This is so cool: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Discovery of a Genetic Toxin-Antidote System in Vertebrates hat tip to @asaflevylab.bsky.social

Not all bat viruses spread the same way 🦇 A new study from @averyholmes.bsky.social & colleagues looked at six viruses in vampire bats in Peru & found contrasting patterns of circulation. Some reflect bat movement, others were influenced by human activity. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

📢 Registration for ViBioM 2026 is now open! Join us in Vilnius this May for ViBioM 2026 and connect with researchers working at the intersection of virology and bioinformatics. 🗓️ Registration deadline: 30 April 🔗 evbc.uni-jena.de/events/vibio... #ViBioM2026 #virology #bioinformatics

⏰Abstract submission for #ViBioM2026 is open until midnight tonight (00:00 CET) - Don't miss your chance to present a talk at the International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting! 🎤🦠🧬💻 👉 evbc.uni-jena.de/events/vibio... #virology #bioinformatics

I love delicious figures! These show changes in the relationship between symptom onset and viral load over time among SARS-CoV-2 variants (Fig.3) and the impact of vaccination on peak (lower) and length (shorter) of infectious virus or viral genetic material produced over time (Fig.4)

So I pleased to announce the conceptual spawn of FigTree: PearTree (acronym still to be finalised). If you want to dive right in it is hosted as a web app here: artic-network.github.io/peartree (click the “Example...” button for immediate candy and then click every button you can find).

The last part abt how measles disrupts immunity vs other infections is, imo, underappreciated (& mechanism was recently clarified). It's part of why measles vaccination was seen to help beyond just reducing measles complications - not getting measles reduces severity of subsequent infections too.

1/6) Hot off the press @natsmb.nature.com 🔥! Jasnauskaite et al. reveal how the minimal bacterial retron Eco2 defends against #phage 🛡️. Phage nucleases trigger Eco2, which cuts RNA, shuts down protein production and stops phage replication 🦠🚫. #phagesky #immunity #microbiology #cryo-em rdcu.be/e4AyH

Now that @mftorresj.bsky.social & I are based at VU Life Sciences Center (one of the birthplaces of CRISPR tech) our publication portfolio gets extra diverse thanks to our phylogenetics & data vis skills. Here's one collaboration with @patrick-pausch.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Something very different and cool for my lab. Sequencing a 4.4mb TB genome using the Artic-style PCR amplicon method with >5128 primers in two reactions 🤯 Enables culture-free WGS for TB! journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

SFI’s Santiago Elena has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He joins 62 fellows in the 2026 class. His work explores how RNA viruses adapt to hosts and manipulate cellular resources. Since joining SFI in 2008, he has organized several working groups on virus evolution.

The return of measles will mean the return of SSPE. If you don't know what that is, read this. www.voicesforvaccines.org/what-measles...

How did life arise from simple chemical building blocks? New #LMBResearch led by @edogia.bsky.social in @philholliger.bsky.social group has identified a small self-replicating ribozyme that could be the answer. Read more: mrclmb.ac.uk/news-events/...

Have I ever mentioned how surreal it is to be an Editor-in-Chief of a journal called Vaccine right now? www.science.org/content/arti... It’s pretty wild, at least by typical academic journal editorial office standards.

Take time to focus on your interpersonal skills, discover tools to support your development and tune up your interpersonal and communication skills at the @embo.org Lab Leadership course for #Postdocs: 10 - 12 March 2026. Places still available: www.embolableadership.org/course/embol... #EMBOLabLead

The University of Helsinki is strengthening its research in environmental policy, international law, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, and zoonotic virology through new international recruitments. www.helsinki.fi/en/news/univ...

📢Join us for the next ECR #Viromics Webinar "How viral evolution is shaped during long-term infections of immune-compromised hosts" ‍🎙️Jonas Fuchs, University Hospital Freiburg, Germany 🗓️11 Feb 2026, 4 PM CET 📍Online/Zoom (register for login details) 👉 evbc.uni-jena.de/events/ecr-v...

Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below! Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage

Really excited our paper about how H5N1 rapidly adapted to cattle (and how these adaptations also increased its ability to infect cells from the human respiratory tract) is now published! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our paper on the Genomic Epidemiology of DENV2/3 in Colombia and the Americas is finally out @cp-cellreports.bsky.social, check it out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Big thanks to my collaborators @lambod50.bsky.social, @viralverity.bsky.social, @nathangrubaugh.bsky.social, and many others!

Global solidarity in genomic surveillance improves early detection of acute respiratory virus threats. "Importantly, these benefits cannot be attained by siloed expansion in countries that already possess strong capacity." Well done to the team! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Terrific origin story, history, and future of bioRxiv and medRxiv by @richardsever.bsky.social in @mbio.bsky.social journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

✨Africa CDC shuts down RFK's attempt to conduct a Tuskegee-like vaccine trial on children in Guinea-Bissau. The study exploited “the scarcity of a proven beneficial vaccine in a context where that vaccine is needed,” said Boghuma Titanji. @melodyschreiber.com www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Remember? RNA virus journal club is already this Thursday! 🤩 Join us and join our (RdRp summit) slack (link in the comment): calendar.app.google/K2fwcsL78K1E... RNA Virus Journal ClubJoin Zoom Meeting us02web.zoom.us/j/8109697228... Meeting ID: 810 9697 2281 Passcode: 174610

Come join my group as a postdoc on a fun wildepi.ca project looking at the evolution of endemic alpha- and betacoronaviruses in Canadian wildlife. Computational work will inform concurrent experimental work in the @banerjeelab.ca and @smubareka.bsky.social groups! bioinformatics.ca/jobs/postdoc...

Very much looking forward to my fireside chat with @syramadad.bsky.social next Thursday at 1pm PST at the Belfer Center @harvardkennedy.bsky.social on "Genomic Surveillance & Pathogen Data Sharing: A New Era for Scientific Diplomacy". Virtual, so come join us! harvard.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Check out our new print that combines dense sequencing and phylodynamics to uncover a bunch of 😎 things about an understudied virus. - Doesn't evolve for 10 months a year ✅ - Uses some mossies for maintenance, others for spread ✅ - Established in Northeast for ~300 years ✅

🦟📄 New preprint! Our first large-scale phylodynamic study of Jamestown Canyon virus (JCV) reveals how mosquito ecology shapes the evolution, persistence, and spread of this understudied arbovirus in North America. Read it here! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I am very glad to share the preprint for our latest study on the 2024-2025 chikungunya virus outbreak on Réunion island, with primary data produced thanks to the massive efforts performed by Marie-C Jaffar and Etienne Frumence and analyses led by Simon Dellicour. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

'But what if IAVs could use a different receptor? Our previous work revealed that the IAV subtypes H17N10 and H18N11, which have so far been detected exclusively in bats, use MHC-II molecules as entry receptors instead of the conventional sialic acid receptors'

We've a computational PhD project available AI-DRIVEN DISCOVERY OF VIRUS–HOST MOLECULAR INTERACTIONS www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/mvl... as part of the University of Glasgow's MVLS Futures Themes PhD Programme. Deadline for applications is this Monday, 12th Jan 2026. Please apply!

I wrote about this claim forever ago when he made it on Joe Rogan's show:

This isn't in international media yet but Lithuania is in crisis. The ruling coalition is trying to seize control of our public broadcaster LRT using expedited parliamentary procedures. European & Venice Commissions are aware & we've been protesting for the last two weeks. Things are looking grim.

I rarely ask for things, but I will make an exception for my colleague and friend, Augustine Goba, who dedicated his life to saving others. Augustine was Director of the hemorrhagic fever lab in Kenema, Salone, and is struggling with PSP. Please consider donating. www.gofundme.com/f/augustine-...

François Blanquart et al. dive into the genetic basis of HIV virulence with very cool statistical methods. They show that viral load is shaped by host-dependent HLA escape variants with large effects, alongside many additional variants whose effects are too subtle to reach genome-wide significance.

Excellent news:

Amazing example of influenza cheat/cooperator cycles in this recent paper - the repeatability of the oscillatory cycles is so striking Congrats to @alnajifg.bsky.social , @christopherbrooke.bsky.social , @vignuzzilab.bsky.social & friends www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧪 #socialviruses

"The hyperreal bat: more vivid, more coherent, and more narratively satisfying than any bat in nature." Why does the idea of bats as special viral reservoirs endure? New Substack post: robertjgifford.substack.com/p/bats-and-v...

Influenza remains an important cause of illness and death. In a phase 3 trial, a nucleoside-modified mRNA (modRNA) quadrivalent vaccine was found to be superior to a standard quadrivalent vaccine in preventing influenza illness. Full trial results: nej.md/43udoTG #MedSky #IDSky

It doesn’t matter how much you exercise or how many veggies you eat when it comes to a pandemic. These things will not stop it, and the shitbirds that Trump has installed in leading public health positions should be fired for even suggesting it would.

In Central America, scientists found a spike in malaria cases after the fungus arrived. As frogs died, there were fewer tadpoles to eat mosquito larvae; more mosquitoes resulted in a fivefold increase in malaria cases: wapo.st/3LHtdAj (gift). We allow extinctions at our peril. 🌎

Guess the news is officially out! Extremely excited to announce that I will be starting my own laboratory at Institut Pasteur @pasteur.fr this coming spring! Slight change to my office window view from Tokyo Tower🗼 to the Tour Eiffel. 🇫🇷

The deadly fever in Ethiopia has been identified as Marburg disease. It’s the first time a Marburg outbreak has been identified in Ethiopia. #IDsky 🧪 www.afro.who.int/countries/et...

Talking about RNA viruses escaping from labs in the scientific community is not controversial per se *when there is evidence of it* & the burden of proof is not that high.

Update on the wild #polio discovery in Germany: The virus was found in wastewater in Hamburg. @rki.de, the German public health agency, says the virus sequence is very similar to some isolated in Afghanistan, so the likely source was an infected human. (page 10 here: www.rki.de/DE/Aktuelles...)

I recently gave a talk at Cornell and sat down with Dr. Leifer for her "Immune" podcast. I really enjoyed our wide-ranging conversation, from how I got started in science, how immunity shapes evolution, pandemic risk, and, the current state of US science. 🎧👇 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/v...

Our lab's paper describing the North American H5N1 epizootic is out now in Nature! So thrilled to have this out, and congratulations to @lambod50.bsky.social for all the fantastic work on this: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My 1st first-author paper is out as a preprint! Excited to share the fascinating story of marine-feeding vampire bats 🌊🦇 We found that marine-diet bats were exposed to #H5#AvianFlu 🦠 from marine wildlife and could potentially spread it to livestock via blood feed🩸 doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.09.686930

New paper out on virus transmission in hospitals. Predictable patterns of airflow on hospital wards explained 3/4 of SARS-CoV-2 transmission events between patients. www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S019...

"SARS-CoV-2 is too well-adapted to humans [hence, insert your favorite conspiracy theory]". That was never right because, for one, SARS-CoV-2 is a pandemic virus so it necessarily had to be "well-adapted". Now, a new study shows the same is true for BANAL-236 - a related virus isolated from bats.