On 21st June, Veronika Andriienko has successfully defended her thesis, "High-throughput insect barcoding in microbiome studies: impact of non-destructive DNA extraction on microbiome composition", and obtained her M.Sc. degree! Congratulations!

A new paper from the lab, led by Junchen, has just been published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution! We describe symbiosis composition in three species from the planthopper genus Pyrops, and then compare the organization and other features of symbiont genomes from different clades of hoppers to conclude about their origins.

In June, lab members presented their research at two conferences in the field of host-microbe symbioses: the Wolbachia meeting in Greece, and Gordon Research Conference in Animal-Microbe Symbioses in Italy.

Piotr attended the 28th European Meetings for PhD Students in Evolutionary Biology (EMPSEB) in Isle of Cumbrae, Scotland, as an invited Plenary Speaker.

A new paper - the result of Piotr's collaboration with John McCutcheon's laboratory at Arizona State University - has just been published in Genome Biology and Evolution! In the paper, we explore the transcriptional patterns in ancient nutritional symbionts of cicadas, and how they might be changing as the symbioses evolve.