In our new preprint, we report how clubmoss plants use an ancient biosynthetic pathway (>300 million years old!) to make huperzine A, an alkaloid with potential as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. Great work by Eric Fields and @cyhkim.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Ancient origins of alkaloid biosynthesis in medicinal clubmosses

The plant kingdom is rich with medicinal natural products that are complex and difficult to access. Discovering how plants build these molecules can be challenging, especially for biosynthetic pathway...

biorxiv.org

Targeted DNA insertion remains a major bottleneck in plant engineering. We developed an avian R2 retrotransposon as an efficient plant genome editor to precisely insert large DNA payloads at targeted sites: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congratulations to @kimuchenje03.bsky.social and the team! 🧵👇

Register Quick! #SBNP Early Bird & Talk Submission deadline fast approaching: 🗓️(Monday 4th May 2026) Click here to register: bit.ly/4tC5zq8

📢Come and join us in Mexico later this year for the 5th Series of #SBNP! Registration is now open - secure your spot today! 👉 Click here to head to the conference website for more information: bit.ly/4v25JYK

Reminiscing about the fantastic 4th SBNP Conference in 2024! 📢 Interested in joining us for the 5th edition? Visit the conference website today to secure your place at the best available price. We look forward to welcoming you later this year 🎉 Conference Website: bit.ly/3OX3KEM

Lovely C&EN @cenmag.bsky.social story on the history and personal impact of the cancer drug Taxol. After spending recent years deciphering how yew trees, our source for Taxol, synthesize this lifesaving drug, it’s so nice to see it in the larger context #secmet #medsky Plants are amazing chemists.

Paclitaxel saved my life. New discoveries could boost supply

After decades, scientists have finally pieced together the 23-step biosynthetic pathway to produce this cancer drug

cen.acs.org

Join the Reck-Peterson lab in NYC as a HHMI Research Technician! This role will support our new work on the cell biology of secondary metabolite production in filamentous fungi. Apply here: hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

Research Technician - Reck-Peterson Lab

Primary Work Address: 418 E 71st St #21, New York, NY, 10021 Current HHMI Employees, click here to apply via your Workday account. About the role: The Reck-Peterson lab studies the molecular mechanism...

hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com

Do you know what happens when you touch a carnivorous sundew plant? If the touch is strong and large enough, a cytosolic calcium wave will spread from the site of touch throughout the whole plant, but if you only touch one tentacle (see post below), the calcium wave will be local and less intense.

Out in @science.org The crazy sequence of events from planting maize in dense fields. Density-dependent linalool release triggers release of compounds into the soil affecting microbes and plants. Article: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Perspective: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #PlantScience

Linalool-triggered plant-soil feedback drives defense adaptation in dense maize plantings

High planting density boosts crop yields but also heightens pest and pathogen risks. How plants adapt their defenses under these conditions remains unclear. In this study, we reveal that maize enhance...

science.org

A truly enabling new approach by @taralowensohn.bsky.social Will Cody and @sattelylab.bsky.social to probe plant genetics at scale. Single-gene-per-cell delivery coupled to an effective transcriptional selection system www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

@cmcclune.bsky.social will be at the GRC for Single-Cell Approaches in Plant Biology! Be on the lookout for his talk on Wednesday (8/13) at 9.10 am. Talk will be about some new approaches and discoveries recently published in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #grc #singlecell #plantbiology

Discovery of FoTO1 and Taxol genes enables biosynthesis of baccatin III - Nature

An approach that combines single-nucleus RNA sequencing and multiplexed perturbation identifies genes that enable the biosynthesis of direct precursors of the anti-cancer drug Taxol, whose curren...

nature.com

Elucidating #plant #Biosynthetic pathways: @jjjvanderhooft.bsky.social @marnixmedema.bsky.social &co develop #MEANtools, an unsupervised computational workflow that integrates #MultiOmics data to predict #metabolic pathways by linking transcripts to metabolites @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4odL94g

#plants #trees #history #botany #art 🌲 Taxus baccata - English Yew, Common Yew Folk lore has it that the English used Churchyard Yew longbows - not true. Spanish Yew was straighter and better quality. (Confirmed by an Olympian archer I knew.) Bows and trees: www.longbow-archers.com/longbow.html

Scientists, please take a moment to comment on these plans to limit animal testing in drug regulation and biomedical research. Use whatever experience you have to make your comments specific to you. The law requires regulators take these comments into account, so it might help. Mine is attached.

John Wallingford@jbwallingford.bsky.social · last yr.

The NIH is asking scientists and the public to comment on plans to drastically limit animal model research. If you think animal models remain important tools for basic and clinical research tell them! Click the link below and scroll down to send your comments! www.fda.gov/news-events/...

I just learned these this elephant-trunked-shaped cells, known as ciliate, put their sexy DNA into a special pocket (called a generative nucleus), and the rest of their DNA in a normal get-shit-done nucleus. It has functional specialization nuclei. Respectfully: holy shit 🧵🧪

I didn’t know this but apparently paclitaxel is still derived from the yew tree!? I had just assumed we had found a way to synthesize it. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Discovery of FoTO1 and Taxol genes enables biosynthesis of baccatin III | Nature

Discovery of FoTO1 and Taxol genes enables biosynthesis of baccatin III - Nature

An approach that combines single-nucleus RNA sequencing and multiplexed perturbation identifies genes that enable the biosynthesis of direct precursors of the anti-cancer drug Taxol, whose curren...

nature.com

Thank you Carolyn Bertozzi @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social for highlighting our Taxol work!

Carolyn Bertozzi@carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social · last yr.

Check out this amazing new work from @sattelylab.bsky.social along with collaborator and @stanford-chemh.bsky.social Institute Scholar @pollyfordyce.bsky.social ! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Check out this amazing new work from @sattelylab.bsky.social along with collaborator and @stanford-chemh.bsky.social Institute Scholar @pollyfordyce.bsky.social ! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Discovery of FoTO1 and Taxol genes enables biosynthesis of baccatin III - Nature

An approach that combines single-nucleus RNA sequencing and multiplexed perturbation identifies genes that enable the biosynthesis of direct precursors of the anti-cancer drug Taxol, whose curren...

nature.com

A friend of my compared gutting of federal agencies to a wrecking a car: if you remove 30% of the parts of the car, it does not go 30% slower. It stops working.

A million shades of green: understanding and harnessing plant metabolic diversity Rocky Payet, Anne Osbourn et al presents a step-by-step guide to starting a project that characterises plant secondary metabolites www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Further advanced in synbio systems for expression of plant rubiscos in E. coli, exploring importance of Raf1 variants: academic.oup.com/jxb/article-... and accompanying perspective via @jxbotany.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

Effects of chaperone selectivity on the assembly of plant Rubisco orthologs in E. coli

We used an E. coli system to examine recognition of plant Rubisco chaperones for different Rubiscos. Identified factors influencing chaperone selectivity e

academic.oup.com

It makes sense that skin microbes would have an intimate relationship with our immune cells. But engineering these bugs into topical vaccines still feels like sci-fi. Congrats @djenetbousbaine.bsky.social on the well deserved prize

Djenet Bousbaine@djenetbousbaine.bsky.social · last yr.

It’s truly an honor to receive this year’s @science.org Noster Microbiome prize. Here’s my essay on how we can engineer skin microbes to build topical vaccines:

Check out this prize-winning essay by postdoc @djenetbousbaine.bsky.social on her work with @mfgrp.bsky.social @stanford-chemh.bsky.social 👏

Stella Hurtley@smhsci.bsky.social · last yr.

Check out the Noster prize winning essays @science.org The vaccine we all wear: Skin microbiota can be engineered into topical vaccines | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

How plants sense injury in their barrier tissue, periderm? Painstakingly detailed and amazing work by post doc Hiroyuki Iida shows that wounding is sensed by the diffusion of two gases: ethylene and oxygen. @treebiocoe.bsky.social‬ @erc.europa.eu‬ 1/x 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plants monitor the integrity of their barrier by sensing gas diffusion - Nature

A study using Arabidopsis shows that plants can monitor the integrity of their outer barriers by sensing gas diffusion, enabling them to initiate wound repair to prevent water loss and pathogen entry.

nature.com

Pithy coverage by @plantaeofficial.bsky.social of our recent Taxol work #chemsky #medsky

Plantae.org@plantaeofficial.bsky.social · last yr.

Plant Science Research Weekly -- Elucidation and recreation of the biosynthetic pathway for taxol (Nature) @cmcclune.bsky.social‬ (Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching.bsky.social) buff.ly/miccEK3 #PlantaePSRW

Plant Science Research Weekly -- Elucidation and recreation of the biosynthetic pathway for taxol (Nature) @cmcclune.bsky.social‬ (Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching.bsky.social) buff.ly/miccEK3 #PlantaePSRW

Elucidation and recreation of the biosynthetic pathway for taxol | Plantae

Paclitaxel (sold as Taxol) is taxane diterpene natural product of yew trees (Taxus spp.) and a potent stabilizer of microtubules that is effective in treatment of cancers. However…

buff.ly

How 🆒 is this?!? www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

A host organelle integrates stolen chloroplasts for animal photosynthesis

Sea slugs steal foreign chloroplasts and store them in specialized organelles that facilitate photosynthesis and eventual digestion to mediate starvation resistance.

cell.com

🔓Don't miss this #OpenAccess Highlight in our MS Metabolomics themed collection by Brett C. Covington & Mohammad R. Seyedsayamdost at Princeton University looking at the evolution of high-throughput mass spectrometry in screening for cryptic natural products #natprod

Unlocking hidden treasures: the evolution of high-throughput mass spectrometry in screening for cryptic natural products

Covering: 1994 to 2024 Historically, microbial natural product discovery has been predominantly guided by biological activity from crude microbial extracts with metabolite characterization proceeding…

pubs.rsc.org

Great article in today’s Stanford Report on our recent work deciphering how yew trees produce Taxol @sattelylab.bsky.social news.stanford.edu/stories/2025...

New insights in plant gene research could boost cancer drug production

A novel approach to analyzing yew tree genes has revealed key enzymes used to make Taxol, a chemotherapy drug that’s long been difficult and costly to produce.

news.stanford.edu

Next preprint out from my work @oconnorlab.bsky.social @mpi-ce.bsky.social : the discovery or iridoid cyclase in asterids! Thread below. #PlantScience #natprod www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...