Our first Virtual Virology at QMUL! Three great speakers from my lab @melghazaly.bsky.social on Vpx and immune activation, @immun0liver.bsky.social on SARS and ADP-ribosylation, and @ali-hashim.bsky.social on transforming natural products into broad spectrum anti-virals. Excited for the next VV!

New preprint from our lab, led by our postdocs Dara Annett and Kate Morling in collaboration with Selwood Lab! We developed a modified cyclosporine, BG147, which enhances lentivector gene therapy transduction, ex vivo in HSPC and in vivo in mouse photoreceptors, by degrading IFITM3. Check it out!

Delighted to have won a Wellcome Discovery Award for 8 more years of transformative research. We will advance our knowledge of innate immune mechanisms using viruses and chemotherapeutics as tools. Thanks to everyone who contributed along the way.

Excellent presentation by our MERS superstar postdoc @ziqizhou.bsky.social at the UK International Coronavirus Network conference in Liverpool

We are delighted to be joining the Blizard Institute in Autumn. The Blizard Institute is an amazing place for discovery science and we're looking forward to more transformative research and collaborations. www.qmul.ac.uk/blizard/abou...

Very proud of our postdocs @ziqizhou.bsky.social and @immun0liver.bsky.social for winning 1st Poster Prize (Ziqi Zhou) and 2nd Talk Prize (Oliver Wright) by an audience vote at the London Infection Network for/by ECRs held at the Crick Institute. Well done guys.

What an absolute privilege it was to be invited to speak at #UKCellularMicrobiology @KingsCollegeLon! Having attended this conference for years as a Salmonella biologist, it was really special to come back this time as a Virologist. #AcademicLife #CellularMicrobiology #Research

Oliver Wright @immun0liver.bsky.social @towerslab.bsky.social presenting on innate immune response to #SARS-CoV2. #CiViASymposium

Kicking off Day 2 of our #CiViASymposium (expertly chaired by Prof Kristina Broliden) is Prof Greg Towers ( @towerslab.bsky.social‬ , @UCL.ac.uk) about the role of innate #immune evasion in the #pandemic potential of #viruses.

A wee summary of our paper: Tim and Juraj’s landmark paper from 2020 was the first to elucidate the structural and biochemical detail of RNF213, the largest known E3 and only AAA-E3 hybrid. Among many observations, two stood out: E3 activity was RING-independent and specific for the E2 UBE2L3.

Virtual Virology is back - our first ever phage session. Do join us...

Great seeing our recent antiviral PROTAC paper chosen by Nature Comms Editors as one of the 50 best papers in Microbiology and Infectious Diseases! www.nature.com/collections/...

Happy to announce that our 2nd paper of 2025 is out! 🎊 This collaboration between our brilliant postdoc @lsnewton.bsky.social and @claragathmann.bsky.social, from Dave Selwood’s chemistry lab, designs and employs PROTACs to degrade CypA and inhibit HIV and HCV. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Love this recent preprint from Yong’s lab. This beautiful new structure of the intact HIV-2 viral capsid Illustrates interesting differences between HIV-2 and HIV-1 that start to explain differences and similarities in host co-factor usage and core formation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

First paper of 2025 is out now! 🎉 Our talented postdocs @katemorling.bsky.social and @melghazaly.bsky.social review latest advancements of how HIV capsid and accessory proteins Vpx/Vpr have evolved (or not) to regulate host innate immunity. www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

My book is out today - buy it (please)

Delighted to be presenting with my UCL colleagues at the 9th Princess Chulabhorn International Science Congress. My first talk on innate immunity in cancer. Thanks to Evolution Education Trust and PhD student Linran Wang and post doc Bruno Carvalho Ramos for their work and insight