Very proud of Matthew’s amazing three minute thesis talk and excited to cheer him on in the university wide competition next week!

Your periodic reminder that there are FREE stock photos of vaccination (many without needles!) available from SELF Magazine in collab with the American Academy of Pediatrics www.self.com/story/vaccin...

My lab at Pitt is looking for a Research Scientist to help us make phage therapy for patients with antibiotic-resistant infections. Please share and apply! cfopitt.taleo.net/careersectio...

Are you excited by virology? Would you like to do a PhD? Three fantastic opportunities are available to do joint PhDs between @cvrinfo.bsky.social and @pirbrightinst.bsky.social Details in the thread below - please share! Deadline 8th May 2026, fully funded for UK Home students (1/4)

#SARSCoV2 has optimized its replication fitness in the human host. @rorymulloy.bsky.social @corcoranlab.bsky.social &co show that a #nucleocapsid gene mutation enhances production of a truncated protein that boosts viral fitness by suppressing #antiviral responses @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3PIZMjr

That's not the issue: If your submission receives an unfundable score in one cycle, you ordinarily receive the reviews too late to resubmit in the next cycle. But continuing submission makes it possible to revise and resubmit in the next cycle after the original submission. That's a huge bonus.

Not sure what to make of the recent news of a new human case of bird flu in Europe? I wrote a quick piece for @theconversation.com explaining what we currently know, and why it's not time to worry - yet theconversation.com/first-europe...

This is brilliant. Read the last paragraph. Slowly. [gift article] Is It 1914 in America? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/o...

🚨 Postdoc position open - please repost! Join our lab in Lausanne🇨🇭to study KSHV, virus–host interactions & RNA decay + great quality of life right by Lake Leman and the Alps ⛰️ Apply here 👉 sites.google.com/view/muller-...

@statnews.com conducted a national survey of NIH-funded researchers and found that, a year after Trump's return, many scientists are reeling, with some closing labs entirely. ‘This is like the Titanic,' one respondent told me. For full details, see our special report www.statnews.com/2026/03/19/n...

And if you have not been accepted, understand that this is a VERY weird time for grad admissions. Lack of acceptance may not be due to YOU, but due to uncontrollable factors at the university. Keep trying in the future.

If people think American scientists are somehow going to land in Europe, I've got news for you about the difference between millions and billions. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Another excellent Substack from Elizabeth Ginexi on a near-stoppage of release of Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) at NIH and why it matters open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

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/...

ICE makes our communities less safe—and its reckless actions endanger us all. Now more than ever, it's important that people know their rights and understand the rights of others. Visit aclu.org/kyr to learn more. www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2...

🚨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)

Monoclonal antibody therapies are being developed to treat #measles in response to its recent resurgence. David A Kennedy argues that such therapies risk driving measles virus evolution in ways that might undermine the protection offered by #vaccination. 🧪 plos.io/3OJx6q4

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

"The correspondence reveals a system, @dannagal.bsky.social said, that determines who “gets to be a ‘smart person’ — not because of their brain, but because of the money that they have been given.”" Preach!

How do you feel about having paid about $1,000 in Trump tariffs over the past year?

It’s not a banned word list. It’s just a list of words that if they are in a grant’s abstract it won’t be funded… big difference.

I have had to do this now with 4 clients since spring 2025. Less so lately, because we have learned and now we just automatically take those words out of these documents (you know, bad words like "female" and "women" and "health equity")

Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website

'The relationship between quack medicine and right-wing extremism has a long history (...) extremists have been marketing medical snake oil, and snake oil purveyors have been financially supporting extremism, since the days when misinformation had to be disseminated through paper newsletters.'

Science is under attack in America and needs you to fight back for it. Fuel the fight for science by visiting standupforscience.net/donate Thank you! #science #RFKJr #ImpeachRFKJr #RemoveRFKJr #standupforscience

Great regional conference for virologist in the southeast. Abstract due next week.

“Success in US science has come from sustained funding and welcoming the best talent from around the world, yet both of these advantages are in decline” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Please stop saying the bill allows "no more multi-year funding" - or at least be clear the 'more' is in reference to disastrous FY25 levels. The bill allows 39% MYF, same as in FY25, which contributed substantially to a 24% drop in new research. The bill has some wins. MYF is not one of them.

NSF GRFP applicants (and mentors): Was your application Returned Without Review and deemed ineligible despite fitting in the allowed topics? 1) Write NSF 2) Write your Congressperson 3) CC us at [email protected] so we can compile + follow up Details and template at grant-witness.us/grfp-letter

With continued uncertainty over federal government support for biomedical research, PhD students are struggling to find labs willing to take on new students, @jonathanwosen.bsky.social reports. New students are the future of US science. www.statnews.com/2026/01/30/f...

Friends, please help spread the word about our microbiology REU program at Montana State University. www.montana.edu/mbi/reu/ Each student receives a stipend ($7000 for 10 wks). Travel compensation, room, and board are also provided. Details in the attached pic--Feb 14 deadline 🧫🧪🦠#microsky

🚨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...

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

If this pisses you off…I’ve got something for you to do: attend a @standupforscience.bsky.social rally on March 7th!! To learn more, volunteer, or host a rally in your town head to: standupforscience.net/march7 Turn your outrage into action with us! #standupforscience

Now out in Nature! We visualize infection of the RNA virus RSV in real-time with single-vRNP resolution to understand how RSV establishes viral factories, biomolecular condensates that act as sites of viral replication. A huge collaborative effort led by Dhanushika Ratnayake! rdcu.be/e1bBW

If Senate Republicans refuse to strip out the DHS bill to put real constraints on ICE — and hold hostage the vast majority of government funding — then Republicans are complicit in the chaos and own the potential government shutdown. It’s time to stop ICE’s violence.

We are losing scientists from the government at an unprecedented rate - some were fired, but many more were forced out through trauma and fear. www.science.org/content/arti...

Alex Pretti was a colleague at the VA. We hired him to recruit for our trial. He became an ICU nurse- I lover working with him. He was a good kind person who lived to help and these fuckers executed him. White. Hot. Rage.

First evidence in Europe of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 infection in a dairy cow. Antibodies against H5N1 detected in a cow with mastitis and respiratory signs on a Dutch dairy farm at the end of December. A cat on that farm had died from H5N1. www.tweedekamer.nl/downloads/do...

Confusion about the "multiyear" awards being reported differently across articles. Below, is the actual language ~ the NIH is allowed to fund multiyear awards in FY26 up to a max of the FY25 level. That's a problem - multiyear awards were the reason why 25% fewer grants were awarded in FY25.

The NIH's MYF policy in 2025 resulted in 4000 fewer grants and fellowships that touched every area of biology and medicine; continuing it in 2026 would be disastrous for science, technology and health in the United States 🧪 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

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...

Cool new work from Steve’s lab!

Trump’s rhetoric and threats towards Greenland are extremely dangerous. Republicans must stand with us to block this insanity.

@markpoloncarz.bsky.social A valued member of the scientific community right here in Buffalo is being held by ICE. Can you help? What can we do to help you?

The American Society for Virology (ASV) is dedicated to advancing knowledge of viruses and the diseases they cause. ASV does not support the scaling back of the childhood vaccine schedule recently announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. See our statement attached.