Had a great time treasure-hunting for galls with the British Plant Gall Society this weekend! Also proud to introduce my son to the amazing world of cecidology. 😍

We tackle this question using the bacterial parasite Pasteuria ramosa and its crustacean host, Daphnia magna, which coevolve under Red Queen dynamics and follow a matching-allele model. Theory predicts such a system should show a modular network structure. Our findings reveal a more complex picture.

What's impressed me the most is how collaborative and supportive the lab seems. Being a newcomer can be overwhelming, but I'm thrilled to be part of the enthusiastic and brilliant "Saplings" 🌱 team (those of us characterizing SAP proteins), and looking forward to doing some awesome science in 2025!

and I managed to have some fun with my labmates :)

I also co-created and presented a poster for an internal conference...

Learning the basics of agro-infiltration (like many of the techniques I'm learning, this one feels like magic 🪄 )...

Handling plants: Transplanting tiny seedlings and watching them grow...

Cloning genes into plasmid vectors...

First 2 months as a postdoc in the Hogenhout lab = whirlwind! Big goal: characterize bacterial effectors that turn plants 🪴 into zombies 🧟‍♀️. Really cool system that I've admired for years; also my first time working with plants and doing molecular work, so I'm learning A LOT! Some highlights:
Y2H...🧵