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Facundo Romani

@fromani.bsky.social

1K followers 600 following 53 posts

Leverhulme ECF (U of Cambridge)🇬🇧. PhD (UNL)🇦🇷Biotechnologist (UNQ)🇦🇷. Gene regulation and plant EvoDevo.

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Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · Mar 14

After a lot of work, we are finally able to share this project about the cell cycle in Marchantia from the Haseloff lab. If you want to find out how cell division is controlled, you can’t miss out this one… #PlantScience #Synbio #EvoDevo

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The minimal cell-cycle control system in Marchantia as a framework for understanding plant cell proliferation

The regulation of cell division is broadly conserved across eukaryotes, governed by cyclins and cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) to coordinate progression through the cell cycle. Plants have evolved a ...

www.biorxiv.org

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Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · 4d

Glad to see Eftychis CRISPR multiplexing pipeline published now in Journal of Experimental Botany #plantsciences #marchantia academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-...

A tRNA-gRNA multiplexing system for CRISPR genome editing in Marchantia polymorpha

Abstract. The liverwort Marchantia polymorpha is a widely used model organism for studying land plant biology, which has also proven to be a promising test

academic.oup.com

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Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · 16d

Very important paper and resource. Bryophyte genomes expanded by one order of magnitude. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bryophytes hold a larger gene family space than vascular plants - Nature Genetics

A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

www.nature.com

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Sandy Hetherington @sandyheth.bsky.social · 17d

Excited to share our recent paper @newphyt.bsky.social where we describe evidence of a Jurassic nurse log from Scotland! Great work led by @anajusagasti.bsky.social Sophie Burne and @jeremywyman.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social
🧵 👇 1/6
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Decay stages of Jurassic wood debris from Scotland: evidence for the coevolution of fungal rot, arthropods and the nurse log strategy

A key feature of extant conifer forests is the high percentage of seeds that germinate and establish on dead wood; in some forests, this can exceed 90%. This deadwood can act as an ideal nursery for...

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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justingoodrich.bsky.social @justingoodrich.bsky.social · 19d

I'm recruiting a post doc and a research assistant for a 30 month project “ZHOUPI genes, cell death and the evolution of plant endosperm” funded by a Research Project grant from the Leverhulme Trust @Leverhulme.ac.uk. Application details are on the Opportunities page at biology.ed.ac.uk/goodrich

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Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · 25d

Marchantia berteroana at 3000 meters above the sea level. Vallecitos, Mendoza.

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John Innes Centre @johninnescentre.bsky.social · 26d

EVENT - 4th Genetics Society Non-Seed Plant Group Meeting 2025

🗓️ 12 December 2025
⏰ From 9:30 am
📍 @theforumnorwich.bsky.social, Millennium Plain, Norwich, NR2 1TF

For more info: www.jic.ac.uk/event/4th-ge...

💻 Register by 14 NOVEMBER 2025: forms.office.com/e/7xLvVHtbC6

@philcarella.bsky.social

4th Genetics Society Non-Seed Plant Group Meeting 2025 | John Innes Centre

General Information Established thanks to the support of the Genetics Society, the Non-Seed Plant Sectional Interest Group brings together UK researchers studying all aspects of plant biology using…

www.jic.ac.uk

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Pallavi Singh @thepallavisingh.bsky.social · 27d

We are looking for a PDRA for the PlantPlug project, turning parasitic plants into programmable bio-modules! Using mistletoe as a novel chassis, we are exploring the frontiers of inter-species communication.
Apply online by 15/10/2025.
*RP*
#PlantSciencesJobs

vacancies.essex.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...

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Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · 29d

🧬🌱 Excited to share our new preprint. Large effort by Fede, Manuel, Enzo, and other 112 plant biologists. In short, LLMs perform better on well-established knowledge from highly cited sources but struggle with cutting-edge research www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #plantscience

What Large Language Models Know About Plant Molecular Biology

Large language models (LLMs) are rapidly permeating scientific research, yet their capabilities in plant molecular biology remain largely uncharacterized. Here, we present MoBiPlant, the first compreh...

www.biorxiv.org

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Journal of Experimental Botany @jxbotany.bsky.social · Aug 22

📢 Good news! #JXB75 registration deadline extended ⏳

🎉 Secure your place by 31 Aug 🎉

Plus the full programme is now LIVE 📢
🧩 1 day of workshops & plenary
🌱 2 days of sessions: Beginnings, Growing, Maturity & Future

👉🔗 bit.ly/JXB75

#PlantScience 🧪

JXB 75th Anniversary Symposium
SESSION 1: BEGINNINGS
The origins of plants and the start of the plant life cycle
Chairs: Diana Santelia & Steve Penfield
18 September | 9 AM | Edinburgh
INVITED SPEAKERS
Prof Steve Penfield
John Innes Centre
Inter-generational temperature signalling during plant reproductive development
Asst Prof Kin Pan Chung
Wageningen University
To begin is easy, to persist is art: the inheritance of cytoplasmic genomes in plants

JXB 75th Anniversary Symposium
SESSION 2: GROWING
Photosynthesis, respiration, nutrient acquisition, growth
Chairs: Diane Beckles & Agustin Zsögön
18 September | 1.30 PM | Edinburgh
INVITED SPEAKERS
Prof Christine Raines
University of Essex
Improving photosynthesis for sustainable crop productivity
Assoc Prof Berkley Walker
Michigan State University
Learning from nature to make more thermotolerant and efficient photosynthetic systems
Prof Diane Beckles
University of California, Davis
Fruit Photosynthesis and Carbohydrate
Dynamics in Tomato: From Starch Accumulation to Sugar Mobilization

JXB 75th Anniversary Symposium
SESSION 3: MATURITY
Flowering, reproduction and coping with stress
Chairs: Madelaine Bartlett & Cristobal Uauy
19 September | 9 AM | Edinburgh
INVITED SPEAKERS
Dr Madelaine Bartlett
Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge
Developmental mechanisms underpinning the evolution of floral form in the grasses
Dr Teva Vernoux
ENS Lyon
From dynamical auxin fields to the emergence of phyllotaxis
Prof Cristóbal Uauy
John Innes Centre
Early inflorescence
development shapes yield in the field

XB 75th Anniversary Symposium
SESSION 4: FUTURE
New Plan(t)s
Chairs: Franziska Fichtner & Ola Skirycz
19 September | 1.30 PM | Edinburgh
INVITED SPEAKERS
Assoc Prof Nicola Patron
University of Cambridge
Recoding Regulation:
Towards predictable network
engineering
Dr Franziska Fichtner
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
Trehalose 6-phosphate coordinates sugar status with hormone signalling
and plant development
Dr Devang Mehta
KU Leuven
Re-engineering plant chronobiology: from genome to proteome and from molecules to future geographies

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Laura Moody @moodytomato.bsky.social · Aug 14

📢 To all molecular mossers 📢

The Moss Workshop will be held in (not always as sunny as this) Oxford next year (30th June until 2nd July 2026). More details will follow soon, but in the meantime please make a note of the dates 😃 👍

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Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · Aug 14

I agree that is hard to understand how editors are unable to find reviewers but a paper “rejected” without revisions is not a rejected paper. It is often the case they did not find the reviewers they wanted/expected and reject on that ground. That is flawed.

Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · Aug 14

👋

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Gatsby Plant Science Education Programme @gpsep.bsky.social · Aug 13

Checkout our new starter pack: Academics to follow on BlueSky to keep up to date with cutting edge discoveries in the world of plant science!
go.bsky.app/5CYhV8v

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Jorge Hernández-García @jorgehg.bsky.social · Aug 7

Hey all!
We have been awarded a Spanish national grant to keep researching. Best of all is we have a full PhD contract assigned. We are looking for candidates interested in molecular biology and evolution of (plant) transcription factors, please spread the word!!
Check our web for more information.

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Keiko Sugimoto @keikosugimoto.bsky.social · Aug 13

Our new work uncovering how WIND1 promotes somatic embryogenesis as a bifunctional chromatic regulator!!!!

We knew WIND1 promotes new fate acquisition and now we show WIND1 also helps repressing existing identity!

bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · Aug 9

WIND1 controls cell fate transition through histone acetylation and deacetylation during somatic embryogenesis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.669221v1

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Di Michele Lab @dimichelelab1.bsky.social · Aug 12

Thrilled to share this new Adv. Sci. paper by @dianatanase.bsky.social with Dino Osmanovic @rogerrubiosanchez.bsky.social @laylamalouf.bsky.social @francolab.bsky.social. We demonstrate a modular approach to program internal phase separation in DNA condensates 1/n doi.org/10.1002/advs...

Internal Phase Separation in Synthetic DNA Condensates

The modular, programmable system of DNA nanostructures developed provides programmatic control over multiphase condensate behavior, enabling mapping onto a predictive Flory-Huggins model. This combin...

doi.org

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Isabel Monte @isabelmonte.bsky.social · Aug 11

Don't forget to submit your abstract for the #EMBO Workshop on #PlantEvolution by August 25th!
Join us @gmivienna.bsky.social in November to discuss all things #plantevodevo

Please spread the word! 🙏🦠🌱

#algae #bryophytes #nonseedplants #terrestrialization

Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology @gmivienna.bsky.social · Feb 17

The GMI announces a new EMBO workshop titled "Plant evolution: from origins to diversification on land" - right here in Vienna. The hybrid event will be held on November 25-27 at the Vienna BioCenter. Register by August 25 at meetings.embo.org/event/25-plant-evolution.

Plant evolution: from origins to diversification on land

The evolution of plants – photosynthetic eukaryotes resulting from the endosymbiosis of a cyanobacterium and a non-photosynthetic host cell – transformed the earth system by reducing the amount of CO…

meetings.embo.org

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Yasin Dagdas @plantophagy.bsky.social · Aug 11

If you’re enjoying some calm while others are on holiday, here’s a #NEW #preprint to dive into — led by the brilliant @vbcscitraining.bsky.social student A. Abdrakhmanov:
👇 A quick thread + link:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Ancestral P-body proteins rewired for autophagic recycling in the early land plant Marchantia polymorpha

Processing bodies (P-bodies) are conserved ribonucleoprotein (RNP) granules central to RNA metabolism across eukaryotes. Although the mechanisms underlying their assembly are well understood, the path...

www.biorxiv.org

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Mary Williams @PlantTeaching @plantteaching.bsky.social · Jul 27

Check out this excellent opportunity #PlantBio2025 #PlantBio

plantpostdocs.bsky.social @plantpostdocs.bsky.social · Jul 24

Announcing the opening of applications for the Sahyadri Outstanding Postdoc Award & Future Faculty Academy for Fall 2025!

This is an excellent opportunity for plant biology postdocs soon to be on the job market.

Application link: tinyurl.com/4mk3nyu6
Past awardees: tinyurl.com/2rw3xyv7

Sahyadri Outstanding Postdoc Award and Future Faculty Academy flier. Flier describes the eligibility (current postdoc, publication from 2024-2025, currently preparing for job applications, and willing to present their work in Nov/Dec) and the selection criteria. Deadline is August 29, 2025.

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Mary Williams @PlantTeaching @plantteaching.bsky.social · Jul 23

This is a great program. We started in in 2016 and it just gets better and better!
Check out some past fellows who are on Bluesky: @philcarella.bsky.social @mattbnt.bsky.social @psaima.bsky.social @fromani.bsky.social @sjb287.bsky.social @aribidopsis.bsky.social @cavycavs.bsky.social

Plantae.org @plantaeofficial.bsky.social · Jul 22

📣 Are you a creative and articulate plant scientist looking to connect with other like-minded folks? Application is now open for the 2025-2026 Plantae Fellows program!🌱

👉 Learn more and apply by August 31! buff.ly/JqoDSHq

#plantscience

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Jorge Hernández-García @jorgehg.bsky.social · Jul 22

We've tried to gather and unite the streptophyte algae community all around the world to join forces and develop tools and methods for these critters. Learn more about it on @currentbiology.bsky.social!
With @jandevries.bsky.social, @dolfweijers.bsky.social, and (many) others!

tinyurl.com/29n4zwen

A roadmap to developing unified streptophyte algal model systems

Carrillo-Carrasco and colleagues highlight the importance of the establishment of streptophyte algal model systems and the community efforts towards this goal.

www.cell.com

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Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · Jul 21

#plantscience #evochromo

Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · Jul 21

It was a pleasure to work again with colleagues at GMI. Thanks, Vikas, Fred, Tetsuya, and Elin for having me on board and making this manuscript finally possible. Feedback will be very welcome 🙏

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Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · Jul 21

In Animals, TFs have a clear preference for certain chromatin states. With some tricks, we show that this could also be true in plants. This opens the possibility to distinguish TFs by their mode of action (pioneer vs normal TFs). This includes some unusual 5'UTR TFs.

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Facundo Romani @fromani.bsky.social · Jul 21

Chromatin is highly conserved across eukaryotes, but it does not always work the same way. First, in both Arabidopsis and Marchantia, analogous chromatin states can be identified. Tissue-specific genes associate with TFs in facultative chromatin.h

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