Joe Ecker

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!

@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.

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/h… #PlantBiology #ClimateScience #FoodSecurity #SalkInstitute

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

With the election of Joe Kieber @UNC in 2021 #NAS159, three Eckerlab alumni have now been elected to the NAS. Truly blessed by such talented scientists! 🌟

🎉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

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

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 👇

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.

Fantastic news! Congrats Xin

@Dinnenylab @Edel_PLopez @NaturePlants Thanks Jose

@JoeEcker @Edel_PLopez @NaturePlants Innovative experimental design and analysis! Glad to see this out!

🌿 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… 🧵

@Marand_Lab @NaturePlants Thanks Alex

@JoeEcker @NaturePlants What a cool study! Congrats to Joseph and the whole team

Advances in plant spatial multi-omics data analysis cell.com/trends/plant-s… ♻️

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.

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/LeafDev… neomorph.salk.edu/ecker-website/

This led us to FRO6 (FERRIC REDUCTION OXIDASE 6) — a mesophyll gene repressed by drought. Overexpressing FRO6 specifically in the mesophyll partially restores leaf growth under drought, without affecting well-watered plants. 🌱

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