Gitta Coaker
@gittacoaker.bsky.social
Professor at UC Davis, studying plant immunity and bacterial pathogens. Loves weightlifting, running, and the outdoors. Views are my own.
“Case outcomes at Cornell largely aligned with those of its peers.” … Gross failure to protect college students.
Amy Diehl, Ph.D.@amydiehl.bsky.social · 3h ago1,200 sexual assault cases were filed at Cornell from 2018 to 2024. Most of those found responsible received minor sanctions that allowed them to remain on campus, such as probation or training. Only 7 ended in expulsion or dismissal. www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...
For the last 34 years I have been on the faculty of the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Biology and have never regretted that decision. This year we are hiring TWO new Assistant Professors in the broad area of Molecular, Cell, Developmental Biology 1/n bio.unc.edu
Please repost/share We're hiring! UC Davis Plant Pathology seeks a tenure-track Assistant Professor in plant health & microbiomes. recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07904 My department is full of great colleagues, and we look forward to recruiting our new colleague!
Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology
University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!
recruit.ucdavis.edu
Assistant Professor position at University of Michigan. Applicants in all areas of cellular/molecular biology in prokaryotes, plants, and animals are encouraged to apply. lsa.umich.edu/mcdb/news-ev...
MCDB Solicits Applications for an Assistant Professor | U-M LSA Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB)
The faculty position will be tenure track with a university year appointment starting August 25, 2027 or January 1, 2028. Apply now through October 1, 2026.
lsa.umich.edu
ʙɪɴᴅᴄʀᴀꜰᴛ2 is out, and we're not waiting for the paper. The full code drops today, free for academic and industry use. We're releasing it early so you can start designing right now, and bring its full power to the current Adaptyv competition. github.com/PacesaLab/Bi...
Fantastic Asst Professor positions open across multiple UC Berkeley departments @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social Plant/Algae/Microb aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05522 Plant/Env aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05382 Gen/Dev/Evo aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05481 Eco aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05489
Assistant Professor – Plant or Macroalgae-Associated Microbial Communities and Interactions - Plant and Microbial Biology
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Out now in Science: Two papers from our lab reveal VIPR, an RNA-guided DNA-targeting system in bacteriophages, providing clues to the origins of CRISPR www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Congrats to Peter Yoon, @kenjmloi.bsky.social @terryzzy.bsky.social, T.Docter & team
A noncontiguous code for RNA-guided DNA recognition at the origin of CRISPR-Cas
CRISPR-Cas provides RNA-mediated adaptive immunity, but how its first RNA-guided effector arose is unclear. In this study, we report the discovery of Viral Interference Programmable Repeat (VIPR) syst...
science.org
"How SCREW finds its NUT" rdcu.be/k8vBj18vix9a A News & Views on 3 complementary structural studies published together about SCREW/CTNIP–NUT/HSL3 signalling: rdcu.be/AY11kgcFgTia rdcu.be/S6g7YM6WPjTa rdcu.be/16bsh4fYzpna
#PPRM2026 starts now! Thanks to @julien-gronnier.bsky.social et al for organizing! I look forward to 3 days with this lovely community!
New preprint! There have been quite a few papers about RLP and RLK receptors, but none of them have a truly reproducible annotation pipeline (including my own...)... We finally made such a pipeline and look more systematically at RLPs within tomato. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
PlantLRR-PRR:A Reproducible Annotation Pipeline Reveals Contrasting Evolution of Developmental and Defense Receptor-Like Proteins in Tomato
Plants perceive external and internal signals via receptors to modulate their growth, development, and defenses. Leucine-rich-repeat receptor-like-kinase (RLKs) and receptor-like-proteins (RLPs) are t...
biorxiv.org
2 jobs at NCSU in Plant Pathology - Assistant Professor and also Assistant Extension Specialist. jobs.ncsu.edu/postings/233... and jobs.ncsu.edu/postings/234... are posting, advertisement fliers attached - September 18th is application deadline for Assistant Professor position.
I’m looking to hire an NIH funded postdoc to join our lab here at Davis (please RT). Ongoing areas of interest include: 1) polygenic signals of selection from time series, ARGs, GWAS, etc 2) The interpretation of GWAS, polygenic scores, & sources of confounding
A fantastic @johninnescentre.bsky.social session at #BSPP26, showcasing an impressive range of pathosystems across wheat, legumes and brassicas 🌾🫘🥬 #PPATH2026 #PlantHealth
#BSPP26 #PPATH2026 @BS_PP Tolga Bozkurt @Tolga_Bzkrt highlighting the subcellular dynamics of helper NLRs before and after activation
Sophien Kamoun@kamounlab.bsky.social · 3w agoQuite a session this morning at #BSPP26 #PPATH2026 @bspp.bsky.social showing how far our field has gone from turning basic knowledge into creative immune receptor bioengineering solutions. We kick off with Gitta @GittaCoaker on structure-guided engineering of cell surface receptors.
Diane Saunders addressing the breakdown of resistance of the Yr15 tandem kinase in the UK. Nice identification of promising germplasm from a landrace collection. #PPATH2026
Two faculty searches at Berkeley Plant & Microbial Bio @PMB_Berkeley Submit applications by Sept 30 Plant Responses to Environmental Changes aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05382 Plant-Microbe Communities aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05522
Assistant Professor - Plant Responses to Environmental Changes - Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
“It's unhelpful to draw a sharp line between applied and basic research” Cristobal Uauy @cristobaluauy.bsky.social Director of the John Innes Centre @johninnescentre.bsky.social #PPATH2026 #BSPP26
Up next, Saskia Hogenhout, speaking about her pioneering work on Phytoplasma manipulation of plant hosts. #BSPP2026
An important question in plant pathology still lacks a coherent model—a striking example of how bad science can bring an entire field to a standstill: How do filamentous pathogens deliver effector proteins into plant cells? dx.doi.org/10.1371/jour...
🤢Horrible take. " The value of a good postdoctoral fellowship is not to be measured in salary but in the opportunity to learn at the feet of, yes, a master." Are you kidding me?! The best scientists I worked with/for both train AND learn from their trainees. It's not a master-slave relationship.
Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · last mo.Opinion | Postdocs Aren’t Burger Flippers: Why Unionization Is a Bad Idea Unionization disrupts the bespoke mentor-mentee relationships that are central to the advancement of science. By Evan D. Morris: https://bit.ly/3Sus7fa #EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd
New preprint from @s-gauthier.bsky.social and @charlesrleveillee.bsky.social in collaboration with the labs of Xuifang Xin, @gittacoaker.bsky.social and Laurent Noël Water immunity: Yesterday's preprint: Dampness is a DAMP... today's: ...but it also dampens defense www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Extracellular water withdrawal drives disease resistance in the phyllosphere
A central question in immunity is how hosts arrest pathogen growth. Diverse plant pathogens create a water-soaked niche in host tissue essential for pathogenesis, yet how water shapes infection outcom...
biorxiv.org
Charles Roussin-Léveillée@charlesrleveillee.bsky.social · last mo.Myth busted: immune activation ≠ immunity 🌱⚔️. We found ETI can trigger full cell death without stopping bacterial growth - if water stays in the apoplast. Want to know what immunity is from a physiological standpoint? 👇 A thread🧵
Lots of faculty positions are being advertised in the US. In some respects, this is good because the last couple cycles were brutal. However, with cratering science funding new profs could just be hired to fail unless something major changes.
Most basic science departments at UCSF are having faculty searches this year. Biochemistry & Biophysics, Microbiology & Immunology, Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and more. We're looking for new and exciting science and nice people. You'll find them all at aprecruit.ucsf.edu
Welcome - AP Recruit
University of California, San Francisco Online Faculty Recruitment
aprecruit.ucsf.edu
New preprint from the lab, wherein we identify a suppressor of RNA silencing from a mycovirus, which also functions in planta. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Botrytis virus X ORF2 suppresses RNA silencing in a trigger-restricted manner and is associated with altered Dicer-like gene expression in Botrytis cinerea
RNA interference (RNAi) is a central antiviral defense mechanism in fungi, yet relatively few mycoviral suppressors of RNA silencing (VSRs) have been functionally characterized, particularly in phytop...
biorxiv.org
Do plants sense extracellular modifications induced by pathogens? New data suggests that yes. Water-soaking lesions activate atypical but functional immune programs, hinting at sensing mechanisms beyond canonical pattern recognition. First of two papers dropping this week. Read it on bioRxiv 🧵
bioRxiv Plant Bio@biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · last mo.Atypical immunity induced by extracellular water in plants https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.25.745410v1
My comment is submitted.
Stand Up for Science!@standupforscience.net · last mo.Today is the LAST DAY to leave your public comment on the NSF Proposal. The Proposal implements Vought’s science destroying OMB Policies ahead of time, and we cannot let this sneaky proposal scoot by quietly. Leave your public comment today by visiting the link: zurl.co/ZGP3i
Happy to share the news that I have received the University of Arizona 2026 Graduate Teaching and Mentoring Award universityevents.arizona.edu/person/micha...
Michael D. L. Johnson
universityevents.arizona.edu
In case you are wondering how US science is going.... sent a request about status of a grant submitted 9+ months ago and got a reply with this executive order & no timeline. If you read it your head may explode, or you could get a PR on your morning run like me. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal
whitehouse.gov
Super happy to finally share our preprint with the community! 🎉 Fungal extracellular vesicles deliver RNA cargo into host cells - but how do they get through the plant cell wall? This question puzzled us and the field for years… 🧵 1/6
