Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology 🌱🧪

Three people standing side by side indoors in front of large windows and tall green plants, smiling at the camera.

A big thank you to Yen-Ping Hsueh from the @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social for an outstanding talk on #predatory #fungi yesterday! A fascinating topic and a truly insightful discussion.

Many thanks as well to @alexanderforderer.bsky.social, @carogutj.bsky.social and Gloria Meng-Hsuan Lin for hosting!

High-frequency biparental inheritance of plant mitochondria upon chilling stress and loss of a genome-degrading nuclease - Nature Plants Maternal inheritance of mitochondria breaks down in the cold when a mitochondrial DNA degrading nuclease is defective, resulting in biparental inheritance that can rescue mitochondrial mutations and g...

🌿🧬Our new story is out in @natplants.nature.com! Tobacco plants usually pass down their mitochondria maternally, but we show we can trigger paternal transmission of mitochondria at high levels & restore plant health in the offspring of mothers harboring defective mtDNA www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Two men stand side by side indoors, smiling at the camera in bright sunlight coming through large windows.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of welcoming @thorstenlangner.bsky.social from @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social for a fascinating talk about #plantpathogen #coevolution and pathogen-informed disease control🌱🦠

Thank you for the inspiring visit and many thanks to @incavirus.bsky.social for hosting!

Eva-Sophie Wallner and Marion Clavel standing together on a snowy campus, smiling at the camera. Behind them are a modern office building and a greenhouse, with bright winter sunshine illuminating the scene.

Shoutout to yesterday’s guest @eswallner.bsky.social, who visited us from @gmivienna.bsky.social for her talk “Lessons from sporeling development: How to form plant organs and meristems de novo?” - fascinating perspective on plant development!🌱
Thanks as well to @thevirusmc.bsky.social for hosting 🙏

Workflow for Samplify-based phenotyping of seed abortion.

Samplify – automated quantification of seed abortion

Bente et al. @hebente.bsky.social @claudiakohler11.bsky.social @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A big group of people in an office building, celebrating the phd defense of Yunli Hsieh. He is in the middle of the picture, wearing his doctoral hat.

Huge congrats to Dr. Yunli Hsieh from AG Nikoloski for successfully defending his thesis “Computational Integration of Multi-Omics and Phenotype Data into Genome-Scale Metabolic Models“ 🤖🌿

All the best for your future! 🎉

It was a great pleasure to host Nick Irwin from @gmivienna.bsky.social here at @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social, where he talked about their work on horizontal gene transfer, its effect on evolution and on the development of new molecular pathways. Looking forward to follow future developments!

Ziv Spiegelmann (left) and Marco Incarbone (right) standing outside near an office building in snowy weather. They are both smiling in the camera.

Thanks a lot to @zivirus.bsky.social visiting us from @volcaniinstitute.bsky.social to talk about the #tobamovirus revealing a crossroad between viral movement and #PlantImmunity 🍅🦠

Thanks as well to @incavirus.bsky.social for hosting! 🙏

Long-distance transport of siRNAs with functional roles in pollen development - Nature Plants This study shows that many small RNAs in Capsella rubella pollen originate from maternal tissues. These mobile small RNAs support proper pollen development, revealing that non-cell-autonomous small RN...

New paper in @natplants.nature.com finds that #siRNAs can act as long-distance communication signals from maternal to male tissue in #Capsella with functional role in #pollen development.

Read here: nature.com/articles/s41477-026-02219-6

@claudiakohler11.bsky.social @jiali024.bsky.social

Solar panels above blooming poppies.

🌍 Happy #CleanEnergyDay! 🎉

With our #photovoltaic systems and additional #sustainability measures, our campus located in @potsdamsciencepark.bsky.social is able to cut about 600 tons of #CO₂ annually.
Proud of this step toward a cleaner future! 🌞🌾

Fig. 2 Auxin is an evolutionarily conserved driver of seed development.

Genomic imprinting in an early-diverging #angiosperm reveals an ancient mechanism for #seed initiation in flowering #plants

A #Letter by Florez-Rueda et al.
👇

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#LatestIssue @anaflo.bsky.social @duartedf.bsky.social

Two people smiling into the camera wearing a doctoral hat.

🎓 Double Doctorate 🎓
Huge congrats to Dr. Luisa Wittemeier and Dr. Alina Ebert from AG Kopka for defending their #PhD theses on the same day 💪🧠
Two defenses, two new doctors, one proud lab - we couldn’t be happier for the both of you. Wishing you an amazing future ahead! 🚀

The Clavel Group is recruiting a new postdoc for two possible projects dealing with plant-virus interactions and selective autophagy! More (wordy) details below ⬇️🌱🦠

So cool! That must have been an amazing experience 👩‍🔬🎤

congrats! 🤩

Two people stand side by side indoors against a light blue wall, smiling at the camera. Left: Luis Lopez Molina, right: Claudia Köhler. A glass door and hallway are visible in the background.

We were delighted to welcome Luis Lopez Molina today! Many thanks for the excellent talk on how endospermic ARFs regulate #seed dormancy, seed #development and #cold adaptation ❄️
We had a great time listening and discussing! Thanks as well to @claudiakohler11.bsky.social for hosting ✨

We are looking far and wide for this position! So if you are motivated, interested in academia, and want to explore the world of plant-virus interaction, we are ALSO happy to host you for a PhD! More detail below🔽☘️🦠

A seminar room filled with students and researchers seated and listening to a scientific talk. A speaker stands at the front of the room beside a projected presentation slide.

Many thanks to Peter Brodersen (University of Copenhagen) for an excellent talk on “A proxy #RNAi pathway for sensing pathogenic cytoplasmic double-stranded RNA in #plants.” It was a pleasure to have you with us!

Thanks as well to @claudiakohler11.bsky.social for hosting the talk.

Are you interested in using synthetic approaches to promote arbuscular mycorrhiza symbiosis? Then our PostDoc position may be for you: jobs.mpimp-golm.mpg.de/jobposting/b...

PhD student Diego Brito smiling and holding his doctoral hat.

Congratulations are in order for Dr. Diego Brito from AG @fritz-kragler.bsky.social for defending his #PhD thesis titled “Characterization of Cold Shock Proteins (CSPs) and their role in the coordination of growth and stress responses in Arabidopsis“
Wishing you all the best @dipbrito.bsky.social 🎓🌱

Left: Marco Incarbone, right: Björn Krenz standing outside in front of an office building

Delighted to have @bkrenz.bsky.social from @leibniz-dsmz.bsky.social visit us for his inspiring talk “ #Plant #Viruses in Focus – Challenges and #Innovative Solutions for #Sustainable #Agriculture ” 🌱🦠

Great discussion, thanks to everyone who joined and to @incavirus.bsky.social for hosting!

AGO5 restricts virus vertical transmission in plant gametophytes The propagation of a viral infection from a host parent to its progeny is known as vertical transmission, or seed transmission in plants. It allows viral infections to rapidly spread locally via polle...

Preprint alert! It is my great pleasure to announce the first manuscript from the lab, a story that started @gmivienna.bsky.social and was mainly accomplished by the intrepid @gesahoffmann.bsky.social at @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social. A brief thread with our findings
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It's great to see this work finally out! @newphyt.bsky.social
Here we showed that auxin production after fertilization is a conserved, paternal-triggered mechanism for seed initiation in angiosperms.

Graphic with Arabidopsis thaliana plant. It says in the text: We're hiring: 5 PhD positions, apply by 10 January, 2026. Over the caption, there are keywords: Plant Physiology, Epigenetics, Biotechnology, Cell Biology, Bioinformatics. At the bottom there are logos of IMPRS, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, University of Potsdam and the Max Planck Society.

Looking for a #PhDposition in #PlantScience ?
Our #IMPRS @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social and @unipotsdam.bsky.social is #hiring !

📅 Apply by 10 January 2026

More info:
👉 www.mpimp-golm.mpg.de/IMPRS-PhD

Please share this post to plant it in the right feed 🌱 #PlantSciJobs

Delphine Pott (left) and Marco Incarbone (right) standing in front of a yellow wall and next to a window facade in an office building. Both are smiling.

Great talk by @delphinem-p.bsky.social from @geminiteamlab.bsky.social yesterday: “Hijacking the Plant #Spliceosome” on how alternative splicing drives #viral infection and #tomato fruit development 🍅

Thanks to our host @incavirus.bsky.social for organizing this insightful seminar! 👏

Research never tasted this good! 😀🌿

Portraits of Prof. Dr. Ralph Bock, Dr. Saleh Alseekh, Dr. John E. Lunn and Prof. Dr. Mark Stitt.

🌟 International recognition for #PlantScience in #Potsdam 🌟

Four #researchers from the @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social are among the world’s top 0.1% most cited scientists. Congratulations to Prof. Dr. Ralph Bock, Dr. Saleh Alseekh, Dr. John E. Lunn & Prof. Dr. Mark Stitt! 👏🌱
#HighlyCited2025

Picture of two smiling men in an office building. The left is Dirk Walther, the right is Mehdi Davari.

Today we had the pleasure to welcome Mehdi Davari from @ipbhalle.bsky.social at our institute and listen to his captivating talk about #MolecularSimulation and #MachineLearning strategies to accelerate #protein and #enzyme design. Thanks a lot for your visit! 🌱

Thanks to Dirk Walther for hosting 👏

Register now for Lunch+Learn on 📅 Dec. 1 🕛 12:00 »𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆: 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻’𝘀 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗼𝗶𝗿𝗲« and discuss the potential of tRNA display with Dr Daniel Dunkelmann!

👉https://p-sp.link/lunch-learn-20251201

#cellulartranslation #tRNAdisplay #newtherapeutics

Group of eight people posing in front a blue wall.

Huge thanks to Alison Smith from @camplantsci.bsky.social for visiting our institute and sharing her expertise in “Manipulating the Chlamydomonas #chloroplast #genome.” 🌿

Our #PhD students loved the chance to meet and exchange ideas at lunch and are still buzzing with inspiration! 💡✨