Hassan Salem

Thanks, Luisa!!

Thanks, Christian 😊 Impossibly proud!

❤️ Thanks for being part of the journey & big day!

‘twas an honor, Marleny 😊 Your next chapter will be even brighter 🐝 🦠

Huge thanks to Ruth Ley, Heike Brötz-Oesterhelt & Andreas Brune for being part of Marleny’s committee. And the Mutualisms Lab for a masterful hat & celebration!

Marleny is off to an exciting postdoc w/ Philipp Engel in Lausanne 🇨🇭

Our group’s inaugural PhD 🎉🍾

Toasting the successful & excellent defense of Dr. Garcia-Lozano 🎈

Congratulations, @marlenygarcial.bsky.social!!

Leipzig U and the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) have an open faculty position (W2) in evolutionary population genetics! This position is tenured and comes with generous core funding. We are eager to welcome a new colleague! Deadline March 11.
www.uni-leipzig.de/en/newsdetai...

There is a week left to apply for two available positions in my lab @ipbhalle.bsky.social

- PhD: ipb-halle.mhm.jobs/12-phd-posit...

- Postdoc: ipb-halle.mhm.jobs/13-postdocto...
Earliest start date: 01/05/2026.

We are interested in plant immune receptor biochemistry and evolution. Please share!

Excited to collaborate with @hassansalem.bsky.social and @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social on this new Postdoc opportunity!

If you're interested in the developmental biology of symbiosis, apply and join us @johninnescentre.bsky.social and @thesainsburylab.bsky.social 🪲🦠🔬

Join us at the #SEBconference Florence 2026 to discuss #Plant Robustness! 🌱🔥

@kaspervangelderen.bsky.social and I are organising the P12 session "Plant robustness from molecules to ecosystems" with the support of @greenrobust.de

Check the program and submit your abstract by March 6th! 👇

Thanks, Lee!

Insect herbivory dependent on a specialised bacterial symbiosis - fascinating talk by new @johninnescentre.bsky.social group leader @hassansalem.bsky.social #CMINorwich26

ViroiDoc MSCA Doctoral Network announces workshop:

What: Don’t Perish! A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Paper

When: Thursday, 2 April 2026, 9:30–12:30 CET

Where: online, Webex

This event in English is open free of charge. Registration will open soon.

www.viroidoc.eu/b/dont-peris...

Check out this exciting postdoc opportunity at @johninnescentre.bsky.social to work with the amazing @hassansalem.bsky.social and @berasymbionts.bsky.social on the developmental and molecular basis of insect–microbe symbiosis.

I’m excited to be part of this collaborative project!

Join @berasymbionts.bsky.social , @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social and us for a postdoc on the remarkable developmental biology of symbiosis!

Applications are due March 25th 🪲🦠

@johninnescentre.bsky.social @thesainsburylab.bsky.social

VACANCY - We’re searching for a Postdoctoral Researcher to join the newly appointed group of Dr @hassansalem.bsky.social, to explore the developmental biology of host-microbe symbiosis

www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/po...

Deadline - 25 March 2026
Salary - £37,500 - £45,350
Contract - 3 years, full-time

Interested in joining a dynamic, interdisciplinary research department? A call is open for Group Leaders at the UCL Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology.
Please submit your expression of interest by April 13, 2026.

Further details here: www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating).

A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

Studying adaptation at the invisible scale | PNAS In order to understand adaptation by natural selection, it is necessary to observe organisms in their natural habitat. For this reason, the field o...

How to study adaptation in organisms that we can’t see, living in environments that we can’t visit? Some thoughts in our perspective piece out today in @pnas.org www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @biology.ox.ac.uk @stuwest.bsky.social

Really happy to see this one out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Alibek's drive & great coll w/ friends @gekaragoz.bsky.social & E. Hallacli resulted in a cool story that starts with our beloved #Marchantia and ends with iPSC-derived neurons 🤩🤪 A short 🧵

How does treatment induced antibiotic resistance happen in real-world infections? We analysed 25k Pseudomonas isolates from 180 patients in a clinical trial to find out! TLDR: The ecological and evolutionary paths are surprisingly diverse & complex even in patients receiving identical treatment…

The actin cytoskeleton is required to maintain plant cell division orientation against cellular geometry Actin guides plant cell division, shaping tissues in ways that defy geometric constraints.

What a treat to see the work from Camila Goldy @camilagoldy.bsky.social et al., @rdplab.bsky.social @ensdelyon.bsky.social now published 🫶

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thanks, Lee - was great seeing you in London!

Thrilled to share our work in @natcomms.nature.com!

Thankful for a great collaboration ☺️

Grateful for the support of the @humboldt-foundation.de and the @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social

More details below.

Our latest preprint: Together with the team of Jan Löwe, @danieltamarit.bsky.social and many others we discovered and characterized several Asgard tubulin genes and propose that microtubule architecture and dynamics evolved in Asgard archaea prior to eukaryogenesis
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Incredibly proud of @inespons.bsky.social for tirelessly and creatively taking on this study after joining the lab as its first recruit!

@maxplanck.de, @johninnescentre.bsky.social, @erc.europa.eu, @dfg.de, @humboldt-foundation.de @embo.org

8/n

Fidelity in co-diversified symbiosis - Nature Communications Symbioses can form heritable partnerships, yet assessing partner fidelity remains difficult owing to limited symbiont exchange. This study shows how genetic compatibility, transmission fidelity, and l...

We essentially find that specificity is reinforced across three scales: Partner recognition, transmission bottlenecks, and competition-based selection. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

7/n

We also show that when hosts are co-infected with native and non-native symbionts, both initially establish. But over development the native strain consistently outcompetes the newcomer.

Local adaptation & microbe-microbe competition provide an added, possibly final, layer of specificity.

6/n

Even when non-native symbionts persist into adulthood and reach transmission organs, they fail to be packaged into the egg-associated spheres and are not passed to the next generation.

Transmission fidelity reinforces specificity.

5/n

The host’s response reveals why.

Genetically distant symbionts trigger a stronger immune and metabolic response, while closely related symbionts largely mirror the native interaction.

Recognition and compatibility matter, even in obligate, heritable mutualisms.

4/n