Absolutely extraordinary work from Hui Gao, John Briggs and co @mpibiochem.bsky.social on the structure of the influenza matrix protein in situ, particularly in filamentous virions. It's beautiful, and answers questions I've been wondering about for twenty years www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

1/ 🚀 Pathoplexus now supports the Andes variant of Hantavirus (ANDV). ANDV is the variant identified in the recent MV Hondius cases, & the Hantavirus variant previously identified as having occasional human-to-human transmission. pathoplexus.org/andv #hantavirus #hondius

First genome sequence from Andes hantavirus strain from ongoing ship outbreak posted on Virological: virological.org/t/complete-s... courtesy Swiss National Reference Centre for Emerging Viral Infections, Geneva University Hospitals, University of Zurich

🚨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...

We're recruiting! We're looking for two graduate students to join us at UBC in Vancouver. Fully funded and open to global applicants, with flexible start-date. Topics include theory, bioinformatics, and microbiology. More details: asherleeks.com/apply #socialviruses #evosky #virosky 🧪

1/ Use multiple seeds. Run predictions several times rather than relying on a single output - think of it as sampling different areas of conformational space. You'd be surprised how much predictions can vary.

Project on developing ethnicity-stratified transmission models with me and Neil Ferguson. Please get in touch with any questions! Limited to home fees eligible students.

My super department @warwicklifesci.bsky.social is hiring 6 assistant profs in the wake of recent retirements. We're looking for people in microbiology/infection, cellular disease / immunity; environmental biology; and plant/crop science. #MicroSky warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/lang-en-G...

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...

🔬 We’re hiring in Zürich🇨🇭! My lab is recruiting a new PhD student in molecular immunology (interferons, autoantibodies & viral disease). Position is fully-funded. Starting date anticipated to be late 2026/early 2027. Further details and how to apply: tinyurl.com/IMVPhD2026 Deadline 1st May 2026.

We are recruiting 1-2 postdoctoral fellows to investigate the specificity of human anti-influenza virus antibodies, and to determine how these antibodies impact global antigenic drift of influenza viruses. Join our lab at Penn in Philly. Reach out if you are interested in applying! Please repost!

It looks like there will be an open postdoc position in my lab soon. I'll be looking for someone with substantial wet-lab experience in microbiology / microbial ecology / evolution / physiology. If everything goes well, an ad will be coming. But if you know someone, ask them to reach out already.

This is my favourite cow flu story! Love to see it out. I contributed very little to this so all credit to first and senior authors.

Do you like microscopy? Do you think viruses are cool? Do you want to advance our understanding of one of the world's most important pathogens? Come and do your PhD with myself and the fantastic @peacockflu.bsky.social, at @pirbrightinst.bsky.social and @cvrinfo.bsky.social 🤓🦠🐓

So pleased to contribute to this preprint on H5N1 spillover from birds to dairy cattle from the Moo Flu Crew, led by the excellent @jevp.bsky.social. We traced both B3.13 in Texas and D1.1 in Nevada and Arizona to look at how the virus evolves and what changed👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

First virus from aquaculture in humans! Hope no-one has to rewrite their risk assessments...

🔊 Looking for a Research Assistant in Bacterial Evolution to join my lab 🦠 🥼Main duties: Research (AMR + microbiome) + lab assistance. ⏲️ Post duration: 30 months 🗓️ Closing date for applications: 20th April 2026 💰 Salary: ~£35k Details and how to apply: tinyurl.com/2a3v66y7 Please share!

1/ 🚨 Hiring: Postdoctoral researcher at Uni of Warwick working with Matt Keeling & Mike Tildesley #IDsky #EpiSky 🧪 ❓ Use modelling approaches to study historic spread of H5N1 in US dairy industry. Consider future outbreak dynamics for US & UK cattle industry. 📅 Apply by 23:55 UK time, 15 Apr 2026👇

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us

If he's going to get a national profile on the strength of a younger woman's campaign, I'm going to come out and say it: during his short-lived tenure as a math professor, Biss had an inappropriate romantic relationship with one of his undergraduate students. I was that student.

What love language is this? When one five-year-old said, "I love you," to the toy, it replied: "As a friendly reminder, please ensure interactions adhere to the guidelines provided. Let me know how you would like to proceed." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Transient RNA structures play a key role in the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses! Great to see this collaboration with Mathis Funk, Mathilde Richard, Stephen Cusack, and others in @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New paper showing that much of the apparent success of protein language models in predicting mutational effects is a mirage: These models mostly memorize sites. 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Looking to dip your toe into editorial waters? JGV is a great journal! Disclaimer: I am biased and a current editor.

1/5 Introducing SimPlot-CL! 🧬 Recombination plays an important role in viral evolution. Similarity plots are a great way to visualize recombination patterns, but generating them across many genomes can be cumbersome (Work with my student, Keno Strotjohann!) 📂 github.com/hodcroftlab/simplot-cl

PhD opportunity in my lab. Working on RSV, genomics, viral escape and evolution www.imperial.ac.uk/infectious-d...

🚨New Influenza Tool🚨 Interested in IAV mutations? Looking for markers of mammalian adaptation? Frustrated by converting between IAV numbering systems? The #Flu-MutationExplorer, a new tool from @cvrbioinfo.bsky.social and @royalvetcollege.bsky.social, is here to help: flu-gdb.cvr.gla.ac.uk (1/n)

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... If your school is taking your child's class to the bat cave- do not sign the consent form! Very cool supplemental video 1 showing potential spillover routes.

Postdoc position on phage-bacteria coevolution available in the @aburmeister.bsky.social lab at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee #phage #evosky #MicroSky #VirEvol 🦠 🔬 #microbiology arburmeister.weebly.com/join-the-lab...

Help me out #MicroSky - what are your favourite microbial/viral genetics practical classes for undergraduates that can be run across just two sessions?

My jaw dropped at the first paragraph. By Alice Klein www.newscientist.com/article/2511...

🚨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...

Registration is open for the inaugural GRC conference in the Function of Evolving Systems. Aug 9-14, 2026, Waterville Valley. Truly stellar speaker lineup. Student/postdoc fellowships are available! Please come join us! www.grc.org/function-of-... @joybergelson.bsky.social

Excited about parasites? Love watching movies? Come join our Wellcome-funded project! Parasitology friends, please do share far and wide.

Beautiful work from @efodor.bsky.social and Jonathan Grimes' labs - the first full structure of the influenza A virus NEP protein, and a clear indication that its role in viral replication is more nuanced that first thought www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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...

Interested in high containment work on viruses? We have an opening at the Pirbright Institute, working on high consequence viruses of livestock and humans in the core CL3 team. isw.changeworknow.co.uk/pirbright/vm...

Our eLetter github.com/caseywdunn/s... responding to a recent Science paper was just posted. The paper found more genes with consistent support for sponge-sister than ctenophore-sister. We found several technical issues that, when corrected, reverse the conclusions and recover ctenophore-sister.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... It's finally out! Meriam Guellil expertly led this project from the first HHV6 detection to the final paper. We found both human herpesviruses 6A and 6B in ancient remains going back 2500 years.

Here is what I think the research team to whom RFK Jr. just gave $1.6 million to do a randomized controlled trial of HepB vaccine in Guinea-Bissau is going to do. Although the WHO recommendation is to administer the HepB vaccine at birth, infants in G-B usually get it at 6 weeks, not at birth.

I enjoyed reading this a lot!

So excited to share this work led by @alexrob.bsky.social with Ben Kerr! We investigated a poliovirus capsid inhibitor that exploits a breakdown in the genotype-phenotype map to prevent drug resistance evolution. Or does it? See Alex's thread, but a few extras: #socialviruses #evosky #virosky 🧪

My first lead author paper is out with Ben Kerr and @alisonfeder.bsky.social! We found that making an antiviral too strong can sometimes make resistance easier to evolve. This has implications for how we design drugs, choose doses, and think about viral evolution in the face of treatment. (1/n)

Finished a virology PhD or finishing soon? Check out this job - www.healthjobsuk.com/job/UK/Londo...

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

If you are looking for a PhD in the UK, please check out the LIDo program - www.lido-dtp.ac.uk/apply. If you are interested in viruses and making genetically edited salmon, please look up my icase project. International students are welcome to apply! Please reach out if you have questions.

Our new preprint is out 🥳🥳🥳 Henipaviruses, like Nipah and Hendra, package their genomes inside helical shells built by thousands of nucleoproteins. These nucleocapsids are essential to protect the viral RNA, but how do they ever let the polymerase in to read the sequence? 👇

Guys- new spillover route just dropped.