Jason Stajich
@hyphaltip.bsky.social
I study evolution in fungi using genomics at UC Riverside. He/him. Tongva, Cahuilla, Serrano lands http://lab.stajich.org/
Just posted: a group paper describing major updates to my software pixy, for population genetic summary statistics. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... New since 2021: arbitrary ploidy, multiallelic sites, missingness-aware Watterson's θ and Tajima's D, Hudson's FST, multicore execution!
careers.umass.edu/jobs/assista...
Assistant Professor - Plant Health & Microbe Interactions - Amherst, Massachusetts, United States
Title: Assistant Professor - Plant Health & Microbe Interactions Executive Area: Academic Affairs College/School/MBU: College of Natural Sciences Department: Stockbridge Sch of Agriculture Work Lo...
careers.umass.edu
Excited to share this story in its final form, now published in ACS Synthetic Biology. #PlantBiology #Synbio pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
Engineering Auronidin Production in Marchantia polymorpha Enables a New Class of Plant-Derived Textile Pigments
Plant-derived pigments offer sustainable alternatives to synthetic colorants, yet their practical deployment in textiles is limited by restricted chemical diversity and low abundance. Liverworts represent a source of diverse chemical compounds, and the model liverworts Marchantia polymorpha are emerging as chassis for bioengineering and synthetic biology. Here, we report the biotechnological application of auronidins, a rare class of flavonoid pigments, as textile dyes. Using M. polymorpha, we engineered enhanced auronidin production through controlled expression of the R2R3-MYB transcription factor MpMYB14. We systematically benchmarked constitutive and inducible gene expression systems, including heat-shock, glucocorticoid receptor, and β-estradiol (XVE) circuits, identifying inducible strategies that decouple biomass accumulation from secondary metabolite production while achieving high pigment yields. Extracted auronidins were used to dye cotton yarn directly, demonstrating the feasibility of auronidins for textile dyeing. Our results establish M. polymorpha as a versatile plant chassis for programmable secondary metabolite production and introduce auronidins as a promising natural pigment platform for sustainable textile biotechnology.
pubs.acs.org
Facundo Romani@fromani.bsky.social · 6mo agoMarchantia might seem an unlikely biotech crop, but it’s worth trying. In Aurore’s thesis, we pushed this concept by engineering the auronidins with MpMYB14 and using the pigments to dye cotton. It ended up giving a very unique and beautiful product. #PlantScience www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Big surprise just out from our lab. Transcriptome from A. fumigatus conidiophore made at 50C is upregulated for MAT1-1. Why is this sexual master regulator up in asexual development? Maybe priming future progeny for survival? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Temperature during Aspergillus fumigatus conidiophore development primes spore transcriptome for asexual, parasexual or sexual development
Aspergillus fumigatus is a thermotolerant saprobe found in soils and plant debris worldwide and an important pathogen of humans causing two million deaths annually. A. fumigatus makes abundant asexual...
biorxiv.org
HAVE YOU SUBMITTED YOUR OMB PUBLIC COMMENT YET???? If not, join us tomorrow at 2pm et: events.standupforscience.net/stand-up-for...
Rapid Response Hour: Writing Effective OMB Public Comments
This is a working session designed to help all of us submit strong, effective comments that protect scientific integrity and federal research capacity. Every voice and every example matters in buildin...
events.standupforscience.net
news.ucr.edu/articles/202... fun stuff
Scientists just found something weird inside moss
UC Riverside researchers have found evidence, for the first time, that desert mosses may host fungi inside their tissues. The finding offers a clue about how ancient life crawled from oceans onto dry ...
news.ucr.edu
Reminder — UW #Microbiology has an open search for an Assistant Professor, focusing on fundamental problems in #bacteriology! If you or someone you know would be suitable, here's the ad: apply.interfolio.com/185622
If you are an ASCB member, please consider nominating a junior colleague with a strong, promising research program who is already demonstrating leadership in their field, department, and the broader community for the WICB Junior Award for Excellence in Research. www.ascb.org/award/women-...
NEW PREPRINT: You may recall Joshua trees started flowering fully four months early this year. Was that due to climate change? Well, @colincarlson.bsky.social and I called in Chris Callahan to formally test that hypothesis, and the answer is... it probably wasn't! doi.org/10.64898/202...
Recently, Dr. Keller was featured on the podcast "The Life Lab by Death Clock," where she discussed molds and mycotoxins, and their impacts on the food supply chain. Curious? Listen here: Spotify (urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...) Apple Podcasts (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...)
Dr. Nancy Keller on Mold and Mycotoxins
Podcast Episode · The Life Lab by Death Clock · May 29 · 42m
podcasts.apple.com
Do consider coming to this premium fungal AMR conference in Bangkok in November. @youngecmm.bsky.social @youngisham.bsky.social @ishamycology.bsky.social @mrccmm.bsky.social @bsmm-meeting.bsky.social
Remember when RFK Jr downed a shot of raw milk in the White House to celebrate the release of his kooky MAHA Report on making children healthy—a report that failed to mention the #1 killer of US kids (guns) & that had fake citations & AI slop? Um, encouraging Americans to drink raw milk? BAD idea 👇
Kyle Pfannenstiel@pfannyyy.bsky.social · 2mo agoIdaho health officials are investigating how nearly 60 people got sick after drinking raw milk in the past two weeks. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare says they didn't name two dairies potentially linked to the outbreak “because this is a potential risk for any raw milk producer.”
USDA says screwworm now confirmed in the United States.
Flesh-eating parasite New World screwworm confirmed in Texas, USDA says
New World screwworm, a parasitic fly that eats warm-blooded animals alive, has been found in a calf in Texas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Wednesday evening, exposing the ...
reuters.com
Contribute to research science and preparedness for a crop disease with genomics and molecular biology skills on a project targeting Claviceps gigantea, which damages corn and produces toxic ergot alkaloids. 🌽🧬🖥️🌱🍄🦠 jobs.apsnet.org/job/postdoct... #plantpathsky #jobs #fungi #mycology #USDA
Postdoctoral Fellowship in Plant Pathology/Crop Biodefense
A research opportunity is available with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research Unit (FDWSRU), located on the Fort Detric...
jobs.apsnet.org
🧬 ⚒️ Phyling is a fast, scalable, and user-friendly tool supporting phylogenomic reconstruction of species phylogenies directly from protein-encoded genomic data. Discover more from @hyphaltip.bsky.social in the May issue of #G3journal: 🔗 buff.ly/0YI6jXN
Thrilled to announce that the Department of Microbiology at the University of Washington, School of Medicine is hiring at the Assistant Professor level (tenure-track)! The Pacific Northwest is an awesome place to live and do science 🧪🦠. Join us! apply.interfolio.com/185622 Applications due 8/1.
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
anyone written skills training for AI for phylogenomics with aln + trim + concat + modeltest + ML[iqtree,raxml]/MP/Bayesian build expert tuners and codify it into good workflows with some separate tracks for gene tree, coalescence, data pruning? @jlsteenwyk.bsky.social? am exploring #phylogenetics
Excited to share our discovery of a new programmable RNA-guided DNA-targeting system hiding inside bacteriophages that predates CRISPR. We call it VIPR (Viral Interference Programmable Repeat), and it uses an entirely new logic to find its targets. Thread + link below.
Please repost: My department at USC is hiring for a teaching-track faculty position. We are looking for someone principally to teach statistics for biologists, but there will be opportunities for other courses in statistics & algorithms applied to biology usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...
Full-Time, Teaching-Track Faculty Position in Quantitative and Computational Biology at USC
Learn more about applying for Full-Time, Teaching-Track Faculty Position in Quantitative and Computational Biology at USC
usccareers.usc.edu
Trump fired all 24 members of the National Science Board, the body that oversees the National Science Foundation. The letters read, “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I’m writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately.”
Trump fires NSF's oversight board
Dismissal of the National Science Board is widely seen as latest move to erase NSF’s independence
science.org
Biscuits & Banjos is now featured at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in their ‘American Currents’ exhibit! Such a full circle moment to look back as we prepare for Biscuits & Banjos Presents: Beloved Community this Sunday and Monday.
ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2026/04/20/s...
Strengthening Fungal Genomics: Using Average Nucleotide Identity (ANI) to Verify Yeast Species Identity - NCBI Insights
Average Nucleotide Identity (ANI) analysis is a useful tool to verify taxonomic accuracy. It compares submitted genome assemblies against reference data generated from “type material,” the official sp...
ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
We are hiring! We’re excited to recruit a postdoc to our lab at UC Davis to work on plant immune engineering and single-cell analyses of plant pathogen interactions. Apply by June 1. Please repost. www.coakerlab.org/postdoctoral...
oh my gosh, they're making another installment of the Up series! Wow.
Asif Kapadia to direct 70 Up, last chapter of influential ITV documentary series
Film-maker says it is ‘incredible honour’ to pick up baton from Michael Apted who died in 2021
theguardian.com
I'm hiring a postdoc (start date flexible) and a PhD student (for Fall 2027) to work in any area of computational phylogenetics! More info here: mhibbins.github.io I will be attending both PEQG and Evolution in June, so please reach out if you want to chat at these meetings!
Hibbins Lab
mhibbins.github.io
