🚨New paper!🚨 Our study showing that H5N1 influenza viruses can remain infectious in unpasteurised milk for, basically, as long as you are likely to encounter that milk has now been published: www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

IQ-TREE 3: Phylogenomic Inference Software using Complex Evolutionary Models academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

Press release with study details and comments below! www.ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp/imsut/en/abo...

Been a while since a new SARS-CoV-2 relative came up... here's a new one! 🦇🦇 Together with Dr. Wacharapluesadee's team at Chulalongkorn we comprehensively describe a new sarbecovirus clade from Thailand! Now out in @cp-cell.bsky.social @systemsvirology.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

We are incredibly excited to see our most recent story out @nature.com today:HIV triggers CD4-signaling to remodel nuclear pores and license infection!A heroic effort led by our very own @d-mesner.bsky.social & @mattvxwhelan.bsky.social! @blizardinstitute.bsky.social Link: tinyurl.com/HIVNup 1/11

BREAKING🔔 The 57th paper from G2P-Japan🇯🇵 is out at Cell @cellcellpress.bsky.social 🦇!! We elucidated the virological characteristics of a new bat coronavirus identified in Thailand🇹🇭 The debut work by G2P-Asia🌏! Please repost🔥 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

🚨New pre-print!🚨 Using a panel of different H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b viruses and human seasonal influenza, and mammary explants from common beef and dairy cattle breeds, we add to the growing data showing that H5N1 spillovers into cattle should be seen as an ongoing risk www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Excited to advertise a fully funded PhD with @socialinfluenza.bsky.social investigating how influenza virus evolution differs between different avian hosts (and how this impacts pandemic potential). Joint between @pirbrightinst.bsky.social + @cvrinfo.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Thanks for kindly introducing our recent study😁 I hope you like it🦇

Lab Leakers: "SARS-CoV-2 can't infect bats, so it must have been made in a lab". Science: "Let's do the experiment". SARS-CoV-2 behaves exactly like one would expect in a reservoir species - low-level infection, no overt disease, etc. Elegant study from Sato Lab: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Nature research paper: Structures of Marburgvirus glycoprotein and its complex with NPC1 receptor go.nature.com/4urU3yb

Nature research paper: Immune evasive DNA donors and recombinases license kilobase-scale writing go.nature.com/4b3e0E2

The first version of FigTree was released nearly 20 years ago and it is still widely used (including by me). But there are currently 85 issues on the GitHub repo (github.com/rambaut/figt...) and some of them I don’t really like the look of.

It is almost five years since I first applied AlphaFold to a handful of viral proteins. Today, hundreds of thousands of predictions and many discoveries later, we are delighted to announce the integration of our Viro3D dataset into the @ebi.embl.org and Google DeepMind AlphaFold Database.

A big thank you to Dr. Nick Catanzaro for visiting the LoFV this week and sharing his cool science!

Our paper on inferring context dependent entropy using protein language models is officially out in NAR Genomics & Bioinformatics! 🧬🤖 with Adam Strange, Jumpei Ito, and @systemsvirology.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nargab/artic... details below... #NARGAB

Nature research paper: Transmission of MPXV from fire-footed rope squirrels to sooty mangabeys go.nature.com/4a9xMxa

🚨New Pre-Print🚨 Although H3N2 subclade K has multiple mutations in HA, neutralisation assays with pre-epidemic human sera show only moderate antigenic drift, and vaccines used in the 2024/2025 flu season induced cross-neutralising immunity www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our paper on the role of #SARSCoV2 NSP3 in stress granule control is now out in JVI. Reposting our original BioRXIV thread on the summary. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Serine protease-driven entry and S2′ cleavage flexibility of feline coronavirus during feline enterocyte infections journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

New preprint! We had a look at the codon and dinucleotide usage of rabies clades that circulate in specific host species, and found some interesting differences, particularly between carnivore- and bat-associated clades 👀 Coauthors on bluesky: @jdushoff.bsky.social @matt-arnold-bio.bsky.social

New preprint led by our MSc student Wenye Li!! 🎉 @systemsvirology.bsky.social What we find is a historic genetic interplay between sarbecoviruses and their horseshoe bat hosts' ACE2 receptor! 🦇 🧵... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Molecular insights into species-specific ACE2 recognition of coronavirus HKU5 | Nature Communications www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A recombinant strain of mpox virus has been isolated from a patient in the UK containing fragments of clade I and clade II virus. Recombination occurs when two strains of virus infect a cell. These events tend to be rare but are well described in poxviruses. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

France: "Two cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) have been confirmed in France in individuals who recently returned from travel abroad" MERS-CoV mainly spreads from camels in the Arabian Peninsula. Human transmission occurs in healthcare but community spread is rare.

Nature research paper: Dated gene duplications elucidate the evolutionary assembly of eukaryotes go.nature.com/4azJDF8

Big congrats to Matt Turnbull @samjwilsonphd.bsky.social and all co-authors!! 🎉🎉 New paper in @science.org showing how the interaction between flu PB1 and host ANP32A control how flu can replicate in higher body temperatures! 🦆🦆🦆 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Nature research paper: Ancient DNA from Shimao city records kinship practices in Neolithic China go.nature.com/3Ms3A6M

🚨New Paper!🚨 Some like it hot: Matt Turnbull and @samjwilsonphd.bsky.social collaborated with groups from @cvrinfo.bsky.social, @cam.ac.uk and beyond to show that, while our fevers are hot enough to control human flu, they don't protect against avian influenzas adaptd to the hotter bodies of birds

Rafflesia hasseltii: a plant seen more by tigers than people. Watching this flower open by night was the closest thing to magic:

Some archaea—an ancient group of microorganisms—have an entirely novel genetic code, according to a new study in Science. The findings expand our understanding of how alternative genetic codes evolve and hint at new molecular tools for biotechnology applications. https://scim.ag/4omApQ7

A new preprint from our group on control of stress granules (SGs) by #SARSCoV2. Working with Jakob Nilsson's group, we identified key residues in SARS2 NSP3 critical for binding FMRP proteins & disrupting SGs formation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Structural insights into MERS and SARS coronavirus membrane proteins www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Very sad. Apparently the patient was someone with comorbidities that placed them at higher risk of a bad outcome. At a time when the threat of new pandemic is higher that ever we need our public health and surveillance systems strengthened not dismantled. www.linkedin.com/redir/redire...

#NatMicroPicks Cracking the code of Yellow Fever Virus entry! 🔑🧪 YFV uses multiple LDL receptor family members, including LRP4, LRP1, and VLDLR, as entry receptors, offering new targets for antiviral strategies #MicroSky #VirusSky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Important advice for every PhD student: The importance of stupidity in scientific research I can still remember how stupid I often felt during my PhD. And I can observe my PhD students struggling with the same feeling. I find it helpful to understand that stupidity usually comes before discovery.

Marburg virus outbreak: Six deaths confirmed in Ethiopia www.bmj.com/content/391/...

A few py2Dmol updates 🧬 py2dmol.solab.org Integration with AlphaFoldDB (will auto fetch results). Drag and drop results from AF3-server or ColabFold for interactive experience! (1/4)

Nature research paper: Ecology and spread of the North American H5N1 epizootic go.nature.com/4nTxEp5

"Looking back, that season taught me lessons I’ll hold forever. I learned to ask for help without shame and lean on my support system of friends and classmates. Most importantly, I learned to keep sight of why I came here in the first place." #ScienceWorkingLife https://scim.ag/49lcqwR

Coronaviral nsp6 hijacks ERAD machinery to facilitate lipolysis and supply membrane components for DMV growth www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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. 🇫🇷

Nature research paper: An ancient recombination desert is a speciation supergene in placental mammals go.nature.com/47UiBWa

Nature research paper: Convergent genome evolution shaped the emergence of terrestrial animals go.nature.com/4i0i61w

Happy to share my review in Cell Host & Microbe @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social! Wrote about systems virology, G2P-Japan, pandemic preparedness & responsive science in pandemic. It covers about G2P-Japan from its inception to its role in pandemic & my future perspective www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

#NewResearch HKU25 clade MERS-related coronaviruses use ACE2 as a functional receptor #microsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧬 Thrilled to share our latest paper in @natmicrobiol.nature.com 📄 A collaboration to give the Flaviviridae (home to Zika, Dengue & HCV) a much-needed taxonomic re-think. Our at-scale AI structure prediction gave a complementary perspective on viral evolution. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New online: DICER1 hotspot mutation induces 3p microRNA gain of function via Argonaute strand switch

Charlene Yeong works as a veterinarian with animals from zoos and those native to Singapore go.nature.com/47kxja2