In new work led by Aditi Merchant with Samuel King, we prompt engineer Evo to perform function-guided protein design with high experimental success rates, including designs that go beyond natural sequences. We also release SynGenome, the first AI-generated genomics database. 🧵 1/N

1/9 I am excited to share our pre-print on spatial transcriptomics in wheat spikes in collaboration with Ashleigh Lister. Using MERFISH, we resolved the expression of 200 genes to cellular resolution. Check out the pre-print 👉tinyurl.com/c7t3kncf

Check out this amazing thread by Katie Long on our latest work using spatial transcriptomics in wheat alongside fabulous colleagues Earlham Institute Ashleigh Lister Iain Macaulay.

Revisiting the Central Dogma: the distinct roles of genome, methylation, transcription, and translation on protein expression in ... biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh… #biorxiv_plants

New website for #tidyplots use cases, complete with data and code 🤩 tidyplots.org/use-cases/ #rstats #dataviz #phd

📢📢📢 9 Ph.D. positions in monitoring plant DNA damage response available in #HeatDDR doctoral network consortium. Great PIs, topics and funding. Appy at heatddr.eu or spread spread the word. Do not miss our group project #6😉

**COMMUNITY FEEDBACK REQUIRED** We're going to run some workshops for early career researchers at a #plantscience meeting later this year. If you're an ECR, what topics would you like covered? What would be most useful to hear about for you? Reply here... 🌳 🌱 (please share)

A new paper published onine! Improved GO annotation of bread wheat will be useful, thanks to the first author Yasuyuki and the last Atsushi. The homeolog expression was studied using 25 Asian cultivars including Norin 61. Plant Cell Physiology Moeko Okada Toshiaki Tameshige doi.org/10.1093/pcp/pc…

Gene expression and epigenetic status do not change following chromosomal inversions generated by CRISPR/Cas Khosravi et al. Leibniz IPK 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/np…

edgeR v4: powerful differential analysis of sequencing data with expanded functionality and improved support for small counts and larger datasets academic.oup.com/nar/article/53…

New preprint claims that most existing DNA language models perform just as well with random weights, suggesting that pretraining does nothing (Mistral & DNABERT-2 look like exceptions). We need better DNA language models.

💡Interested in new crop breeding technologies? 🧬 Come and join us ourANU to accelerate plant synbio as part of a new multi-million $$ Australian government investment in crop transformation, gene editing & synbio applications. 🌱 Exciting times ahead! jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/head-of-a…

🌱 PhD Position in Plant Epigenetics – Apply Now! 🔬 Are you fascinated by how plants regulate genes without changing DNA sequences? Join our research team and uncover the mysteries of plant epigenetics! 🧬 📍 UEB Olomouc 📅 15/4 2025 👉 [olomouc.ueb.cas.cz/en/parental-co…]

Simulations and experiments suggest that an egg is best cooked by repeatedly alternating between boiling and tepid water go.nature.com/4aQeM5o

We would like to invite you to the Czech Plant Nucleus Workshop 2025. Prague, Czech Republic, from May 26 to 27, 2025. Topic: Structural and functional genomics, Genome stability, Epigenetics, Reproduction, Genome editing. See more at: olomouc.ueb.cas.cz/cpnw #CPNW2025

New #TansleyReview in New Phytologist! 🌱🧬 "Natural neopolyploids: a stimulus for novel research" - a fantastic collaborations sparked by discussions that emerged from U.S. National Science Foundation sponsored Polyploidy 2023 Conference! ... Kentaro K. Shimizu　清水健太郎 Mario Vallejo-Marin Soltis Lab @UF plus others doi.org/10.1111/nph.20…

Registration open to the 12th RepeatExplorer Workshop (May 27-29), this year focusing on repeat annotation in genome assemblies ! repeatexplorer.org/?page_id=14

Weekend read bookmarked!

Women tend to live longer than men and are often more resilient to cognitive decline as they age. Now researchers might have uncovered a source for this resilience: the second X chromosome in female cells go.nature.com/41K8Ubc

Editing 14 genes is no small feat, but I am not seeing enough evidence that "it is a dire wolf". Our community needs to communicate better to the public, now mor than ever, and imo that includes not exaggerating what we can deliver.