis during corolla development.

Friday Flower 001: Mimulus lewisii 🌸✨

Monkeyflowers are masterpieces of design with nectar-guide spots formed by an activator–inhibitor system of MYB transcription factors. These generate reaction–diffusion patterns across the ventral petal.

First of the Friday Flower Concepts series coming tomorrow! 🌹✨

Can you guess the first flower?

1st western blot vs. 128th western blot 🧪
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#science #westernblot #predoc #labscientist

Mixed network structure in a coevolving host–parasite system Abstract. Genetic interactions between parasites and hosts determine how these antagonists coevolve. Networks depicting infection outcomes between host and

💡Can we use network structure 🏁 to infer underlying genetics 🧬 of host – parasite coevolution?

🔎Find out in our new paper 🥳, published in the latest issue of @journal-evo.bsky.social 👇
academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...
#Parasite #EvolutionaryBiology #MicrobialEvolution

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Two page spread of realistic watercolor paintings of a diversity of moths plus handwritten inked information including the common name, wingspan, and larval foods. The moths have shadows beneath them which makes it look like they're on a white sheet ready to take off. The moth survey is from August 18, 2021 at the Schulenberg Prairie at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL.

Finally finished the right page on my August 2021 moth survey from my IL Prairie Nature Journal. Just love the diversity of all these moths from the Midwest!
#SciArt #moths #naturejournal #prairie

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S ONLY EIGHT LEIBNIZ!?!?

Model: Activation and suppression of defences in plant–aphid interactions. Upper left panel: aphid stylet penetration of the cell wall releases oligogalacturonides (OGs), which induce PAMP/DAMP-triggered immunity (PTI/DTI) in a process dependent on BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE 1-ASSOCIATED RECEPTOR KINASE 1 (BAK1), ENHANCED DISEASE SUSCEPTIBILITY 1 (EDS1), and CPK5/6/11 (data herein). The stabilisation of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and coreceptors at the plasma membrane may rely on the deubiquitination (DUB) activity of ASSOCIATED MOLECULE WITH THE SH3 DOMAIN OF STAM (AMSHs; Gravino et al., 2024). Upper right panel: the Mp10 effector, introduced by aphids into the cell cytoplasm (Mugford et al., 2016), suppresses OG-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) (data herein) and flg22-induced PTI (Bos et al., 2010). Mp10 targeting of plant AMSHs is implicated in these processes (Gravino et al., 2024). EDS1 is essential for Mp10-mediated ROS suppression and PRR destabilisation (data herein), acting through an unidentified mechanism (denoted by the double-sided arrow with an asterisk). Lower left panel: effector-triggered immunity (ETI) is activated through EDS1, either directly or indirectly, upon recognition of Mp10 and/or its activities by a TNL (Gravino et al., 2024; Rao et al., 2024). Salicylic acid glucosyltransferase 1 (SGT1) is also required for TNL/ETI activation (Bos et al., 2010). Lower right panel: aphids secrete additional effectors, such as cathepsin B proteins (e.g. CathB6), which target EDS1 to suppress ETI (Liu et al., 2025). Solid arrows, increased activation; solid blunt-ended arrows, increased suppression; Dashed arrows, reduced activation; Dashed -blunt-ended arrows, reduced suppression.

🎉Thrilled to share our latest work, now published in @newphyt.bsky.social!

🧑‍🔬 @matteogravino.bsky.social, @samtmugford.bsky.social, @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social et al., @johninnescentre.bsky.social

#️⃣ #PlantScience #PlantImmunity

📄 Read the full paper👇
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/8QSRJ9...

Picture depicts a Greek restaurant called “Acropolis” At the bottom of a flight of stairs

oh the irony …

This is exactly what happens inside our sequencing machines. 😌

We are excited to share our latest preprint from the Hogenhout lab (@matteogravino.bsky.social @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social
, @johninnescentre.bsky.social
) on plant-aphid interactions, showing that the aphid effector Mp10 balances suppression of DAMP responses and activation of ETI via EDS1.

Our preprint is now live! We have sequenced the genomes of three psyllid species. These insects pests transmit devastating plant diseases like 'zebra chip' in potatoes and 'carrot yellows' in carrots. 🥕

#MolecularEntomology #MPMI #PlantPathology #psyllids #liberibacter

Me standing at a lectern on a stage giving a talk on characterising and engineering different phytoplasma effectors

Really enjoyed giving my talk today for APH day on the work I’ve done for my predoc project so far! 🧪
#science

We're happy to present a pre-print from the Hogenhout lab (@saskiahogenhout.bsky.social), describing how a family of proteases in aphid oral secretions suppress plant immunity.

We’re delighted to share our latest preprint from the Hogenhout lab (@saskiahogenhout.bsky.social) on the molecular mechanisms on plant-aphid interactions. Here we show how the aphid Mp10 effector protein acts as a local anaesthetic to suppress the plant perception of aphid attack

Thank you for 100 followers! 🪲

Post a picture you took to bring some zen to the skyline 🦋

But can it run a gel?

Leafhoppers are not phytoplasmas... #NatureRipoffs @Nature

"Similarly, SAP05 from the plant parasite Macrosteles quadrilineatus was found to target host transcription factors to the proteasome in a process that is key to the life cycle of the parasite..." doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Author + scarlet tiger moth (very pretty moth) landed on left arm.

Hi everyone! Just wanted introduce myself as a newbie here :) my name’s Amber and I like bugs, frogs, mushrooms and drawing! I’m currently doing a Predoc characterising Phytoplasma effectors and soon applying for PhD projects! 🐛 Here’s a picture of me and a scarlet tiger moth that landed on my arm 🦋