Andreas P.M. Weber 🌾🌱🧬

Oxygen metabolism in descendants of the archaeal-eukaryotic ancestor - Nature Sequencing of marine sediments finds 136 newly identified Heimdallarchaeia and several novel lineages, and indicates that Heimdallarchaeia evolved distinct metabolic capabilities from other Asgar...

This argues against the hydrogen hypothesis of mitochondrial origin. 👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

See also this excellent context (including a microscopy 🔬movie of crawling Asgards) by @carlzimmer.com:
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/s...

Bitte gerne ECRs für unsere 3 Wissenschaftspreise nominieren, um die Arbeiten von Pflanzenforscher*innen im frühen Karrierestadium (#ECR) auszuzeichnen.
Es winken:
- Urkunde
- Preisgeld
- Vortrags-Einladung zur #BotanikTagung2026

botanik-tagung.de

2/5

Three medals / horese ribbons in green, blue and red colours

Our calls to nominate #ECRs for 3 scientific awards are out

1/5

➡️ www.deutsche-botanische-gesellschaft.de/u/BS3awards

It's 30 years to the day since the first GM crop product went on sale in the UK. To celebrate this milestone, here's a pic of my original tin with our new GM tomatoes engineered to accumulate omega-3 fish oils in the fruit. In collaboration with @johninnescentre.bsky.social & Susana Silvestre.

8/ 📣 Help us spread the word!
Please repost/share this thread and tag colleagues working on mitochondria, chloroplasts, protists, parasites, evolution, metabolism, or synthetic biology.
Let’s make this a truly cross-eukaryotic GRC.

7/ 📌 Details, speakers & application info:
👉 www.grc.org/mitochondria...

6/ This GRC is for anyone fascinated by how energy-transducing organelles work, evolve, break, adapt — and how we might re-engineer them. Expect intense discussion, new connections, and serious cross-pollination between fields.

5/ 🎓 First-time GRC attendee?
There will be one Carl Storm Opportunity Fellowship, covering registration costs.
If this applies to you, don’t forget to mention it in your application.

4/
• Synthetic & High-Throughput Organellar Biology

🔬 Want to give a talk?
Each session has talk slots selected from submitted abstracts.
⏰ Program finalization: March 21 → if you want to be considered, submit your abstract now.

3/ Sessions on:
• Origins & Evolution of Organelles (Keynote)
• Organelle Gene Expression
• Protein Import, Sorting & Assembly
• Structure & Function of Organelle Complexes
• Organelle Metabolism
• Responses to Fluctuating Environments
• Proteostasis & Biogenesis
• Non-Canonical & Novel Organelles

2/ What makes this GRC special?
The sheer breadth of biology. From classic endosymbiotic organelles to:
🦠 apicoplasts of malaria parasites
🐌 kleptoplasts in sea slugs
🧪 the recently described nitroplast
➕ deep cell biology, physiology, metabolism, evolution, and synthetic organellar biology

1/ Energy-Transducing Organelles at the Nexus of Evolutionary Biology & Synthetic Engineering
This GRC is deliberately cross-kingdom and cross-disciplinary: from biomedical to plant science, from mammals to protists. Care about mitochondria, chloroplasts, or anything in between? This is for you!

🧬⚡ Call for abstracts & participants | GRC 2026 ⚡🧬

Together with Vamsi Mootha, I’m chairing the 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Mitochondria & Chloroplasts (July 19 - 24, 2026). We’d love to see your application.

Thread 🧵👇

😍
⬇️ 👀

Promote brilliant plant science #ECRs 🌱
@plantsciencedbg.bsky.social Awards 2026 are open. monetary prize, a certificate & a plenary talk at Botanik-Tagung.
Deadline: 26 Apr 2026.
Pro tip: 👉 Self-noms welcome for Horst Wiehe Award
Details: www.deutsche-botanische-gesellschaft.de/u/3awards

New AI tool “Helixer” identifies genes in newly sequenced organisms. Helixer identifies genes directly from DNA sequences.

Developed by team around @usadellab.bsky.social @fz-juelich.de, @apmweber.bsky.social , @sebtriesch.bsky.social @hhu.de et al. www.fz-juelich.de/en/news/arch...

Schere mit Doppelhelix. © iStockphoto / Ivan Bajic

Gentechnik wird zur gezielten Änderung des Erbguts eingesetzt – z.B., um genetische Defekte zu korrigieren. Eine bekannte Methode ist die Genschere, auch CRISPR/Cas genannt. Sie wird u.a. bei Pflanzen angewendet, um Krankheitsresistenzen, höhere Erträge oder bessere Klimaanpassungen zu erzielen. 1/4

BARVISTA visualises gene expression in the barley shoot apical meristem with single-cell resolution

@edgardemesa.bsky.social @usadellab.bsky.social @simonrdg.bsky.social @isaiavardanega.bsky.social @plantgen-hhu.bsky.social @hhu.de @ceplas.bsky.social

www.plabipd.de/projects/han...

Last PhD of the year. Congratulations Vanessa to an excellent PhD! @weberlab.bsky.social @hhu.de

📣Interested in doing your PhD in Plant Sciences 🌱, Microbial Sciences 🦠 or Computational Biology 👩‍💻? @ceplas.bsky.social offers 10 fully funded PhD 🎓fellowships. Pls repost and forward to interested candidates holding BSc degree.

Helixer: ab initio prediction of primary eukaryotic gene models combining deep learning and a hidden Markov model - Nature Methods By leveraging both deep learning and hidden Markov models, Helixer achieves broad taxonomic coverage for ab initio gene annotation of eukaryotic genomes from fungi, plants, vertebrates and invertebrat...

🚀 Big news in genome annotation! The latest Nature Methods paper presents Helixer. Developed as part of the @denbi.bsky.social infrastructure, Helixer makes high-quality genome annotations more accessible and efficient for the community.
🔗 nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02939-1

Spinning together agricultural and evo-devo research for Gynandropsis gynandra (spider plant) AbstractBackground. Gynandropsis gynandra (Cleomaceae; formerly Cleome gynandra) is a leafy vegetable widely cultivated across Africa, uniquely positioned

See also this one, just came out in @annbot.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/aob/advance-...

Interestingly, Arabidopsis plants over-expressing FDH1 produce significantly more biomass. Mechanism not yet understood, deserves deeper investigation.
@weberlab.bsky.social @franzikuhnert.bsky.social @

Formate dehydrogenase is targeted to mitochondria (not chloroplasts) and constitutes a C1 shunt between mitochondria and cytoplasm

Mitochondrial formate dehydrogenase links mitochondrial and cytosolic one carbon metabolism via a one-carbon shunt url: academic.oup.com/plphys/artic...

Likely Brassicaceae lost the ability to evolve C4.
This review in the journal Plant Biology, the journal of the German Society for Plant Sciences @plantsciencedbg.bsky.social, summarizes the current knowledge on Cleomaceae. #PlantScience

Cleomaceae: diversity and potential of a model family for studies on the evolution of photosynthesis The Cleomaceae family integrates floral diversity, physiological plasticity, and the evolution of C4 photosynthesis, serving as an important model to investigate plant adaptation and evolutionary inn...

Cleomaceae are the sister group to the Brassicaceae. In contrast to the Brassicaceae, they contain true C4 photosynthetic species. This indicates that the genetic capacity to evolve C4 is ancestral to the split of Brassicaceae and Cleomaceae.

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

“Make America Healthy Again” will make the world sicker: The public health policies of the US administration will have dire results for national and global health: EMBO reports: Vol 0, No 0 www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.... #MAHA #RFKJr

Global Institutions Join to Advance Cassava Photosynthesis Research - Gates Ag One St. Louis, Mo. (December 3, 2025) — A new research partnership is taking a fresh look at how cassava captures and uses light energy for efficient photosynthesis, with the goal of increasing yield and ...

www.gatesagone.org/news-updates...

Ganz unabhängig davon, wie man zu den Neuen Genomischen Techniken (NGTs) steht, gibt es natürlich einfach grundlegende Fakten, die man nicht einfach ingnorieren kann.
Leider stellt Frau Krenkel in dem Interview einige Falschbehauptungen auf:
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"Plant single cell RNAseq workshop: From current technologies to data analyses"  Saclay Plant Sciences Summer School, June 28 - July 3, 2026 – Versailles (France) This Summer school is organized by the Saclay Plant Sciences (SPS) network, one of the largest European plant sciences communities.   scRNAseq approaches have revolutionized the way biologists approach their research subjects, by making it possible to dissect molecular mechanisms at the single-cell level. But although technological developments have recently made these approaches more accessible, their expensive use still requires significant technical training, including the good conception of experimental designs, the preparation of samples as well as their bioinformatics analyses. In addition, different protocols and various bioinformatics and statistical analyzes are available, and it can be difficult to choose the most relevant ones for the biological question at hand.   Over five days, the SPS Summer School 2026 will cover all the stages of a scRNAseq project in plants. Through a combination of lectures and practical work, the many specific features of plant models will be highlighted by experts from the Saclay Plant Sciences network (CNRS and INRAE), the ViB in Ghent and the Pasteur Institute. After this international school, participants will: –    Have an overview of the different scRNAseq technologies and understand their pros and cons. –    Be able to design experiments depending on the biological question.  –    Be trained on sample preparation techniques for single cell and single nuclei –    Understand the different steps of bioinformatics and statistical analysis –    Have a better biological interpretation of results –    Have facilitated exchanges with technology platforms, bioinformaticians, and biostatisticians in order to successfully complete their scRNAseq project The summer school will bring together outstanding and enthusiastic young scientists (PhD students and post-docs) from all over the world in order to exchange knowledge and ideas. It is limited to a small group of participants (20 maximum) to privilege informal interactions and scientific discussions   Application deadline: March 12, 2026 (midnight) Answers will be sent mid-April at the latest.    

"Plant single cell RNAseq workshop: From current technologies to data analyses"  Saclay Plant Sciences Summer School, June 28 - July 3, 2026 – Versailles (France)