I am happy to share that my NWO Veni project was awarded 🍄🧬🔻! In this project, I will study how transposons shape genome folding, evolution, and adaptation in a fungal salamander pathogen. I am incredibly thankful for all the support and look forward to this next chapter #fungi #transposons #TEsky

The @erc.europa.eu is providing 2.5 million euros for the “CrypticBenefits” research project at @uni-kiel.de through an Advanced Grant #ERCAdG awarded to Prof. Hinrich Schulenburg. Congratulations to our spokesperson @schulenburglab.bsky.social! More: www.metaorganism-research.com/news/crc-118...

Evolution of supernumerary chromosomes in wheat blast fungal pathogens https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.01.729302v1

Thrilled to share our paper now out in Nature Plants 🎉 We developed a genome-host association (GHA) approach to study pathogen adaptation directly from field metadata by using the originating host cultivar as phenotype. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Genome–host association mapping reveals wheat pathogen genes involved in host specialization - Nature Plants

This study introduces genome–host association (GHA), leveraging natural epidemics to map the genetic landscape of host adaptation in the pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici. Applied to 832 wheat fungal stra...

nature.com

Interested in B chromosomes in plants/animals or accessory chromosomes in fungi? Don't miss the 6th B Chromosome Conference in Olomouc, Czech Republic! The abstract submission deadline is April 15th. Come and join this great research community! Details and registration: olomouc.ueb.cas.cz/en/6bcc

Phd Position alert 🚨 Join our project ASTRAfun (Adaptation and Starship Traffic in Root-Associated fungi), in which we will use computational models to unveil the hidden dynamics of fungal evolution. It’s not going to be just regular fun. It’s going to ASTRAfun. 🤓 www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

PhD Position in Computational Modelling of Fungal Evolution

How do giant mobile elements called ‘Starships’ reshape fungal plant pathogens? Help us computationally model their spread and impact in nature and agriculture!

uu.nl

Now out! We show that TEs can be horizontally transferred between fungal species via Starships. Once transferred, these TEs can become active, changing the genome organization and affecting the lifestyle of the recipient fungus. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @oggenfussursula.bsky.social #TEsky

Transposable elements hitchhike on Starships across fungal genomes - Nature Communications

Large mobile genetic elements known as Starships act as vehicles for transferring transposable elements (TEs) between fungi. Here, Griem-Krey et al. show that these ‘hitchhiking’ TEs can drive rapid e...

nature.com

Now up on bioRxiv! Working with @dianzheng.bsky.social and Jan van Kan, we tested how DNA is distributed between nuclei in multinucleate fungal spores. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Please share widely! We think MycoMobilome can go a long way to support high-quality TE annotations across fungi! Also, try it on your favorite 🍄 genome and tell us what you think 😉

Toby Baril@tobybarilbio.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Need to annotate transposons in fungal genomes? 🧬 Good news #MycoMobilome is now live! Check it out here: doi.org/10.1093/narg... Access the sequences through our Zenodo community (you can also contribute seqs with credit), and synchronisation with @dfam.bsky.social! w/ @danielcroll.bsky.social

Join us at this year's meeting of the International Society of Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health - ISEMPH 2026 in Kiel. See: isemph.org/page-18356

Beyond excited to see this work finally out in @narjournal.bsky.social! We show that epigenetic modifiers on fungal accessory chromosomes can contribute to the overall epigenetic profile. Many thanks to @gomezlucia93.bsky.social and our other amazing collaborators 👏🏻 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Facultative heterochromatin mediated by core and accessory chromosome-encoded H3K27-specific methyltransferases controls virulence in a fungal phytopathogen

Abstract. In many fungal phytopathogens, infection is regulated by accessory genomic regions enriched in facultative heterochromatin, but the precise role

academic.oup.com

Our paper on Zymoseptoria tritici 3D genome organization is officially out! @iglavincheska.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Three-dimensional genome architecture connects chromatin structure and function in a major wheat pathogen - BMC Biology

Background Genome spatial organization plays a fundamental role in biological function across all domains of life. While the principles of nuclear architecture have been well-characterized in animals ...

link.springer.com

1/ Ever needed to annotate TEs in a fungal genome, but didn't know where to start? We have released #MycoMobilome, a community-focused non-redundant database of transposable element consensus sequences for the fungal kingdom, constructed from >4,000 fungal genomes! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

📣 I’m excited to share two open positions in my lab @leibniz-hki.de. For this interdisciplinary project with @luziagyr.bsky.social, I’m seeking (1) an enthusiastic PhD student interested in fungal natural product research and genetic engineering, as well as (2) a technical assistant 👇🏻

Want to understand how entire fungal chromosomes can be horizontally transferred? Join us to unravel the mechanism/consequences of horizontal chromosome transfer in a fungal pathogen as part of an ERC-funded project. Postdoc/PhD positions available. fungal-evolutionary-genetics.de/open-positio...

Open Positions

ERC-funded project on the mechanism of horizontal transfer of entire fungal chromosomes PhD PostDoc

fungal-evolutionary-genetics.de

We are welcoming applications for a full professorship on Molecular and Evolutionary Zoology at Kiel Univerdity, Northern Germany, with fantastic facilities and infrastructure! @uni-kiel.de @crc1182.bsky.social @transevo.bsky.social www.nature.com/naturecareer...

W 3 professorship in Molecular and Evolutionary Zoology - Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein (DE) job with Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel | 12844416

Kiel University aims to attract more qualified women to professorship positions. The Institute of Zoology at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural...

nature.com

We have several open positions in my group, funded from the ERC Grant on the Early Sequestered Germline of Fungi. We search broadly for applicants at both PhD and master-level, with a dedicated interest in fungal evolutionary biology. Please forward and RT! Find the positions here: su.varbi.com

Lediga jobb vid Stockholms universitet

Jobb

su.varbi.com

Thrilled and honoured to have received an #ERCStG from @erc.europa.eu for my project MobiChrom on horizontal chromosome transfer in fungal pathogens. We’ll explore key questions: What is the mechanism? How is specificity regulated? Are these selfish elements? Exciting times ahead - job ads soon!

European Research Council (ERC)@erc.europa.eu · 11mo ago

📣 The ERC Starting Grant call results are out! Find out which early-career researchers will receive funding this year, what they will be investigating, where they will be based... plus lots of other #ERCStG facts & figures for 2025! ➡️ buff.ly/IsafuFh #FrontierResearch 🇪🇺#EUfunded #HorizonEurope

Excited to share our new publication, out today in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41.... @kanchanj.bsky.social led this fascinating fungal-bacterial interaction project. We are grateful for our wonderful collaborators Brian Peters and David Underhill.

Commensal yeast promotes Salmonella Typhimurium virulence - Nature

Commensal Candida albicans enhances the virulence and dissemination of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium.

nature.com

Really happy this is out in preprint - Congratulations to @graemekettles.bsky.social @zymohaider.bsky.social, and everyone involved for their hard work completing this study! It examines a Z. tritici effector that is a molecular mimic of plant LRRs, and suppresses PTI www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Molecular mimicry of plant cell-surface immune receptors by fungal secreted leucine-rich repeat proteins

Leucine-rich repeat (LRR) receptor-like kinases (LRR-RLKs) are important plant immunity proteins. The wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici produces many virulence effectors during infection; however, m...

biorxiv.org

Doctoral position on genomic basis of Fucus (brown algal) local adaptation - join our exciting #Fubluc team! Fully funded for 3.5 years & we also consider candidates with strong molecular or bioinformatic skillls but no marine / algal experience, see www.geomar.de/en/karriere/...

My group at is hiring a PhD student to explore how fungal pathogens that live in the environment will adapt their genomes, acquire new phenotypes, and perhaps even increased infectivity as a result of climate change. Please share! More info and applications at @ jobs.uni-jena.de/vrbup

📣 Happy to see the journal publication 📄 of our work on Starships 🚀 in Verticillium fungi: terrific work led by @yukiyosato.bsky.social rdcu.be/exBSp

Starship giant transposons dominate plastic genomic regions in a fungal plant pathogen and drive virulence evolution

Nature Communications - Giant transposons, known as ‘Starships’, mediate horizontal gene transfer between fungal genomes. Here, Sato et al. show that Starships occupy genome regions...

rdcu.be

📣 I’m recruiting a #Postdoc to help us further our understanding on the infection strategies of our human fungal pathogen. If you’re enthusiastic about research, our interdisciplinary group @leibniz-hki.de will be a good fit for you! Please share! jobs.hki-jena.de/jobs/Postdoc...

Job opportunity Postdoctoral Researcher (m/w/div) in “Microbial Infection Strategies” at Leibniz HKI Jobportal

Wissenschaft/Forschung in Jena

jobs.hki-jena.de

The July cover of Genome Biology and Evolution features the work of Dubin, @oliviaroth.bsky.social et al., who investigate sexual antagonism and sex determination in syngnathids with differences in how male pregnancy develops. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf103 📷 Olivia Roth #genome #evolution

Wow: check it out; these fungi distribute their chromosomes across different nuclei! Normally each nucleus has a complete set of all chromosomes. Distribution of haploid chromosomes into separate nuclei in two pathogenic fungi | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Distribution of haploid chromosomes into separate nuclei in two pathogenic fungi

Nuclei define eukaryotes, enabling macromolecular compartmentalization and cellular regulation. Each nucleus is believed to contain one or more haploid sets of chromosomes (1N). However, we discovered...

science.org

Junior faculty job alert in Germany - Marine Evolutionary Genomics @geomarkiel.bsky.social / University of Kiel www.geomar.de/en/karriere/... Marine study system of your choice (no microbes, sorry…), excellent infrastructure and ship access, moderate teaching requirements, closing date 6 June

@guidopuccetti.bsky.social, Gabriel Scalliet and I are excited to share our latest work. Resistance in agriculture emerges fast, but we fail to grasp how the myriad mutations in pathogen populations contribute to this. Please check out and share our latest preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

📣Call for Abstracts for the Mycological Society of America 2025 Annual Meeting this summer in Madison, Wisconsin. Submit your abstract by March 17th! #MSAfungi25 msa.joynconference.com/v2/

Our perspective on the horizontal transfer of accessory chromosomes in fungi is now available in Heredity: rdcu.be/d9jOR. It may be a regulated process. Very proud of this collaborative effort with Henrik de Fine Licht (@henriklicht.bsky.social) and Remco Stam (@rstam.bsky.social)!

Horizontal transfer of accessory chromosomes in fungi – a regulated process for exchange of genetic material?

Heredity - Horizontal transfer of accessory chromosomes in fungi – a regulated process for exchange of genetic material?

rdcu.be