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MaizeGDB

@maizegdb.bsky.social

MaizeGDB is a community-oriented informatics service to researchers focused on the crop plant and model organism Zea mays.

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MaizeGDB @maizegdb.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

We are deeply saddened to share that Michael Freeling passed away on 7/20/2026 after a year-long battle with cancer. Our deepest condolences go to his family, friends, colleagues, and the many students he inspired. We will share additional memorial information soon.

We are very sorry to share the sad news that Michael Freeling passed away on 7/20/2026 after a year long battle with esophageal cancer. Mike was a long-time faculty member in the Plant and Microbiology Department at University of California-Berkeley, a groundbreaking plant geneticist, and an inspiring teacher and mentor to over two dozen Ph.D. students, four dozen postdocs, and countless undergraduates. He was best known for pioneering work on maize anaerobic metabolism and gene regulation, transposon biology, developmental genetics of the maize ligule, and the discovery of biased gene retention following whole-genome duplications in plants. Mike was hired by UC-Berkeley as an assistant professor straight out of graduate school in 1973, and he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1979 and to full professor in 1984. He was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1980, elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1994, and won the McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies in 2017. Mike taught genetics, comparative genomics and scientific reasoning to our graduate students, and he also taught a popular genetics course for non-majors that had various titles over the years but was affectionately known as “Genetics for Poets.” Our deepest condolences go out to his family, friends and many colleagues.

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MaizeGDB @maizegdb.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

New at MaizeGDB: The "Site Map" is a detailed launchpad to our tools, datasets, and resources. From the "Explore MaizeGDB" link in our menu, jump to Data Centers, JBrowse, BLAST, SNPversity, PanEffect, Phylostrata, Fusarium Protein Toolkit, and more. maizegdb.org/sitemap

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MaizeGDB @maizegdb.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

🌽New tool at MaizeGDB: Explore evolutionary origins of maize proteins! Search up to 100 genes to visualize conservation or to download homologs’ subcellular localization & GO terms! Whole-genome results available for download for B73 and the NAM founders. phylostrata.maizegdb.org

Screenshot of the Phylostrata tool with a set of example B73 gene models.

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MaizeGDB @maizegdb.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

We're excited to share PlantCAD browser tracks: a new, unpublished dataset integrating AI techniques for plant genome analysis. Explore it here: github.com/andorfc/Plan... We welcome the community's feedback and innovative use cases for this data!

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MaizeGDB @maizegdb.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

🌽 New browser tracks: Dr. Laura Tibbs-Cortes aligned proteomes spanning 11 evolutionary levels (from E. coli to sorghum) aligned to B73, NAM & PanAnd maize genomes! Additional tools coming soon! jbrowse.maizegdb.org?loc=chr2%3A2...

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MaizeGDB @maizegdb.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Join us Thursday, Mar 6th (2–5 pm) before the Maize Meeting for the Maize Genetics & Genomics Resources Workshop, "Shaping the Future of Maize Pan-Genomes." We'll have 8 talks on building & visualizing pan-genomes plus a discussion led by Matthew Hufford & Candy Hirsch. maizegdb.org/mgc/maizemee...

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MaizeGDB @maizegdb.bsky.social · 20/12/2023

Reminder: The deadline for early registration and to submit a talk abstract for the Maize Genetics Meeting is Friday! www.maizegdb.org/mgc/maizemee...

Photo of the Maize Genetics Meeting homepage.

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