iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Polina Tikanova

Maya Voichek @mayavoichek.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Super excited to share my postdoctoral work at @imbavienna.bsky.social @viennabiocenter.bsky.social - We discovered that some retrotransposons, or "jumping genes" 🧬, are able to spread from cell to cell via a new viral infectivity route. A short thread: 🧵👇 (1/7)

AI-generated illustration of the soma-to-germline transmission of retrotransposons described in our work

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Polina Tikanova @polinatikanova.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Awesome story on emergence of novelty! Years of work and endless perseverance, congratulations Alejandro and @jamesjulianross.bsky.social 💪 I'm also happy and proud to be a part of this project :)

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Reposted by Polina Tikanova

Peter Andersen @germline.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Reminder: PhD position in my lab is open for two more weeks. How do germ cells use their own private transcription factors? Come help us find out. Fully funded. Deadline May 1. Flyer attached — please boost! 🙏

Flyer for a PhD position in the Andersen Lab on Genetic Innovation at Aarhus University, Denmark. Title: "Transcriptional regulation in Drosophila germline development." Start date between August 2026 and January 2027, application deadline May 1, 2026. The flyer describes a project on germline-specific transcription factor paralogs, funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation (PARAGLIDE programme). Includes example data figures: genomics browser tracks, a proximity-labeling proteomics volcano plot, and fluorescence microscopy of germline tissue. Contact: pra@mbg.au.dk. Apply via phd.nat.au.dk.

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Reposted by Polina Tikanova

Tay (Antonio J. Osuna Mascaró) @biotay.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Cow Tools! We have lived alongside cows for nearly 10,000 years. We breed them and exploit them It is now, only now, that we have discovered THEY CAN USE TOOLS Here I describe our study (paper) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... in @currentbiology.bsky.social with @auersperga.bsky.social

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Reposted by Polina Tikanova

Silvia Ramundo @sramundo.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Last Friday over dinner, we talked with @svenklumpe.bsky.social and @jnoms.bsky.social about this very creative paper—and quickly went off track. Why? Because, as Sven put it, Vaults ( #Vaults ) remain the “siren 🧜‍♀️ of cell biology 🔬” intriguing and attractive, but maddeningly hard to figure out. 1/3

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Reposted by Polina Tikanova

Gulnara Tagirdzhanova @metalichen.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Thrilled to share that I recently got a position of an Assistant Professor/SciLifeLab Fellow at Stockholm University, where I will continue my work on #lichen symbiosis. The lab opens in April 2026, and if you are interested in joining please get in touch! #newPI

Black background with white letters 'metalichen lab'. Right and lower part of the image taken by a macro photo of a bright yellow lichen. The lichen surface has numerous cup-shaped fruiting bodies with orange inner surface

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Reposted by Polina Tikanova

Peter Andersen @germline.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Beautiful story on the evolutionary response to fly telomeres battling the genome they protect the ends of! Also, nice to see that the dream data clarity we all imagine when starting a project can actually materialize! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @sungyalin.bsky.social @levine-lab.bsky.social

science.org

Rapid compensatory evolution within a multiprotein complex preserves telomere integrity

Intragenomic conflict with selfish genetic elements spurs adaptive changes in subunits of essential multiprotein complexes. Whether and how these adaptive changes disrupt interactions within such comp...

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Polina Tikanova @polinatikanova.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Big thanks and congratulations to @arburga.bsky.social, co-authors, collaborators and colleagues (special 🫶 for my colleagues)! Bonus video showing in vivo toxin degradation (green signal) in synchronised nematode embryos, ~8 hours of development in 10 seconds 🪱🪩

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Polina Tikanova @polinatikanova.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

And our research highlight interview at IMBA

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Polina Tikanova @polinatikanova.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

As Alejandro pointed out, it's not an easy one to answer - please check his thread with our main findings!

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Polina Tikanova @polinatikanova.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Happy to share that my PhD project is finally published!🪱✨ Selfish genes are found across the tree of life. They can disrupt inheritance patterns and at the same time act as units for molecular innovation. Here we tried to answer one big question: how do selfish genes emerge in the first place?

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Reposted by Polina Tikanova

georghochberg.bsky.social @georghochberg.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

A new preprint from the lab. I won't do a tweetorial until this is peer reviewed, but I think it's a banger, led by @JedNzy. It's about Rubisco and what chaperones are really for. He's on the market, get him while you can. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.org

Origin of chaperone dependence and assembly complexity in Rubisco biogenesis

Molecular chaperones assist with the folding and assembly of protein clients. Consequently, they are essential to diverse cellular functions. In most aerobic photosynthetic organisms such as B-cyanoba...

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Reposted by Polina Tikanova

Baptiste Rafanel @baptisterafanel.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

1/ How do animals develop immunity against a newly encountered transposable element from scratch? Our study reveals that the mobility of TEs is their Achilles heel, allowing hosts to develop a powerful small RNA-mediated silencing response. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.org

Antisense transposon insertions into host genes trigger piRNA mediated immunity

Transposable elements pose a persistent threat to genome integrity, yet how host defense systems adapt to newly invading elements remains poorly understood. Here, we reveal how Drosophila melanogaster...

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Polina Tikanova @polinatikanova.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Congrats with wrapping up your preprint! Neat story 👏

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Reposted by Polina Tikanova

Tera Levin @teralevin.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

I'm excited to announce our new biorxiv preprint, wherein we investigate the evolution of the weirdest genetic locus I've ever seen! Behold the tgr genes of the social amoeba, which mediate self/non-self discrimination during facultative multicellularity 🐅 🧵 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.org

Hypermutable hotspot enables the rapid evolution of self/non-self recognition genes in Dictyostelium

Cells require highly polymorphic receptors to perform accurate self/non-self recognition. In the amoeba Dicytostelium discoideum, polymorphic TgrB1 & TgrC1 proteins are used to bind sister cells and e...

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Reposted by Polina Tikanova

Institute of Molecular Biotechnology @imbavienna.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Congratulations to Polina Tikanova on the completion of her PhD! Polina, a researcher in the Burga Lab, presented her work on “Molecular mechanisms of intra- and interspecific genomic conflict” at her PhD defense.

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