Lab news

Position available

Opening for a PhD student to uncover why germ cells use a second gene expression machinery

08. September 2026:

Our group has an opending for a new PhD student. Click the image see the flyer with info on the position, the project, and how to apply

New publication

New paper about piRNA pathway evolution

24. april 2025:

New work from the lab, spearheaded by PhD student Sebastian Riedelbauch, reveals how the protein machinery that defends the fly genome against parasitic DNA keeps reinventing itself. By testing protein interactions across five fruit fly species spanning 40 million years of evolution, we found that some connections between these essential proteins stay rock-solid, others co-evolve in lockstep, and some are completely species-specific – showing that evolution constantly tinkers with the wiring of this critical defense system even as its overall architecture is preserved. Read the paper in it's final form at EMBO J

New publication

Fresh preprint revealing dynamic transposon regulation across development!

28. August 2026:

Thomas Grønbæk and Marianne Yoth from our group are co-lead authors on our latest preprint, where we ask if and how transposon regulation changes across germline development. This project was a very winding road with lots of surprises and rabbit hole adventures and we are very happy with were it took us. We are very curious to hear what people in the field think of the findings, so please reach out if you think there is something you would like to discuss or if you think of anything we could improve.

This picture is a link to the preprint on bioRxiv and here is a link to our Bluesky thread about the project.

New funding

NNF Hallas Møller Ascending Investigator grant awarded to Peter Andersen

31. May 2025:

The Novo Nordisk Foundation has awarded our group a generous Hallas Møller Ascending Investigator grant on the project entitled "PARAGLIDE: how PARAlogs of core transcription factors enable GermLIne DEvelopment and fertility".

Briefly about the project:

Animal egg and sperm cells are made by special germ cells to carry genetic information across generations, enabling reproduction. Yet, we don't fully understand how germ cells control the genome to enable reproduction. This project aims to fill these gaps by studying how copies (paralogs) of key gene regulators help germ cells develop.

Keep an eye out for open positions!

New publication

Discovery of the tPAF complex in our lab's first publication!

8. October, 2024:

Major milestone: our lab's first paper from our first PhD student, Astrid Pold Vilstrup is now published! We discovered that developing sperm cells in fruit flies use their own private version of a universal gene-reading machine. This testis-specific complex, called tPAF, is built from duplicate copies of a well-known transcription regulator and turns out to be essential for properly shutting down genes at the right spot. Without it, transcription runs off-track into neighboring genes, expression of key fertility genes on the Y chromosome falters, and cell division goes haywire — making the flies completely sterile. Reads all about it in Genes & Development.