Philippa Borrill
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philippaborrill.bsky.social
Philippa Borrill
@philippaborrill.bsky.social
Wheat geneticist and group leader at John Innes Centre. Interested in #micronutrients, #senescence, #polyploidy and #genomics. She/her. https://borrilllab.com/
Reposted by Philippa Borrill
Applications are now OPEN for the JIF Rotation PhD Programme

This prestigious 4-year #PhD programme trains graduate students in Plant and Microbial Sciences at the JIC, @thesainsburylab.bsky.social and @earlhaminst.bsky.social.

🗓️ Closing date - 13 November 2025

www.jic.ac.uk/training-car...
Rotation biology PhDs | John Innes Centre
Prestigious studentships, for entry in October 2022, this multi-disciplinary PhD programme includes; plant science, microbiology, biological chemistry, applied mathematics…
www.jic.ac.uk
October 8, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Delighted to be selected for the Carlotta Award celebrating female wheat researchers 🎉
Thank you to the committee - it was lovely to meet you in Bari!

I am sure this award will continue to promote women's contributions to wheat research under the stewardship of @wheatinitiative.bsky.social
NEWS - International award for group leader recognises excellence in wheat genetics and genomics

Dr Philippa Borrill @philippaborrill.bsky.social recently visited Italy to accept the Carlotta Award at the International Conference ‘From Seed to Pasta V’.

okt.to/pUTHXA
October 22, 2025 at 11:42 AM
The mystery of redundancy between homoeologs continues! Knocking out one homoeolog in wheat doesn't cause the other homoeologs to be upregulated... nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Great work led by @delfidorussen.bsky.social with @emilieknight.bsky.social @simmojsimmo.bsky.social
October 13, 2025 at 1:58 PM
We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher to join our team! They will work on homeolog-informed approaches to tackle cold tolerance in wheat @johninnescentre.bsky.social

Please find out more and apply here: jobs.jic.ac.uk/Details.asp?...

#plantsciences #plantscijobs
John Innes Centre
jobs.jic.ac.uk
October 3, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by Philippa Borrill
Fantastic opportunity to start your independent career at the JIC here. Great startup package. Repost = nice. Thank you!!!
July 10, 2025 at 6:52 AM
Reposted by Philippa Borrill
🌾🧬 SPECIAL ISSUE RESEARCH 🌾🧬

📝 Varying gene dosage through mutating DNA methyltransferase 1-1 (MET1-1 ) in polyploid wheat generates quantitative changes to CG methylation without the lethal consequences observed in other crops - Burrows et al.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
#PlantScience 🧪
July 4, 2025 at 1:24 PM
In #wheat mutants we've long wondered if the expression of homoeologs is upregulated to compensate. Could that explain homoeolog redundancy?

Spoiler alert: no! Great summary by lead author @delfidorussen.bsky.social ⬇️ and the whole preprint is here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#plantscience
July 2, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Wonderful to see such a range of plant model organisms featured in @cp-devcell.bsky.social. From crops like wheat and maize all the way through to liverworts, algae & ferns!🌾🌿🌽🥬🦠

Many opinions including why I propose using wheat as a model to investigate polyploidy: doi.org/10.1016/j.de...
Redirecting
doi.org
June 24, 2025 at 11:28 AM
It's an honour to be shortlisted for the Falling Walls Foundation Science Breakthrough of the Year 2025 for our work on epigenetics in crop breeding. I'm excited to see where this work leads us!

Here we describe our first steps into epigenetic mutants in wheat doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
Congratulations to Dr @philippaborrill.bsky.social and ‘Breaking the Wall of Epigenetics in Crop Breeding’ for being shortlisted for the Falling Walls Foundation Science Breakthrough of the Year 2025! 🌟

falling-walls.com/breakthroughs
Science Breakthroughs
The Falling Walls Science Summit celebrates the forefront of scientific advancements with breakthrough speakers.
falling-walls.com
June 24, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Reposted by Philippa Borrill
EVENT - “Fundamental Biology of Legume Crops” Workshop

Discuss the latest research in genomics, metabolomics, biotic interactions and plant development.

💻 Application deadline: 16 July 2025

🗓️ 3 - 4 November 2025
📍The John Innes Centre, NR4 7UH

Find out more and apply: okt.to/fgZCWB
June 13, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Our latest work found that homoeolog expression bias is inherited for ~26% of triads in wheat. Intriguingly we found that new patterns of homoeolog expression bias are more frequent when one of the parents is a landrace.
Read more in Genome Biology: rdcu.be/eokf2
@johninnescentre.bsky.social
May 30, 2025 at 8:15 AM
Looking for the direct target genes of a transcription factor in #wheat? Our protocol uses protoplasts, skipping transgenic plants to save months!

Great step by step protocol @emilieknight.bsky.social! Read more below ⬇️ Thanks to all contributors!
#plantscience @johninnescentre.bsky.social
Pleased to have finally got this method to work in wheat! Find out how you can identify direct targets of transcription factors in wheat using protoplasts and the TARGET method:
dx.doi.org/10.17504/pro...
A very useful method for our group to use! borrilllab.com
May 23, 2025 at 11:31 AM
It was a pleasure to host @ismaelgf.bsky.social for 3 months @johninnescentre.bsky.social. Looking forward to continuing our collaboration with @irnasa.bsky.social on transcriptomic responses to water deficit in wheat 💦🍞🌾
🌾 Our PhD student Ismael Gutiérrez has completed a research stay at the @johninnescentre.bsky.social exploring wheat responses to drought under climate change via omics data analysis. 📊 Thank you to Dr. @philippaborrill.bsky.social and her team for the warm welcome and training!
May 7, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Philippa Borrill
#Monogram2025 has finished. It was a fantastic conference with outstanding speakers and great interactions. I am very grateful to the organisers for their hard work!! (Especially Ash!)

Looking forward to next year's conference hosted by NIAB.
@monogram-uk.bsky.social
@niab-uk.bsky.social
April 10, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Congratulations to Isabel Faci @johninnescentre.bsky.social winner of the #Monogram2025 ECR excellence award! Fascinating talk on how decoupling environmental signals can induce aerial branching in wheat!
April 10, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Congratulations to @katielong.bsky.social @johninnescentre.bsky.social winner of the #Monogram2025 ECR excellence award! Fabulous talk on the intricate patterns of gene expression in wheat spikes!
April 10, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Wonderful talk from @delfidorussen.bsky.social at #Monogram2025 about DNA methylation mutants in wheat. You can read the full MET1-1 mutant characterisation which was just published this week @jxbotany.bsky.social ⬇️
April 9, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Really enjoying #Monogram2025 so far @ibers.bsky.social Great talk by @chen-ji.bsky.social on her latest work exploring gene expression patterns in wheat grains. So many interesting genes to characterise!
April 9, 2025 at 10:08 AM
Reposted by Philippa Borrill
I’m very happy to share the published version of our paper on the role of MET1 in wheat 🌾 🧬

It’s been really exciting to discover more about DNA methylation in wheat and it’s huge polyploid genome

doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
Partial redundancy buffers deleterious effects of mutating DNA methyltransferase 1-1 (MET1-1) in polyploid wheat
Varying gene dosage through mutating DNA methyltransferase 1-1 (MET1-1 ) in polyploid wheat generates quantitative changes to CG methylation without the le
doi.org
April 8, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Looking forward to #Monogram2025 next week. Check out the programme below ⬇️ @monogram-uk.bsky.social
We're looking forward to seeing everyone at the Monogram 2025 conference next week! 🌱🔬

Full eBooklet now available: www.aber.ac.uk/en/media/dep...

See you there!

#Monogram2025 #PlantScience #IBERS
April 4, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Starting to build our lab's interactions on bluesky. It appears we've got a positional effect from the summer lab photo 😂... @delfidorussen.bsky.social @chen-ji.bsky.social @beccatesta.bsky.social ... but not for alumnus @glombikm.bsky.social (top left of photo) @johninnescentre.bsky.social
March 13, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Come hear Chen Ji talk about her fascinating results from spatial transcriptomics in wheat. There will be lots of beautiful images of gene expression patterns!
🗓️18-19 June in Norwich, UK
Registration is open ⬇️
📣 We're excited to share our invited speakers for the 2025 Norwich #SingleCell and #Spatial symposium!

Abstract submission is open for PhD and Early-Career researchers to present a short talk or poster during the symposium.
buff.ly/3WPzXyJ
February 6, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Congratulations @delfidorussen.bsky.social on being awarded the #IWGSC -Feuillet Early Career award to present your work on #wheat homoeolog transcriptional compensation at PAG.🌾 #ProudPI.
January 14, 2025 at 1:47 PM