David Díaz Escandón
ddiazescandon.bsky.social
David Díaz Escandón
@ddiazescandon.bsky.social
Lichens, bioinformatics, movies and all sort of sugar derivatives maniac
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
Come celebrate 50 years of the GRC Cellular and Molecular Fungal Biology series!!

www.grc.org/cellular-and...
November 17, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
🔗 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞:
“Deciphering the biosynthetic pathways of lichen acids.” New Phytologist (2025).
Deciphering the biosynthetic pathways of lichen acids
Depsides and depsidones are polyketide-derived lichen acids widely distributed in lichen thalli, yet the biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) responsible for their production remain poorly understood. ...
doi.org
November 13, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
A newly published study takes a major step toward solving one of lichen biology’s biggest questions, namely, how these symbiotic organisms produce their remarkable array of compounds known as lichen acids.
November 13, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
Join us for “Empowering Automated Laboratories: Integrating Experimentation with Data” to discuss environmental microbiomes, biodesign & synthetic biology, AI/ML-enabled lab automation, and data integration & modeling.

More details and registration info here: jgi.doe.gov/work-with-us...

🖥️🧬🌱🧪🦠🍄
Integrating Experimentation with Data | Joint Genome Institute
Join the Joint Genome Institute and the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory for “Empowering Automated Laboratories: Integrating Experimentation with Data.”
jgi.doe.gov
November 13, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
Lifestyles shape genome size and gene content in fungal pathogens.
buff.ly/tec1Tds
November 12, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
One of our student offices is ready with desks and chairs. There are some unoccupied seats, but not for long... The lab has open positions for 1 postdoc and 2 fully funded PhD students!

Postdoc: jobs.bc.cas.cz/en/detail/266
PhD: jobs.bc.cas.cz/en/detail/271

#hiring #newPI #LFEE #TeamLaboul
November 13, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
Our paper on the #genome of the Trebouxia #photobiont from Xanthoria is now out in @newphyt.bsky.social! Check below for a near-chromosome level assembly, secretome analysis, evidence of ancient HGT, and transcriptomic comparison of the alga in symbiosis and in pure culture
doi.org/10.1111/nph.70728
November 12, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
#Fungi at all levels matter! From tiniest to largest, they are an essential part of our world. Here we map familiar fungi on #fungal tree of life: doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.7…
@VaianaAnna @fmartin54.bsky.social, @spribille.bsky.social @rasmus kjolle#lichensn#mushroomo#yeasts#supermarioi#moldl#medicineses
November 12, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
We are looking for a PhD student to work on an exciting plastid endosymbiosis in microbial eukaryotes. This position involves sampling, exciting microscopy such as CARDFISH, ExM and FIBSEM, single-cell transcriptomics and more. #protistsonsky 1/2
November 12, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
The full list of instructors is available here
bsky.app/profile/jlst...
November 10, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments

Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 7, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
The full text of the review article, published in Annual Review of Microbiology @annualreviews.bsky.social, is available here: doi.org/10.1146/annu...
Making Fungal-Photobiont Symbioses in the Lab: Past, Present, and Future of the Elusive In Vitro Lichen
The ability to synthesize lichen symbioses in vitro from pure cultures of transformable symbionts would be a game changer for experiments to identify the metabolic interplay that underpins the success...
doi.org
November 7, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
It turned out that ‘resynthesis’ has meant many things over time, depending on whom you asked. For some, success was a fully stratified #thallus; for others, just a fungus enclosing a few algal cells was enough to indicate lichen formation. The field never settled where ‘success’ began—or ended. 2/8
November 7, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
#microbiota - the community of microorganisms (bacteria, yeasts, etc.) associated with a host—in this case, living naturally an invariably (and there is a very cool study on this!) within lichens
Here is something to distract you from the gloom: What can metagenomics tell us about the taxonomic composition of lichen symbioses? A peer-reviewed version of our analysis of >400 lichen metagenomes from around the world is now out in @PLOSBiology 1/12 doi.org/10.1371/jour...
🧬 🖥️ 🧪 🦠 🧫 #SymbioSky
November 7, 2025 at 4:44 AM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
#Lichens form their complex thalli through a partnership involving at least a fungus and an alga. But can these living structures be rebuilt in vitro? For more than a century, people have tried. With @spribille.bsky.social we revisited 150 years of #lichen #resynthesis to ask: has anyone succeeded?
November 7, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
🚨 Save the date! Thrilled to be co-organizing the next iteration of the @embl.org Symposium on the Cellular Mechanics of Symbiosis (📅 March 17-20), w/ @floravincent.bsky.social, @hassansalem.bsky.social & Tom Richards.
www.embl.org/about/info/c...
#EESSymbiosis #Symbiosis #SymbioSky #MicroSky 🦠
The cellular mechanics of symbiosis: sensing friend from foe
www.embl.org
September 8, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
Reminder about our special issue on lichen symbiosis in Lichenologist 👇 the deadline for submission is in September
🌟Call for Papers on #Lichen #symbiosis🌟 Thrilled to be a guest editor for The Lichenologist, together with @veera-t-nogerius.bsky.social, @ioanabrannstrom.bsky.social, and Ellen Cameron. Send us papers on the inner workings of lichens, submission is open till September 2025!
tinyurl.com/2w7wwubm
August 14, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
NEW publication: Super happy to see the ClipKIT web application now published in Nucleic Acids Research @narjournal.bsky.social!!

Trim your alignments for FREE on us :D

Application: clipkit.genomelybio.com#/

Manuscript: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

#phylogenetics #evolution #bioinformatics
ClipKIT in the browser: fast online trimming of multiple sequence alignments for phylogenetics
Abstract. Multiple sequence alignment trimming can help improve phylogenetic signal and reduce computational load. ClipKIT trims multiple sequence alignmen
academic.oup.com
July 14, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
A fun collaboration led by Alan Fryday, @ddiazescandon.bsky.social, Tracy Thai and several colleagues from the Grootbos Nature Reserve in South Africa, with a bonus revisit of the class Lichinomycetes plus a novel, very strange ITS insertion link.springer.com/article/10.1...
The genus Caeruleum (Lichinomycetes, incertae sedis): A new species from South Africa and a preliminary revision of the genus in North America - Mycological Progress
We describe the new species Caeruleum terricola from Grootbos Private Nature Reserve in the Overstrand Municipality of Western Cape Province, South Africa. The new species occurs on consolidated soil ...
link.springer.com
July 7, 2025 at 11:33 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
BEAST X v10.5.0 finally released – you can't just do beta releases forever. github.com/beast-dev/be...

Details and instructions for installing on the BEAST website: beast.community
July 2, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
High throughput biochemical assessment of 200 orthologs reveals temperature-associated functional differences

Such an impressive blend of wet- and dry-lab

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Evolutionary-scale enzymology enables exploration of a rugged catalytic landscape
Quantitatively mapping enzyme sequence-catalysis landscapes remains a critical challenge in understanding enzyme function, evolution, and design. In this study, we leveraged emerging microfluidic tech...
www.science.org
June 27, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
1/27 We have a new paper out! Turns out that snowflake yeast have been hiding a secret from us - they've evolved a (very!) crude circulatory system. Not with blood vessels or a heart, but through spontaneous fluid flows powered by their metabolism. 🧪🔬

www.science.org/doi/full/10....
June 24, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by David Díaz Escandón
Check out our fungi-tastic special issue, full of marvels of mycology — and many articles accessible for free!
🍄🍄🍄

www.cell.com/current-biol...
Current issue: Current Biology
www.cell.com
June 12, 2025 at 2:55 PM