New GreenRobust publication by the group of Eric Kemen on using machine learning to identify beneficial microbiota: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Machine learning reveals biocontrol agents shaping disease outcome in natural Arabidopsis populations - Nature Communications

Plants can recruit beneficial microbes to suppress pathogens, offering a route to rational biocontrol beyond empirical screening. Here, the authors use machine learning to identify disease-associated ...

nature.com

Deadline extended 📢 Submit your abstract for the #PPRM2026 by July 29th! Check our fantastic lineup of invited speakers and come join us discuss all things #plant peptide receptors 🌱 Please spread the word and see you in Freising (Germany) from September 14 to 16 😊 www.events.tum.de/frontend/ind...

How does a geminivirus replicate its genome using a pick&mix strategy with host proteins? 🦠🦠🌱🧬 Our new preprint identifies plant proteins repurposed by geminiviruses to carry out rolling-circle replication. Congrats @chaonan123.bsky.social , who spearheaded this work! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Welcoming graduate students who want to ask big questions with small worms. We study non-genetic inheritance in C. elegans, asking how parental experiences are encoded in gametes and decoded by offspring. Visit miamioh.edu/cas/graduate... and ahmedelewa.com for more information.

JOB ALERT! 3-year postdoc position to work on plant robustness in an interdisciplinary project. Great for somebody with experience who can take a central role, coordinate experiments and co-supervise students, and contribute conceptually. @greenrobust.de @unituebingen.bsky.social Please re-post.

Out Now! Phages tame plant pathogens #MicroSky

Phages tame plant pathogens

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 23 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02395-3Predicting infection heterogeneity requires looking beyond the host. Phage–bacteria coevolution in tomato fields maintains diverse bacterial strategies and explains uneven disease occurrence across plant populations.

go.nature.com

📣 A new preprint by noashima.bsky.social! 📣 How does ocean warming affect viral infection? Infection of algae by a giant virus is arrested intracellularly under elevated temperature, with the late replication stage blocked. Infection can later resume, revealing a reversible arrest state 🌊

Reversible inhibition of viral life cycle in response to elevated temperature in a bloom-forming alga

Ocean warming is expected to reshape microbial interactions and community composition, with profound consequences for marine biogeochemical cycles. Host virus dynamics are central to these processes, ...

biorxiv.org

Cheap and easy method for nanopore sequencing phage DNA directly from plaques. Proud of lab members Brenna and Patrick for doing this work *with absolutely no help from me* !! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

we got the cover!!! Novel light-driven schizorhodopsins from Antarctic Minisyncoccota (Patescibacteria) and cyanobacteria www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Latent endogenous giant viruses drive active infection and inheritance in a multicellular algal host www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Latent endogenous giant viruses drive active infection and inheritance in a multicellular algal host - Nature Microbiology

Giant endogenous viral elements integrated into the multicellular alga Ectocarpus are reactivated by specific temperature cues, driving productive latent viral infections.

nature.com

Excited to share that I will be opening my lab this fall at the @weizmanninstitute.bsky.social in the Department of Plant & Environmental Sciences! I am looking for postdocs interested in plant biology, stress biology, and single-cell technologies. #PlantBiology #SingleCell #Epigenomics #Postdoc

Join our institute in Leiden as Assistant/Associate/Full Professor Plant Molecular (and Cell) Biology at Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) @leidenscience.bsky.social @unileiden.bsky.social Applying is possible until: 7 juni 2026 careers.universiteitleiden.nl/job/Assistan...

The Social Lives of Viruses is coming to Vancouver, Canada, from 4th-8th August 2026! This is a free meeting dedicated to all aspects of virus-virus interactions & evolution. To apply: socialviruses.zoology.ubc.ca @sociovirology.bsky.social #socialviruses #evosky #lovevirology #virosky

Join us! @wellcometrust.bsky.social postdoc position using experimental evolution to understand real-world resistance dynamics. See preprint for the 🤯 strain collection we will be working with www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Closing 15 May. Apply: www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... #mevosky

It is with great sadness that we announce J. Craig Venter has died. 🧪🧬 www.jcvi.org/media-center...

J. Craig Venter, genomics pioneer and founder of JCVI and Diploid Genomics, Inc., dies at 79

La Jolla, California—April 29, 2026—The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) announced that J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., the Institute’s founder, board...

jcvi.org

🚨 We’re looking for a PhD student to join @phimresearch.bsky.social and explore phages in emerging rice epidemics 🌾 We will investigate phage–bacteria interactions and the seed microbiome/phageome. #phd #phage #plantscience #microbiome #scijobs ‪ 👉 More info: tinyurl.com/yhc2fa7

1/8 🔥 New preprint dropped: Dynamic co-existence of bacteriophages and their hosts 🦠 in the Arabidopsis thaliana 🌱 phyllosphere Work led by the indomitable @sheilaroitman.bsky.social‬ #plantscience #microbiome #holobiont www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Wild legume performance is shaped by whole nodule microbiome profile, including non-rhizobial endophytes (NREs). Sulfur assimilation by NREs and type VI secretion system in rhizobial symbionts strongly associated with host traits. New Preprint! @finkel-lab.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Announcing StrainVis! 🦠🧫🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... This nifty web-based tool allows you to visualize your strain level analyses. You can combine ANI and synteny based analyses and it will make all kinds of cool publication ready plots for you - examples follow. By Hagay Enav and Inbal Paz:

A new paper from the lab on virus-like particles called eCISs www.nature.com/articles/s41... How bacteria evolved thousands of precision nanoinjectors? Some bacteria don’t secrete toxins — they inject them using phage-derived machines called extracellular contractile injection systems (eCISs).

Phycocyanobilin biosynthesis in Galdieria sulphuraria requires isomerization of phycoerythrobilin synthesized by bilin reductases febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

FEBS Press

The biosynthesis of bilins, tetrapyrroles essential for light harvesting and sensing, is performed by specific enzymes (FDBRs). In Galdieria sulphuraria, both phycobiliprotein types bind phycocyanobi...

febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

The (Yoav) Voichek lab has opened its gates at the Weizmann Institute, and is actively recruiting students and researchers at all levels - come explore gene regulation and computational genomics in a fun, friendly sprouting lab 🤗🥼⚗️🧪 www.weizmann.ac.il/plants/voichek

Out after peer review, led by @shanshanwang3.bsky.social. Gating of immune responses in Arabidopsis mesophyll cells: after initial response, immune gene expression stays hi in some cells, while during PTI other cells reinitiate a growth-related program. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A four-year postdoc focusing on "plant growth-promoting bacteriophages" available in my group. Skills in metaviromics and metagenomics essential. Application deadline: 2.2.2026. For more info, see the link.

Postdoctoral Researcher in discovering the benefits of plant growth-promoting bacteriophages

Postdoctoral Researcher in discovering the benefits of plant growth-promoting bacteriophages

jobs.helsinki.fi

This is such a cool paper as it experimentally addresses the role of the auxiliary metabolic gene nblA in cyanophages showing a large benefit of NblA to the cyanophage and a negative effect on the host photosynthetic apparatus and host photosynthesis www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Viral NblA proteins negatively affect oceanic cyanobacterial photosynthesis - Nature

Viral NblA accelerates the cyanophage infection cycle, directs degradation of the host phycobilisome and other proteins, and reduces host photosynthetic light-harvesting efficiency.

nature.com

Spectral tuning and signaling of diverse and most red sensitive visual rhodopsins that drive high colour discrimination in Mantis Shrimp eyes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

2 days left to apply for a fully funded MIBTP Phd project with me at the School of Life Sciences @warwicklifesci.bsky.social at Warwick. We will do viral functional metagenomics and other cool techniques. Check out the details and apply in the link below warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fa...

1/5 🚨🚨 preprint alert! 🚨🚨 I wish to introduce CARDIB, not the singer, but the protein. CARDIB=CARD Inhibitory Binding protein. In our new work we discover this antiviral protein that is found in all Anthozoa (sea anemones and corals 🪸) but not in other animals. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

An ancient anthozoan protein reveals an alternative evolutionary path of antiviral signaling

How antiviral immunity first arose in animals is a central question in evolutionary biology. Using the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, we identify CARDIB, a previously uncharacterized gene located...

biorxiv.org

Today's dive site, to ~2,200m. We will be streaming 9am-3pm Central. At www.youtube.com/@SchmidtOcean #AsgardArchaea @schmidtocean.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social @texasscience.bsky.social @utmsi.bsky.social

@honour.bsky.social casually having a snack while presenting her work on Ralstonia wars. As nonchalant as it gets 😎