Andrew Hanson Lab at Univ. Florida/IFAS. Plant & microbe metabolism research, engineering, synthetic biology. Plus PhD/postdoc training & jobs. AMDG
Joined February 2016
- Tweets 6,983
- Following 561
- Followers 2,397
- Likes 10,204
1,076 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
27 Mar 2023
Mice are sociable & playful. This lovely drawing (birthday present from my wife Claudia) captures the fun of what we call the ‘mouse circus’, a large open pen where they get to play with the equipment (yes, they really do go upside down in the wheel!), with each other, & with us!
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Andrew D Hanson Lab retweeted
11 Jul 2025
blog.aspb.org/july-17-plant-…
Please join me and the rest of this great panel, discussing how we as a community should not oversell research outputs whilst at the same time demonstrating societal relevance. Lots to cover!
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5 Jul 2025
An analogy is getting the skills to build cathedrals. At the start, much about physics & properties of stone was poorly understood.
Result:
-Some cathedrals collapsed (e.g. Beauvais ⬇️)
-Architects & masons learned
-Learning took *centuries*
-“Stay humble, biodesigners”
@SynBio1
5 Jul 2025
do think discourse on engineering biology would benefit from fewer platitudes about the complexity of living systems and more informed optimism about our inevitable path to break down, understand and rebuild organisms
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5 Jul 2025
An end to nicked ears!
@simon_dell_tog
5 Jul 2025
By flipping an evolutionarily disabled genetic switch involved in Vitamin A metabolism, researchers in Science have enabled ear tissue regeneration in mice.
Learn more: scim.ag/44muTVr
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4 Jul 2025
Excellent, critical🧵 @MariosGeorgakis! BetaineS (there are various natural ones) have major benefits in plants. This has been clear for decades e.g. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.91.1.30…
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Andrew D Hanson Lab retweeted
Excited to share the Hanson Lab’s @ADHansonLab new preprint! We used OrthoRep to evolve Arabidopsis HDH, a short-lived enzyme, selecting variants with up to 20× higher abundance. Mutations boosted lifespan, catalytic efficiency, or inhibitor resistance.
🔗doi.org/10.1101/2025.07.01.6…
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1 Jul 2025
See this opening statement for the prosecution ⬇️ (should read “There is a dire need for solutions….” BTW)
💯 some improvements in N use etc are possible. But another big energy use in ag is diesel. How to replace this? Animal traction? Which takes land..
doi.org/10.1007/s42994-025-0…
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29 Jun 2025
2 questions:
- What use would a unicorn be when we have perfectly serviceable horses of many kinds as well as donkeys & mules?
- What does the impulse to ‘create’ a useless mythical monster say about the culture that celebrates this impulse?
28 Jun 2025
I would say that we are undoubtedly at AGI when AI can create a real, living unicorn. And no I don’t mean a $1B company you nerds, I mean a literal pink horse with a spiral horn. A paragon of scientific advancement in genetic engineering and cell programming. The stuff of childhood dreams. Dare I say it will happen in our lifetimes
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27 Jun 2025
Essential reading for everyone who has ever written, is writing, or will ever write an article that mentions nitrogen and agriculture in the same sentence.
27 Jun 2025
There's no way around it. Whether natural or synthetic, fixing nitrogen from air takes energy. That's one of the reasons N-fixers have not eliminated nitrogen scarcity.
csanr.wsu.edu/why-hasnt-biol…
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25 Jun 2025
A would-be smart smack-down to a serious science philosophy point. Let’s have a constructive conversation instead, Jason, e.g., how do you see bioengineering creativity being unleashed by setting relatively unformed minds to work on problems? Apart from a ‘less baggage’ argument.
25 Jun 2025
Maybe we should start punching cards again for computing to bring back the artisanship
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25 Jun 2025
Many thinkers from the heavyweight Michael Polanyi (who saw science training as assimilation into a guild) to Malcom Gladwell (10,000 hours rule)
say *there are no short cuts*. Also, many bioscientists ‘think with their hands’. Do we want brains untethered to operational reality?
25 Jun 2025
Have to get people off the lab bench if you want more people contributing to bioengineering earlier in their careers. it just takes too long to learn all the tacit knowledge of bench work. you have to automate biotech lab work to democratize it.
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11 Jun 2025
Thoughtful piece centered on ‘the fallacy of misplaced concretenes’ (mistaking abstractions for concrete realities). This fallacy can account for much, incl. #SynBio’s embrace of the ‘cells as circuit boards’ abstraction - which is useful but can be taken too far. @SynBio1
10 Jun 2025
The optimistic vision of abundance misses a crucial insight:
Society's struggles aren't rooted in poor governance or insufficient innovation, but in complexity itself.
LINK👇
artberman.com/blog/the-compl…
#energy #EnergyTransition #ClimateActionNow #renewables #solar #NuclearEnergy #globalwarming
#Psychology #BehavioralScience #HumanMind #CognitiveBehavioralTherapy #Neuroscience #CognitivePsychology #Philosophy #ArtificialIntelligence #AIResearch #MachineLearning
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4 Jun 2025
💯 respect Dr Unwin’s diabetes work. This calculation’s logic ⬇️ is flawed tho. Briefly:
-Animal or plant lipids ultimately come from sugar made in photosynthesis
-Converting sugar to lipid involves CO2 loss (from 🌱 or 🐄)
-Eating lipids just outsources the CO2 loss to 🌱 or 🐄
4 Jun 2025
1/3 What if going Keto, carnivore or very low carb could help save the planet via actually breathing out less carbon dioxide? Turns out burning fat instead of carbs you breathe out 30% less CO2 This is calculated via the Respiratory Quotient So a carnivore breathes out 120kg less CO2 over a year !!! I asked AI about it
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Andrew D Hanson Lab retweeted
31 May 2025
We too calculated that replacing kerosene with SAF is only possible for a small fraction of today’s commercial jet fleet. As it takes only Google, a calculator, commonsense logic & ~15 min to make this calculation, why don’t policymakers run the numbers? doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiae3…
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Andrew D Hanson Lab retweeted
In a new @PNASNews publication, our faculty and collaborators are advocating for a bold shift: food as medicine.
Only 1 in 10 Americans meets daily produce intake. It’s time to rethink food, health & agriculture and it starts with #HOS
🔗 linktr.ee/UFHortSci
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24 May 2025
Journals are just part of a system that incentivizes overselling end-to-end. But, as gatekeepers on the final products, they have agency. An editorial policy of “It’s complicated” falls short. Journals can ask for field trials to be done right & interpreted prudently.
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Andrew D Hanson Lab retweeted
23 May 2025
It's absolutely essential that field trials be incorporated into plant syn bio/engineering biology DBTL cycles. Plants evolved to grow in the field, not in a white room with uniform conditions. The current absence of field evaluation is a system-level failure for research (IMHO).
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Andrew D Hanson Lab retweeted
23 May 2025
Plant Science Research Weekly: May 23, 2025 plantae.org/plant-science-re… Untangling cell-specific root stress responses; MAMP-induced closure of plasmodesmata; A kinase switch coordinates symbiosis and immunity; Roadmap to get fruit and veg back on the table
ALT The diagram on the left shows a normal, open plasmodesmata. The diagram on the right shows a plasmodesmata that has been exposed to the microbial-associated molecular pattern (MAMP) flagellin22 (flg22). Here, the plasmodesmata is closed due to the accumulation of callose, caused by signaling between PIP(4,5)P2, Synaptotagmin 1 (Syt1), and annexin 4 (ANN4).
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Andrew D Hanson Lab retweeted
20 May 2025
If we want to Make America Healthy Again, it's not food dyes and trace chemistires. It is that most people fail to eat the foods we know fortify health. Shouldn't funding for research in fruit/veg production parallel medical investment? pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.25…
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19 May 2025
Diets food systems are driving an ongoing epidemic of overweight/obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes & other diseases ⬇️Fixes are long overdue. See this straightforward 1-stop resource for decision-makers & concerned citizens from @UF_IFAS @UFMedicine doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2501723…🧵
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19 May 2025
#Horticulture R&D & production get minute funding relative to commodity crops - and even more minute relative to biomedical R&D. But horticultural research gives exceptional return on investment, i.e. relatively few $ go a very long way ⬇️
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19 May 2025
We need to integrate #Horticulture #Nutrition #Medicine ⬇️ so ppl can think & work across discipline frontiers & coordinate R&D to make healthful fruits & vegetables accessible, affordable & appealing in a healthcare system spanning patient-based to population-based nutrition.
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