PEQG! My favorite conference ever*. Single session, fantastic talks, great discussions. Only once every 2 years. And in the best conference location too! Abstract deadline coming up Feb 5!
*Disclosure: I am required to say it's the best conference because it is and I told my mom I wouldn't lie.
1/π§΅
Major milestone unlocked for mycology! π
We just published a massive genomic resource in πππ’ππ§ππ’ππ’π ππππ, releasing 2,695 complete circular mitochondrial species assembled from public data
This single dataset nearly πππππππ πthe known mitochondrial diversity of the Kingdom Fungi
rdcu.be/eYZ2h
How about some Steve cropper.
How to keep in step when your (protein) partner speeds upβ¦
Here we investigated the adaptive remodeling of a protein-protein interaction surface essential for telomere protection.
Congrats to whole team!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
How do new centromeres evolve while staying compatible with the division machinery?
Discover it in our new Nature paper! We show centromeres transition gradually via a mix of drift, selection, and sex, reaching new states that still work with the kinetochore.
π doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09779-1
Applications due by Dec. 1
URochester Biology has a tenure-track position open in evolutionary genetics/genomics, particularly those with mathematical, computational, and/or quantitative approaches.
Deadline: Nov 10
apply.interfolio.com/173431
Bio Dept retreat photo for attention
No albicans, but a few glabrata.
Work is sometimes fun, having fun requires some work. I've found a blend of sampling yeast and riding that is a euphoric mix, and makes me wonder why its taken so many years to find. Route is via the finger lakes national forest, 16 miles round trip, 1hr biking straight out, 5 hours sampling back.
Great to hear back in the day stories, chum with alumns and progeny research at Roc-Fest, a celebration of Orr, Werren, Eickbush, and Jaenike and their contributions to adaptation, speciation, and selfish genetic elements. sites.google.com/view/rocfest...
I contributed wine:
Students, but it was more about tossing unknown strains into the freezer, while projects were focused on scerevisiae.
π¨ Microbiologists! We are recruiting Assistant / Associate Professors in 3 collaborative areas of our U. Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
1) MMG (my dept): fundamental research in med micro
2) Peds ID / I4Kids institute
3) Center for Vaccine Research
π to all 3 w/info: www.linkedin.com/posts/vaughn...
This work was a collaborative effort with Slovenian colleagues, grads and undergrads sampling yeasts and occasionally wine. @3xueying.bsky.social
We sequenced ITS2 to ID the species of 4,101 strains and found many vineyard species are also present in nearby forest habitats. However, of all the species present in both habitats only S. cerevisiae showed elevated copper and sulfite resistance in vineyard strains.
Very pleased to share this long term (nearly 20 years) study of yeasts isolated from vineyards and forests, now up on biorxiv:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Ella Al-Shamahi (muslim missionary turned evolutionary biologist, host of BBC human series) opinion piece on why follow the science fails.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
We are excited to share GPN-Star, a cost-effective, biologically grounded genomic language modeling framework that achieves state-of-the-art performance across a wide range of variant effect prediction tasks relevant to human genetics.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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What killed the competitive renewal at NIH? drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/07/31/w...
Walunjkar, @ghaemmaghamilab.bsky.social @justinfay.bsky.social et al. profiled the proteomes of two yeast species with differences in thermal tolerance, finding a proteome-wide shift in stability, driven by both sequence change and cellular context.
π doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf137
#evobio #molbio
New paper w/ @plos.org! @chaochihl.bsky.social identifies a unique mutational pattern among sodium azide-induced mutants. SNPs in 'CC' context and indels. Thanks to @justinfay.bsky.social @lilei0051.bsky.social @giuliafrascarelli.bsky.social @nanoporetech.com et al
journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...
"We believe that mapping the damage done and its human costsβand the pushback and resilience work already underwayβis necessary groundwork for building and retaining political agency"
Abstract submission and early registration for Evolution and core processes of gene expression www.asbmb.org/meetings-eve...
June 26β29, 2025
Hitchhiking in facultative sexuals e.g. baker's yeast: can reduce diversity across the genome and contribute to Lewontinβs paradox. Results relevant to anyone (e.g. me) who has looked but found few if any strong sweeps. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A model for background selection in non-equilibrium populations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.19.639084v1
1of3 Our new preprint now online: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Commercial #Saccharomyces cerevisiae baker's yeasts: strain redundancy, genome plasticity, and colonization of the sourdough environment and the human body
All NIH study sections canceled indefinitely. This will halt science and devastate research budgets in universities.
Our work, which shows statistical issues with the previous claim of a severe ancient bottleneck in the ancestry of African populations, has been selected as a Featured article in Genetics.
doi.org/10.1093/gene...
And another MIRA from @gutengroup.mcb.arizona.edu ! Please send along successful grant proposals and job apps. Seeing these is enormously helpful to folks applying for grants or jobs the first time!
