@YunkerLab

Biophysicist, Soft Matter Enthusiast, Associate Professor at Georgia Tech. Views are my own.

 Atlanta, GA
yunkerlab.gatech.edu
Joined December 2016
  • Tweets523
  • Following461
  • Followers584
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Can we witness evolution’s unit shifting from individual to collective, in real-time? @ozan_g_b @wc_ratcliff @YunkerLab evolved large multicellular yeast and said YES! Great fun to spotlight this cool project & its first findings with @orshalevsk @cratzke1. @Trends_Ecol_Evo
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Plus I learned the unrelated yet fascinating fact that the reverse of the one cent coin actually shows the Lincoln statue behind the Lincoln Memorial columns... which you can only see if you have the right optical reflectometer in your lab :) Thx @YunkerLab!
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Provost @McLaughlin_GT and I had a blast this morning with Profs @wc_ratcliff @YunkerLab + their students, who are answering truly fascinating questions about how multicellular life came to be, how a clump of individual cells can form an organism. Blown away by their work!
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#140: Entanglement in living systems @thomas_day_ @dahaj1897 @ozan_g_b @peterlconlin @yunkerlab @wc_ratcliff Unique entanglement, and resulting structural strength, of living systems that grow together, with confirmatory results in snowflake yeast! biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…

Entanglement in living systems

Many organisms exhibit branching morphologies that twist around each other and become entangled. Entanglement occurs when different objects interlock with each other, creating complex and often...

biorxiv.org
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We have a new preprint, showing that living systems can entangle in ways non-living systems can’t. In non-living systems, entanglement only occurs under specific geometric regimes. Not so for growing systems! Given time, most geometries can entangle. doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.13.5…
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Hi folks, we have a new preprint out on the #MuLTEE, examining the molecular basis of multicellular evolution. We found that an ancient protein folding system, Hsp90, can be tuned to drive rapid convergent multicellular evolution. 1/24 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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The yeast went from small microscopic clusters that were 100x weaker than gelatin to blobs the size of fruit flies with the toughness of wood. They’ve started evolving division of labor between their constituent cells, and a kind of circulation. theatlantic.com/science/arch…

One of Evolution’s Biggest Moments Was Re-created in a Year

A unique experiment shows how multicellular organisms might have evolved from single-celled ancestors.

theatlantic.com
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I wrote about an incredible experiment in which microscopic, single-celled yeast evolved to become multicellular organisms visible to the naked eye, recreating one of evolution’s most pivotal transitions in a lab, in just one year. theatlantic.com/science/arch…

One of Evolution’s Biggest Moments Was Re-created in a Year

A unique experiment shows how multicellular organisms might have evolved from single-celled ancestors.

theatlantic.com
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Wonderful story on the MuLTEE by @edyong209 for the @TheAtlantic.
Ed Yong is not here
@edyong20912 May 2023
I wrote about an incredible experiment in which microscopic, single-celled yeast evolved to become multicellular organisms visible to the naked eye, recreating one of evolution’s most pivotal transitions in a lab, in just one year. theatlantic.com/science/arch…

One of Evolution’s Biggest Moments Was Re-created in a Year

A unique experiment shows how multicellular organisms might have evolved from single-celled ancestors.

theatlantic.com
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Yunker Lab retweeted
CB@cpbarzler10 May 2023
A journey to the origins of multicellular life... Read our @GTResearchNews writeup of @wc_ratcliff 's Multicellularity Long-Term Experimental Evolution here: research.gatech.edu/journey-…
Will Ratcliff
@wc_ratcliff10 May 2023
I’m delighted that our paper on the Multicellularity Long Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE) has, at long last, been published. This paper establishes the foundations of what I’d like to work on for the rest of my career. 1/25 Free, full access link: rdcu.be/dbPA9
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And now with a more accurate title! Also a gift link, so it should not be behind a paywall. nytimes.com/2023/05/10/scien…

An Experiment Repeated 600 Times Finds Hints to Evolution’s Secrets (Gift Article)

Snowflakes of yeast in a lab offer insights into how life on Earth transitioned from single-celled into multicellular organisms.

nytimes.com
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nytimes.com/2023/05/10/scien…

An Experiment Repeated 600 Times Finds Hints to Evolution’s Secrets (Published 2023)

Snowflakes of yeast in a lab offer insights into how life on Earth transitioned from single-celled into multicellular organisms.

nytimes.com
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I’m delighted that our paper on the Multicellularity Long Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE) has, at long last, been published. This paper establishes the foundations of what I’d like to work on for the rest of my career. 1/25 Free, full access link: rdcu.be/dbPA9
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Very excited to share our work on autocatalytic self-assembly of RNA and the formation of catalytic reaction networks within the confines of coacervate compartments. Walter Gilbert meets Kauffman + Dyson meets Oparin + Haldane. nature.com/articles/s42004-0…
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A journey of a lot of collaboration, hard work and microscope time has just been published in Nature! Congrats to these folks, I am incredibly lucky to be a part of this project. @wc_ratcliff @ozan_g_b @YunkerLab @dahaj1897 and others I missed. Article: nature.com/articles/s41586-0…

De novo evolution of macroscopic multicellularity

Nature - After 600 rounds of selection, anaerobic snowflake yeast evolved to be macroscopic, becoming around 20,000 times larger (approximately mm scale) and about 10,000-fold more biophysically...

nature.com
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«Ceci n’est pas un embryon» nor an organoid for the matter This is a close animal relative, the #Ichthyosporean Sphaeroforma arctica. We are thrilled to have our new story out in @CurrentBiology LINK: sciencedirect.com/science/ar… Buckle up for a quick🧵 #invertedLUTs @christlet
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New MuLTEE preprint! Led by @QBioS grad student @PineauRozenn, we study emergent eco-evolutionary dynamics in our ongoing multicellularity experiment. Snowflake yeast niche partition along a growth/survival trade-off, driving long-term coexistence. 1/34 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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Our chorus member @briankhammer was saved by antibiotics when he was a child after developing a serious staphylococcal infection.... Read his story and why he thinks this show is so important. tinyurl.com/az4f4czw #AntimicrobialResistance #musicaltheatre #sciencemeetsart
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Neat symposium at @institutpasteur on Dec 12-13 entitled "Mechanics, Morphogenesis, Development & Evolution." @YunkerLab and I will be presenting, and look forward to discussions at the interface of physics, cell and evolutionary biology, and development! neuroanatomy.github.io/MeMoD…
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Our work with Ming Guo @ MIT also just came out in Nature Physics. Here we looked at the effect of spatial curvature on a developing lung organoid. nature.com/articles/s41567-0…
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