Bacteria and lytic phages experience antagonistic co-evolution, with bacterial defenses (e.g., CRISPR-Cas) battling phage anti-defenses (e.g., anti-CRISPR (Acr) systems). We investigate whether CRISPR...

Many animal species replace histones with protamines during spermatogenesis. Although essential for sperm function, protamines evolve rapidly for reasons that remain unknown. Using in vivo gene replac...

The conservation of immune systems from prokaryotes to eukaryotes can guide discovery of immunity genes across the tree of life. Most studies to date have focused on metazoan systems, while the extent...

Transposable elements mobilize within and occasionally between genomes, including from host to virus. We identified two insertions of the human BC200 noncoding RNA gene in the poxvirus molluscum conta...

Retrotransposons can infect neighboring cells using a mechanism that relies on a small fusogen-like protein rather than on the envelope protein that is typically required for infection.

‘Jumping genes’, or transposable elements, are DNA sequences that move around the genome, but were thought to stay confined to the cell they occupy. Scientists at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnol...

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2nd-6th November 2026 To foster international participation, this course will be held online

Author summary Retroviruses are important pathogens, providing constant selective pressure and sources of genetic variability throughout vertebrate evolution. Significant evolutionary leaps have been ...

Researchers are investigating whether vaccine-carrying mosquitoes and edible vaccines could help reduce the spread of rabies and Nipah virus from bats to humans.

A longstanding mystery in antibody diversification is how AID specifically targets immunoglobulin V genes. Ancient LINE-1 retrotransposons embedded within the immunoglobulin locus provide a recruitment platform for the HUSH complex and AID to drive somatic hypermutation.