MPI for Biology Tübingen & Friedrich Miescher Laboratory

Science and beauty are important, and at the Department of Algal Development and Evolution Max Planck Institute for Biology, we do both

Amazing colour play of the sunrise in our MPI Biology building this morning!

🎲 Friday evening = game on! From zombie apocalypses to defending islands, the board game nights on campus are a hit! Every ~6 weeks, colleagues from three Max Planck Institutes meet for a relaxed Friday evening of gaming. Big thanks to Aurora Panzera @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social for making it happen!

Congratulations to Ruth Ley, Director of the Department of Microbiome Science at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen, for receiving the IFF Science Award 2026. Full news item: www.bio.mpg.de/575874/ruth-...

Can gut microbes and diet influence fever after vaccination? Dr. Kelsey Huus, now at the University of Ottawa, discusses on CBC Radio her recent Science paper on research conducted in the Microbiome Science Dept. at MPI-Bio. 🎧 Listen: www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks... #Microbiome #Vaccination #MaxPlanck

Everyone welcome to this Thursday's DSSS talk to be held by Prof. Dr. Sophie Martin from the University of Geneva: ▶️Title and abstract: www.bio.mpg.de/events/44195... 📆: Thursday 15th October at 11am 📍: MPH lecture hall, Max-Planck-Ring 6 #DSSS

Gut microbes shape the body’s response to vaccination. Researchers led by Ruth Ley discovered that the human gut microbiome may help determine how strongly the immune system reacts to vaccination, with bacterial flagellins contributing to inflammatory responses: www.bio.mpg.de/569449/news_...

The Max Planck Society and Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen in collaboration with the Department of Plant Production Sciences and Technologies at the University of Zimbabwe will be offering a FREE #ARTEMIS #BridgingMinds workshop on *Plant Genome Analysis*.

Very excited to share the first preprint from my PhD with the community! This is also the first paper from the Plant Immunogenomics group with @galofir.bsky.social, so stay tuned for more! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/n 🧵

Our review on S-layer anchoring and the epiplasmic space is out in Current Opinion in Microbiology. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Please join us this Thursday for the next talk in our Distinguished Speaker Seminar Series to be held by Liam Dolan from the Gregor Mendel Institute in Vienna. When: 8th October, 11am Where: Max Planck House lecture hall (ground floor) We're looking forward to seeing a full house!

Two school visits in one week This week, the K2 Biology LK from the HAP Grieshaber Gymnasium in Reutlingen joined us for a hands-on day of plant research. We had great feedback – from meeting our PhD researchers to seeing biology from the classroom in action in the lab. Student verdict: “10/10.”

Great to welcome the Bio LK from Wildermuth-Gymnasium in Tübingen to our institute on Wednesday! From electron microscopy and fruit flies to nematodes and fungi, the students got a glimpse into the current biology research done here. Thanks to everyone involved! #ScienceOutreach

We’re wrapping up #CraftYourResearch as part of #PostdocAppreciationWeek with Maryam Mahmoudi—postdoc in Detlef Weigel’s lab & one of the reps behind the idea! Maryam uses deep learning to explore genetic diversity in plants. Thanks to everyone who joined in! #PAWGermany #PAW2026 #PostdocCommunity

Thursday’s #PostdocAppreciationWeek contribution comes from Pélagie Ratchinski — one of our postdocs and postdoc reps, who helped come up with our “Craft Your Research” session! Pélagie studies how life cycle and sex regulation interact in brown algae. #PAWGermany #PAW2026 #PostdocAppreciationWeek

Meet Joseph Atemia, a postdoc studying the genomics of horned melon. His research explores genetic variation and gene families linked to valuable crop traits, including disease resistance. For #PAW2026, he turned his research into a work of art! #PAWGermany #PostdocAppreciationWeek

It’s Day 2 of our #PostdocAppreciationWeek “Craft Your Research” series! Today, meet Sung-Ya Lin from the Dept. of Complex Biological Interactions, who studies how nematodes rapidly evolve to sense and respond to chemical cues from their fungal predators. #PAWGermany #PAW2026 #PostdocCommunity

Meet the first of our creative postdocs: “I'm Daniela Ramirez, a postdoc studying plant-bacteria interactions and fascinated by microbes living within plants. My research uses bGWAS to uncover how Pseudomonas infects and colonizes Arabidopsis thaliana.” #PAWGermany #PAW2026 #PostdocAppreciationWeek

For this year’s Postdoc Appreciation Week, our postdoc representatives came up with the brilliant idea of organising a “Craft Your Research” session with their peers. Every day this week, we’ll be sharing what came out of it! #PAWGermany #PAW2026 #PostdocAppreciationWeek

3 institutes, 1 campus, 50 runners – and a lot of green! For the first time, the three Tübingen Max Planck Institutes joined forces for #ERBELauf2026. We took on the 5K, 10K & Team Challenge – and were the 7th largest group! Thanks to all supporters, runners and the organisers. See you next year! 💚

We’re delighted to celebrate Dr. Jarauwatana Sodai Lotharukpong for successfully defending his PhD thesis! Congratulations Sodai - You did it! We wish you success and good wishes in your future endeavors: www.linkedin.com/posts/imprs-... #PhDone #Maxplanckinstitute #IMPRS

Join us this Thursday for the first talk in our Distinguished Speaker Seminar Series after the summer break to be held by Prof. Dr. Aurora Ruiz-Herrara Moreno from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). When: 17th September, 11am Where: @mpi-is.bsky.social seminar room (ground floor)

We’re delighted to celebrate Dr. Elizaveta Selezneva for successfully defending her PhD thesis. Congratulations Elizaveta - You did it! We wish you success and good wishes in your future endeavors www.linkedin.com/posts/imprs-... #PhDone #Maxplanckinstitute #IMPRS

We are hiring! Start at a #MaxPlanckInstitute with your own independent Max Planck Research Group. This position is equivalent to a W2 Professorship at a German university, or Associate Professor internationally. 🔗Apply until October 14th! www.mpg.de/career/max-p... #ScienceCareer #MPRG #TenureTrack

Our step-by-step protocol for generating mesodermal/limb bud organoids (“budoids”) from mouse stem cells or primary limb buds is now out! 🧫🦵 We hope it makes the system easier to adopt and build on in other labs! bio-protocol.org/en/bpdetail?...

New paper in @NatureComms from former doctoral student @marlenygarcial.bsky.social in the Mutualisms Research Group @hassansalem.bsky.social, revealing a surprising new role for Yellow proteins: building protective gelatinous spheres around the symbiont Stammera.

A flexible protein pocket: Cereblon is widely used to direct unwanted proteins for degradation. Researchers at our institute show it can bind more molecules than thought – including cortisone, suggesting an endogenous role for steroid recognition. Read the preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Congratulations to Thomas Boehm on receiving the Emory Max Cooper Prize in Immunology 2026. He shares this year's prize with Klaus Rajewsky (Max Delbrück Center, Berlin) and Tadatsugu Taniguchi (The University of Tokyo). Full news item: tinyurl.com/4zmwprtd

Farewell, Mike Borg – we wish you all the best for your next chapter! Mike is heading to Kiel University to take up a professorship in Macroalgal Development and Physiology – taking his seaweeds with him, of course! Read more in our farewell feature: www.bio.mpg.de/551611/farew...

From spaceflight to the particle accelerator: PhD student Alexandra Waldherr explored how cosmic radiation affects cells at the 2026 ESA-FAIR Space Radiation Summer School - combining space research, radiation biology and hands-on accelerator experiments. Read more: www.bio.mpg.de/551355/from-...

Our PhD student reps organised the 12th MPI Tübingen Campus Soccer Tournament this month, bringing together all three institutes on campus for an afternoon of football, BBQ and friendly competition. A big shout-out to our PhD student reps for making it happen — and those who joined in!

Are you looking for a new challenge and are an expert in mass spectrometry? We are looking for a new Mass Spectrometry Core Facility Manager (m/f/d). Application deadline: 15th September 2026. For more information and to apply: jobs.tue.mpg.de/en/programs/...

Very happy to be able to host a student delegation from China Agricultural University led by my friend @wangshengzhu.bsky.social 🇩🇪🇨🇳 @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social

A minimal lipid kinase/phosphatase system, two effector proteins from Legionella pneumophila, self-organizes together with its lipid substrates (PI/PI3P) into dynamic patterns on membranes. Check out our preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Join us tomorrow for the final talk in our Distinguished Speaker Seminar Series before the summer break to be held by Prof. Dr. Clare Bryant from the University of Cambridge. When: 30th July, 11am Where: Max Planck House lecture hall (ground floor) We're looking forward to seeing a full house!

Congratulations to @sheilaroitman.bsky.social, postdoctoral researcher in Detlef Weigel’s department @plantevolution.bsky.social, on receiving the Women’s Postdoctoral Career Development Award in Science from the Weizmann Institute! Her research explores how viruses shape plant microbiomes.

Friday afternoon = Fix Your Bike time. 🚲 Behind FixYourBike is a group of colleagues who invite the whole campus to their repair sessions. The motto: bring your bike, learn to fix it yourself. And now there’s a bike repair station on campus too! 🔧 Thanks for keeping our bikes rolling!

Why do some birds migrate while others stay? A new paper by @junishigohoka.bsky.social in Phil. Trans. B explores how seasonal migration evolves in Eurasian blackcaps - combining a common garden experiment with single-cell epigenomics of the brain. 🔗 royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

Meet the reception team at the Max Planck House 👋 Chido, Andreas and Nicole welcome researchers and guests from around the world to the Tübingen campus. We caught up with them about their work, their team and life beyond reception. #wearebio English: tinyurl.com/fac9z4hv German: tinyurl.com/bderaf8t

Everyone welcome to this Thursday's DSSS talk to be held by Prof. Dr. Tanja Schwander from the University of Lausanne: ▶️Title and abstract: www.bio.mpg.de/events/44188... 📆: Thursday 23rd July at 11am 📍: MPH lecture hall, Max-Planck-Ring 6 #DSSS

A first for German nematology Ralf J. Sommer has been elected a Fellow of the Society of Nematologists – the first German scientist to receive this honour. Congratulations on this outstanding recognition! Read full press item: www.bio.mpg.de/544368/ralf-j #Nematology #EvolutionaryBiology #Science

Interesting work by @atyakht.bsky.social and @anya-bogdanova.bsky.social from the Dept. of Microbiome Science. Bacterial flagellins come in thousands of different forms. This tool cuts through that complexity, helping predict how they’re sensed by TLR5, a key player in our innate immune system.

Next up in our DSSS seminar series: we're delighted to welcome a local guest, Kay Nieselt from the University of Tübingen! Join us this Thursday at 11:00 am in the MPH lecture hall on our Tübingen campus. As always, everyone is welcome—we hope to see you there!

Science beats the heat! Last Saturday, our researchers @najafae.bsky.social and Gesa Freimann took to the streets for @soapboxscience.bsky.social in Tübingen, bravely presenting their work to a great crowd despite the temperatures. Thanks for bringing science to the public!

Next talk this week in our DSSS calendar: Dr. Maria Barna is visiting us from the Genetics Department at Stanford University to discuss ribosomes in gene regulation. Everyone is very welcome to join us on Thursday at 11am in the MPH lecture hall on our Tübingen campus. See you there!

Today, we hosted 18 international early-career researchers who took the time after this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting to visit us as part of a Baden-Württemberg International (BW_i) program. The day included career insights and lab tours led by our postdocs. Thanks for the visit!

Wishing you all the best on your new adventure in Kiel Mike! We'll certainly miss you around @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social but good luck as you build your new department and recruit a great team!

What a week! 🎉 Our postdoc @maryammahmoudir.bsky.social and doctoral researcher Alexandra Waldherr were selected to attend the 75th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Read about Maryam's highlights and the inspiring conversations and new perspectives she took away from the experience.

The 5th International #Pristionchus Meeting has begun at the @MPI for Biology Tübingen! Looking forward to two days of exciting 🪱 talks and great discussions with colleagues from around the world. Wishing everyone an inspiring and enjoyable meeting! #Nematodes #Evolution #Genetics #Tübingen

A great way to ring in the weekend: afternoon drinks on the rooftop terrace celebrating awards and prizes at the institute—a toast to a third ERC Advanced Grant for Thomas Boehm, appointment to Fellow of The Royal Society for Ruth Ley, and to Susana Coelho, member of Leopoldina. Cheers to all three!