Tiffany Lowe-Power stands with Minnesota
@tlowepower
I study how bacteria kill plants. Interested across biological scales: molecular 🧬, cellular🦠, organismal 🧫, ecological 🥀🌍, and evolutionary 🧬. Optimistic pessimist: The world is dark, so how can we slow the decline?
My cat likes to drag his cushions from his cat tree. He doesn't necessarily use the for naps, but he likes to redecorate.
I woke at 4am and was there a little after 5. Extremely, extremely cool experience.
The eruption was forecasted as "today or tomorrow" for a rolling window of 9 days. I am familiar with every subpage of the USGS forecasting pages and graphs. 😅 Slept in the car the night before because it was overflowing and I was sure it would geyser. It didn't start until 3:45 the next morning.
It's fun to help my family and friends by sharing my plant pathology knowledge with them. Anyone have any favorite management advice for my brother's homestead gardening? He's run into Sclerotium Southern Blight of chili pepper in Piedmont region of Georgia, clay soils.
Not a bad way to start the morning. Halfway through my mini sabbatical in Hilo. I'll even be back in time for research. update meetings with my lab.
Expression of a cat who noticed the size of the suitcase you have backed for a 2 month mini sabbatical trip. Heading to Hilo, Hawaii tomorrow to work with collaborator Sharon Wages
Plant pathology at home -- my non-biology friend is using UC Davis extension materials to do an easy, effective, and specific diagnostic for Phytophthora rot -- the pear test. Del Castillo lab hosts the extension materials and provides training on best practices to nurseries for phytosanitation
California governor primary... There isn't a clear best choice. But... I might vote for Steyer just because PG&E is paying for ads against him...
A number of the fitness factors lacked clear functions (see the grey "unknown" bars), so there's lots to still unravel about the molecular mechanisms of these important pathogens! Check it out here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
The multi-strain TnSeq screens highlight that Ralstonia also needs to build and maintain a resilient cell envelop, with many genes having higher impacts in planta than in ex vivo xylem sap. This shows that even in a susceptible plant, the host is fighting back.
To understand the eco-evolutionary history of Ralstonia's T6SS toxins, we took a recent detour and characterized a gene atlas of Ralstonia T6SS genes and gene clusters. See: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
Surprisingly, we discovered that each Ralstonia wilt pathogen required multiple #T6SS antitoxin/immunity genes. Most immunity mutants had no fitness defect in ex vivo xylem sap or rich broth or minimal medium broth.
To contextualize the genes that impact RSSC fitness in planta, we examined their conservation across the Ralstonia genus. Many fitness factors were uniquely present in the wilt pathogen clade and absent from their evolutionary cousins with more environmental lifestyles.
Just in time for IBWS2026, Nathalie Aoun pre-printed her study "Evolutionary and functional genomics reveal that #Ralstonia wilt pathogens actively deploy antimicrobial warfare while leveraging physiological adaptations during plant infection" Multi-strain TnSeq! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
It's the weird outlier in our figure without the expected eps orthologs. NCBI RefSeq flagged that small genome strain as too small because their pipeline is likely looking for a typical RSSC genome. It's small even for a clove strain, but I am curious. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
This is cruel and unusual punishment. This is unconscionable.
Did not have bandwidth to take the day off with my teaching load, but I took some opportunity to support resistance in my neighborhood
The protestor's reaction to being arrested after peacefully, but disruptively, protesting an ICE higher up.
Alex Pretti's murder was recorded on ICE body cams. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news... We cannot trust the feds to release genuine video. The White House used AI for propaganda (AI altering a photo of a protestor, falsely claiming she was crying when arrested) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/u...
John Lewis has been at the forefront of my mind. We must make GOOD trouble. We must also make Pretti trouble.
Updated my "Freedom of Speech" sign to "Freedom of Life" to join a protest in Sacramento