Gulnara Tagirdzhanova

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

It's unbelievable how much more expensive compute-related stuff has gotten. A few years ago I bought a 4TB portable hard drive for like 40 bucks, now the same capacity from the same brand is nearly $200

Exciting news!! I'm chairing the search in my department @lsubiosci.bsky.social for an **Endowed Chair in Lichenology**! The candidate should be tenured (or equivalent), and have a documented track record in excellent in collections-based lichen research. lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/LSU/jo...

Studies like this is why Current Biology might be my favorite journal tbh

1/ There are a ton of cool papers coming out on evolutionary transitions in individuality right now! Here are five recent ones I've really enjoyed, spanning Snowball Earth, volvocine algae, plasmids that fuse into a new individual, the relatives of animals, and... water kefir

LoL-align is out in @natmethods.nature.com! It aligns protein structures without superposition. More sensitive than TM-align and DALI, producing better alignments 5–20× faster. Now available in Foldseek! 📄 www.nature.com/articles/s41... 💾 github.com/steineggerlab/foldseek 🌐 search.foldseek.com

Beetles secrete jelly to embed & sustain symbionts with impossibly tiny genomes🪲 But what is this jelly made of? And how does it help maintain a partnership that has lasted over 62 million years? Thrilled to share our latest, out now in @natcomms.nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Symbiotic #rhizobia form nitrogen-fixing partnerships with #plant roots. This study by @albinteulet.bsky.social & @dromius.bsky.social uses structural modelling to predict how secreted proteins may mimic plant factors in a strategy shared with pathogens. 🧪 #AcademicSky #symbiosis plos.io/4j6bWj0

It's 2026 and diversity is still an issue in mycology, and probably beyond. 17 invited plenary & keynote speakers for IMC13, only 2 are women (<12%). There are 0 Latin-American speakers, & 2 from Africa (I'm including @kamounlab.bsky.social in this count). www.imc13.kr/html/?pmode=...

Are you interested in learning how genomes of weird fungi and protists evolve and are you looking for an exciting PhD opportunity? Jolien van Hooff and I are looking for an enthusiasic PhD candidate at Wageningen University: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p... #TEworldwide #Fungi #Protists #Genome

Our new short comm introducing Ochrolechia frigida as a system for studying lichen symbiont dynamics is online now in The Lichenologist @lichenologist.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

On similar lines, if we’re not careful: A. Scientific journals will only accept submissions from established researchers working within institutions. B. Data we’ve spent ages making open will be hidden to avoid the expense of continued download by bots.

Sweden's Social Democrats on target to get 99 seats in parliament (out of 349). That's their worst result since 1928. In March, Denmark's Social Democrats had their worst election result since 1903. What to they have in common? Mimicking "hard line" right-wing policies. It's a recipe for disaster.

Very depressing and very on point imo

The wealthy countries seem to have a core of 15-30% of their voting populations who *just fucking hate foreigners*. This section of the electorate are for various reasons disproportionately well represented among the ultra-wealthy and thus are able to secure some favourable media coverage.

Our new preprint is out! 🍄 Decoupled evolution of antimicrobial repertoires in lichen-forming fungi We compared many lichen-forming fungal genomes to ask how different photobiont associations relate to their antimicrobial repertoires.

Last year, I publicly complained multiple times (see e.g. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...) that the open access movement had been captured by publishers, and we are now worse off than before open access. Well people got mad at me for saying it. But I think things are still getting worse.

3 new GitHub repositories from me! I put what I'm teaching on GitHub. Module 1: github.com/cxli233/Sect... Module 2: github.com/cxli233/Sect... Module 3: github.com/cxli233/Sect... #Rstats #Datavis

Huge climate demonstration i Stockholm today. Media report at least 50 000 while organisers say between 50000-100000 people. This is ahead of elactions in september in which most parties have totally ignored the climate issue in favour of law and order and racist immigration policies…

📝 NEW PREPRINT It’s with an immense joy that our preprint is finally out and it’s my first first co-author paper!!! 🧬🍄 What is the diversity of 3D genome architectures in fungi? We reconstructed the 3D genome architecture of public Hi-C data from 55 fungal. Preprint: lnkd.in/enxTh2Cm

Thrilled to share that I'll be starting my lab at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm as a DDLS Fellow in November! 🧑‍🔬🧬🎉 Of course, we will be delving into all things mobile DNA & evolution, as well as developing AI approaches for biodiversity genomics #newPI #TEsky #TEworldwide

See thread by @metalichen.bsky.social on Tangerine - A Starship in the genomes of lichen-forming fungi - the peer-reviewed version is now online. Thanks to all co-authors. It's been a fun collaboration and there's lots more to discover!👇

It's out!! Using population and comparative genomics of Podospora fungi, we show that a class of genes called #NLRs display evolutionary signatures that are consistent with an immune function, much like in plants and animals! 1/n 🍄 #popgen #balancingselection #introgression doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

Adding to my reading list!

It was great to present my postdoc work at #IAL10, the International Association for Lichenology congress in Trieste! Thanks to the organizers for the invitation!

Thanks to everyone who organized the great event and selected me for a Margalith Galun Award! Congratulations to the other winners. Already looking forward to following up on all the new connections and ideas #IAL10

It's a big honour to be recognized by my community! Huge thanks to IAL and thanks Toby for nominating me!

Excited to see @puginiercamille.bsky.social presenting on secreted proteins in Xanthoria. I'm blown away by the work on algal cultures and protein-protein interaction modeling! #IAL10

Very clever study design by @ddiazescandon.bsky.social, who grouped lichen fungi based on which sugar they receive from their symbiotic partner and discovered patterns in their genomes that reflect how this fungi evolve to rely on their partners. Coming soon to the bioRxiv near you! #IAL10

Absolutely ground breaking stuff presented by @veera-t-nogerius.bsky.social. Structurally chimeric lichen made by intertwined hyphae of an ascomycete and a basidiomycete present in nearly 1:1 ratio! #IAL10

Very happy to attend the 10th International Association for Lichenology symposium in Trieste ! #IAL10 And very honoured to be presenting tomorrow our work on lichenization in Xanthoria parietina

Amazing talk by @skaloud.bsky.social on parallels between coral and lichen symbioses, with lots of exciting data on photobiont switching #IAL10