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Our paper on the discovery of leptophytes, a novel major algal group, is now out in Nature Communications. Compared to the initial preprint, which was exclusively based on plastid MAGs (ptMAGs), this published version presents a leptophyte mitochondrial MAG (mtMAG).

We also deposited a preprint entitled “Environmental phylogenetics supports a steady diversification of crown eukaryotes starting from the mid Proterozoic”. We present a unique phylogenetic dataset of over 75K OTUs, integrating information from the large but often discarded environmental diversity using long‐read metabarcoding data to studying the diversification dynamics of all major eukaryotic groups
from the Proterozoic until today.

We have just published our core lab values and expectations. If you consider joining the lab, please make sure that you have read them and agree with them.

We are looking for a PhD student to work on an exciting plastid endosymbiosis in microbial eukaryotes. This position involves sampling, advanced microscopy such as CARDFISH, ExM and FIBSEM, single-cell transcriptomics and more.

This project is a collaboration between my lab (main location at Uppsala University, Sweden) and the labs of Omaya Dudin (Geneva University, Switzerland) and Filip Husnik (OIST, Okinawa, Japan).

More information on the project and how to apply HERE.
Come join us in Uppsala.

We are very grateful to the Swedish Research Council VR (Vetenskapsrådet) for continuing support of our work on elucidating the plastid symbiosis in the centrohelid Meringosphaera.

Our PhD student Nina is currently onboard the Swedish Icebreaker Oden as part of the Early Career Scientist program at the Canada-Sweden Arctic Ocean Expedition 2025. She will not only collect many key samples for her projects on novel diversity important to better understand the origin of plastids, but also rare and valuable samples for other ongoing projects in the lab. Here is a photo taken by Nina as they leave land off the coast of Svalbard.

In this new OA paper, we describe a new species of photosynthetic Paulinella, only the 4th of the genus, from a brackish beach near beautiful Vancouver (Canada). This paper is part of our ERC-funded project PlastidOrigin. The next steps here will be to obtain a better picture of the diversity of heterotrophic sister lineages by using cultures and molecular/genomic studies. Stay tuned.

When sampling involves digging holes in the sand. Yash and Fabien are traveling around BC in search of elusive heterotrophic Paulinella species, as part of the ERC-supported project PlastidOrigin.

It’s already been a couple of months, but we are super happy to welcome Arina to the lab. She will work on subcellular resolution proteomics of red algae and glaucophytes, supported by our ERC Consolidator grant PlastidOrigin

We are very happy to have been involved in this paper, which described the importance of sequencing more genomes of protists for enhancing our understanding of all eukaryotic molecular and cell biology, ecology, and evolution.

Available here

Patrick Keeling and Fabien Burki wrote a commentary on this excellent paper describing the mechanism of protein import in the complex plastids of dinoflagellate kareniaceans.

Keeling, P.J., and Burki, F. (2025). Evolution: Untangling the mix of plastid endosymbiosis events. Curr. Biol. 35, R94–R96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.12.005.