PNAS Journal Club highlights our work on prions, mutation, and adaptation
A PNAS Journal Club article discusses our 2026 Cell paper and its implications for mutation rates, rapid evolution, and drug resistance.
News & Media
From the lab and beyond
News from the Jarosz Lab, independent coverage of our research, and selected Stanford features.
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2025–present
The shock absorbers of biology
A VIB deep dive explains genetic buffering and highlights our finding that Hsp90 changes the effects of thousands of loci, including an unexpectedly large contribution from regulatory variants.
These ‘master’ proteins protect us from deadly mutations — and could inspire new drugs
Philip Ball examines how molecular systems buffer the effects of potentially harmful mutations, including our work on how Hsp90 changes the fitness consequences of regulatory variation.
Daily briefing: The proteins that protect us from deadly mutations
Nature’s daily newsletter highlights the accompanying feature on proteins that buffer mutation effects and their potential relevance to disease.
Stanford Medicine features genome-to-proteome work in “Beyond the known”
A feature on discovery-driven basic science discusses our work mapping how molecular variation in unstressed cells can predict responses to future challenges.
Den Auswirkungen von Mutationen auf der Spur
Charité coverage of our Science study describes how natural genetic variants remodel the proteome and shape fitness across environments.
A genome-to-proteome map reveals how natural variants drive proteome diversity and shape fitness
How can molecular measurements made in unstressed cells predict what will happen when environments change? In 800 descendants from a cross between two ecologically distinct yeast strains, the team mapped more than 6,400 genetic effects on protein abundance and connected more than 1,600 to individual variants. The resulting genome-to-proteome map revealed pathway-level signatures of natural selection, uncovered coding and regulatory mechanisms that remodel protein levels, and exposed latent variation that was invisible under baseline conditions. Those hidden molecular differences forecasted growth across new environments, including responses to antifungal drugs. The study turns a static catalog of variation into a predictive framework: by measuring how natural variants reorganize the proteome before stress arrives, it becomes possible to anticipate which cellular states will confer fitness when conditions change.
PubMed Stanford Medicine feature Charité coverage Technology Networks Phys.org Publications
Daniel Jarosz appointed Senior Associate Dean for Basic Science
Daniel F. Jarosz was appointed the inaugural Senior Associate Dean for Basic Science, a role supporting basic-science faculty and discovery across Stanford Medicine.
Behind the Science: How a ‘speech gene’ could help treat Huntington’s
A Stanford Medicine feature explores how DNA binding and cell-cycle regulation protect polyglutamine-containing transcription factors from aggregation and suggest ways to counter pathological assemblies.
Transcription factor condensates: Preventing aggregation by DNA binding
A Cell Preview by Alexandre P. Magalhaes and Denes Hnisz places our work on DNA binding, mitotic phosphorylation, and polyglutamine assembly in broader context.
2020–2024
Adding intrinsically disordered proteins to biological ageing clocks
Dorothee Dormann and Edward Lemke place our tissue-resolved studies of age-dependent protein aggregation within emerging ideas about intrinsically disordered proteins and biological ageing.
Protein blobs linked to Alzheimer’s affect aging in all cells
An independent reported feature examines our work mapping age-dependent protein aggregation across tissues and identifying assemblies with prion-like and phase-separation properties.
Live big and die young, or stay small and live long?
Coverage of our eLife study explains how a prion can accelerate cellular proliferation while shortening lifespan.
Unbelievable but true: Epigenetics and chromatin in fungi
Hiten Madhani’s review includes a dedicated discussion of our chromatin-based prion and its heritable control of transcription.
Destructive protein can also help cells survive tough times
Stanford Medicine describes how a self-templating protein assembly establishes an active chromatin state that can help cells endure environmental stress.
Yeast sporulation and [SMAUG+] prion: Faster is not always better
Iuliia Parfenova and Yves Barral discuss the paired studies defining [SMAUG+] and widespread prion-based control of growth and differentiation strategies.
2015–2019
Remembering the past: A new form of protein-based inheritance
An invited symposium talk on protein conformational states as durable, non-genetic cellular memories and their roles in disease, development, and evolution.
Putting causal variants on the map
A Research Highlight covers our single-nucleotide-resolution strategy for identifying causal variants and the biochemical mechanisms that drive phenotypic change.
Key genes for species diversity have been systematically ignored, Stanford study suggests
Stanford Medicine reports how nucleotide-resolution mapping revealed that synonymous and regulatory variants can make unexpectedly large contributions to natural phenotypic diversity.
Meiotic recombination: Genetics’ good old scalpel
Shai Slomka and Yitzhak Pilpel discuss our approach for resolving causal natural variants at single-nucleotide resolution.
For better and for worse
A feature on our discovery that intrinsically disordered proteins can generate and transmit alternative, sometimes advantageous biological states.
Bacteria stop fermentation with lactic acid
A research summary highlights the bacterial metabolite that induces a heritable, prion-based metabolic state in yeast.
An acid tale of prion formation
Mick Tuite places our discovery of bacteria-induced [GAR+] formation in the context of microbial communication and prion biology.
Remembering the past: A new form of protein-based inheritance
Mick Tuite discusses how intrinsically disordered proteins can act as heritable switches without relying on conventional amyloid architecture.
Prions can pass on beneficial traits, study finds
Stanford Medicine reports the discovery of dozens of protein-based switches that can transmit advantageous traits across generations.
2010–2014
Bakterien bremsen Weingärung
German-language coverage describes how bacterial signals can trigger a heritable metabolic state that changes yeast fermentation.
Monoculture breeds poor social skills
Gemma Staniforth and Mick Tuite discuss the ecological and evolutionary implications of prion-mediated cross-kingdom communication.
An eye for cryptic variation
A Research Highlight examines evidence that Hsp90-buffered variation contributed to the loss of eyes in cavefish.
Cavefish study supports controversial evolutionary mechanism
Science coverage reports how Hsp90 can conceal genetic variation that becomes phenotypically visible under environmental stress.
How a fish unleashed its evolutionary potential and went blind
Ed Yong explains how environmental change can reveal previously silent variation and help drive rapid morphological evolution.
Seemingly unimportant mutations can foster disease
A feature on how Hsp90 and environmental stress can alter the phenotypic and adaptive consequences of standing genetic variation.
Prions and chaperones: Outside the fold
A Nature News Feature examines our evidence that prions are common sources of heritable phenotypic variation in wild yeast.
Yeast find use for misfolded proteins
Science News covers the discovery that wild yeasts frequently use prions to generate heritable traits with context-dependent benefits.
Evolution
An In Brief highlight covers our work showing how Hsp90 and environmental stress transform the adaptive value of natural genetic variation.
2005–2009
Common enzyme is a key player in DNA repair
Coverage of work showing how a single amino-acid difference shapes the lesion-bypass activity and fidelity of DinB DNA polymerases.
Lab archive
Earlier lab updates retained with their original publication dates.
- Lab news · Jarosz Lab · Sifei Yin joins the lab
- Lab news · Jarosz Lab · Farewell to our great summer students!
- Lab news · Jarosz Lab · New Website!
- Lab news · Jarosz Lab · Alex van Elgort joins the lab