I'm a scientist
Joined April 2009
- Tweets 639
- Following 598
- Followers 3,803
- Likes 2,940
44 Photos and videos
Amazing colleague! So well deserved promotion 👏🏼 congrats Julie!
May 28
Congratulations to Julie Law, PhD, on her promotion to full professor at Salk! 🎉
Law studies epigenetics—the chemical modifications that regulate DNA activity without changing the genetic code—and how these processes influence development, genome stability, and responses to environmental stress.
Using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, her lab has made major discoveries in DNA methylation and recently revealed how transcription factors and DNA sequences can direct new epigenetic patterns, a major conceptual advance in the field.
Her research is helping uncover the fundamental mechanisms that govern genome function while advancing efforts to engineer more resilient crops through Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative.
#SalkInstitute #Epigenetics #PlantScience #GenomeBiology #WomenInSTEM
2
2
60
4,945
Terrific work led by @TrALEE_Sci on a problem my lab initiated 3 decades ago! We only now have the tools to address the complexity of a standing wave of growth cell by cell!
May 22
How do cells break symmetry to generate new shape and form? Using the apical hook as a model, we @JoeEcker applied spatial and single-cell multiomics, and identify a regulatory hotspot in a transient cell niche that drives this U-shaped structure 1/8
biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
21
61
6,763
Joe Ecker retweeted
@AlonsoStepanova
It has been a great start to the summer in the Alonso-Stepanova lab. First, Jose was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and just yesterday, Anna was appointed as a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor. Two great honors for our lab.
2
8
44
2,504
Joe Ecker retweeted
Plants can’t escape the heat—but they can adapt 🌱
Salk scientists have discovered a built-in cellular “thermostat” that helps plant roots sense temperature changes and adjust their growth in real time. Instead of making new proteins, plants rapidly activate existing ones—allowing roots to keep growing and access water and nutrients even in fluctuating conditions.
Why it matters: Understanding how plants respond to environmental stress could help scientists develop crops that stay resilient as temperatures rise.
Learn more: salk.edu/news-release/how-do…
#PlantBiology #ClimateScience #FoodSecurity #SalkInstitute
17
80
5,337
Joe Ecker retweeted
Epigenetics Update - A Community Standard Multispecies Cell Atlas of the Basal Ganglia bit.ly/4d8bRb0
A new bioRxiv pre-print from the BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN)
#Epigenetics #Chromatin #BICAN #PairedTag #EpigenomeTech
---
epigenometech.com
3
10
733
🎉Congrats to Eckerlab alumni José Alonso @AlonsoStepanova @NCState & Bob Schmitz @Schmitz_Lab @universityofga on their election to @theNASciences today! Working with you both at @salkinstitute was a true privilege - this honor is so well deserved. So proud! 🌟#NAS163 #NASmembers
3
26
106
6,623
Joe Ecker retweeted
Apr 22
Salk scientist Terrence Sejnowski has been named a recipient of the 2026 World Digital and Frontier Technologies (WDFT) Scientific Breakthrough Award alongside Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton, PhD.
Launched at the 2025 United Nations World Summit for Social Development, the WDFT Awards honor pioneers advancing technology for the common good. Sejnowski and Hinton are recognized for their development of Boltzmann machines, which "provided the foundational probabilistic framework for modern AI deep learning."
Check out this photo of him from 2003 — when our computers weren't handheld!
Read more >> wdtacademy.org/WDFTAwards
6
21
2,005
Joe Ecker retweeted
Apr 21
Excited for @OpenAI Forum on 4/22 @joyjiao12 @gracexyzheng!
One of the biggest opportunities in AI x bio is learning data from native physiology in vivo to decode complex disease: context matters. We’ll also be discussing the newly released GPT-Rosalind! Come hear what’s next 👇
Apr 20
Next Wednesday at the @OpenAI Forum, I’ll be joined by @perturbai_tx to talk about decoding biological intelligence with AI. GPT-Rosalind is an exciting lead-in to that discussion, and we’re especially excited about the data and the collaboration behind! forum.openai.com/public/even…
2
3
32
4,868
Joe Ecker retweeted
Mar 27
Together, our two papers converge on a unified model:
Temperature simultaneously:
1- increases ARF abundance
2- increases ARF solubility
3- shifts ARF subcellular localization
All driving higher nuclear, active ARF pools.
1
2
16
1,176
Fantastic news! Congrats Xin
Mar 25
Great honor to celebrate Peter’s legacy at @MPFNeuro!
Grateful for colleagues @scrippsresearch @HHMIscience, mentors pushed me think deeply about questions to pursue, outstanding collaborators, and my fantastic team.
Feeling fortunate and reminded to pay it forward sideways
1
1
1,757
Joe Ecker retweeted
Mar 19
Advances in plant spatial multi-omics data analysis
cell.com/trends/plant-scienc…
♻️
1
19
55
2,473
Joe Ecker retweeted
Mar 19
New OA Article: "Stress drives plasticity in leaf ageing transcriptional dynamics in Arabidopsis thaliana" rdcu.be/e80cP
Single-nuclei atlas. Drought advances leaf maturation in a dose-dependent manner. Mesophyll-specific FRO6 overexpression partially restores growth.
17
56
2,679
🌿 New paper from the lab out in @NaturePlants! We built a single-cell atlas of Arabidopsis leaf development to ask: how does drought reshape leaf gene expression at the cellular level?
doi.org/10.1038/s41477-026-0… 🧵
3
68
200
9,186
Congrats to lead author Joseph Swift and the team: Xuelin Wu, Jiaying Xu, Carl Procko, Tanvi Jain, Natanella Illouz-Eliaz, Joseph Nery, and my dear departed colleague Joanne Chory @SalkInstitute @HHMINews
Data: GEO GSE290214
Atlas:neomorph.salk.edu/SCMDAP/Lea…
neomorph.salk.edu/ecker-webs…
4
308
Joe Ecker retweeted
Epigenetics News - What changes happen in the aging brain? bit.ly/3Pcyth9
An atlas of cell type-specific epigenetic changes occurring in the aging mouse brain aims to better understand neurodegenerative disease
#Epigenetics #News #Aging
---
epigenometech.com
3
3
285