Do you remember BA.3—the weakling cousin of BA.1 & BA.2 that seemed to take the worst from each & had weaker ACE2 binding than even the ancestral Wuhan Virus? After three years, BA.3 is back. And it is transmitting. Who saw this coming? 1/13

I first read the famous 1925 Yule paper at its 80th birthday - during my Master thesis work, and it shaped my research profoundly. It was a pleasure and honour to lead this special 100 anniversary issue celebrating Yule's legacy and phylogenetic models with @noahrosenberg.bsky.social and Mike Steel!

🦠 We are recruiting two 2-year postdocs to work at the intersection of virus genomics and infectious disease. jobs.rvc.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... Please share widely!

Chu-like viruses are weird and wonderful and now infect Tasmanian devils! Definitely worth adding to the reading list 📚 Awesome work by @julienmelade.bsky.social @erinharvey.bsky.social @eddieholmes.bsky.social 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Wendy Barclay and I will soon be recruiting a postdoc to work on a virology project investigating the evolution of swine influenza viruses and how this impacts future pandemic potential. Job will be based at Imperial's South Kensington campus. Drop me a DM/email for more details.

On this day in 1859, Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' was published, around 22 years after he sketched perhaps the first phylogenetic tree... "The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth."