A great collaboration with Morgan Herod and colleagues in Leeds. Thermally stable murine norovirus shows a delayed uncoating phenotype, with cryoEM led by Lee Sherry and Charlotte Lewis at the @cvrinfo.bsky.social.

We really appreciate the time and work that @orestissavva.bsky.social put into preparing the PreLights article, and his thoughtful questions were a nice avenue for Charlotte to expand on her work. Thanks to BioRxiv for highlighting this resource.

Thanks @juanrv.bsky.social and Denis Ptchelkine for the invitation to visit AFMB and speak at their cryo-EM workshop. What treat to see the beautiful Luminy campus, hear some fantastic science and catch up with @sonia-longhi.bsky.social.

Cats: the ultimate pets and scientific heroes. 🐱 Studying feline viruses to identify innovative solutions to prevent human infections. #preprint by @cb99-lewis.bsky.social, @dbhella.bsky.social & team #microbiology #preLight by @orestissavva.bsky.social: prelights.biologists.com/highlights/i...

Wow - this is just amazing. Hui Guo and colleagues from John Briggs’ lab use cryoEM helical reconstruction to discover how filamentous influenza virion assembly is directed by multiple conformations of M1 - explaining how NA is concentrated at the proximal pole. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

France confines more than 1,700 people to cruise ship over suspected norovirus death

Amazing work from Charlotte Lewis - our latest preprint describes structure guided development of an antiviral peptide, targeting VP2 portal assembly - a strategy that may have broad application to treat or prevent calicivirus disease. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Really happy to see this paper out now in PLOS Pathogens - a really nice collaboration with @alanlparker.bsky.social - led by Kasim Waraich and Rosie Mundy. journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

How to get ahead in academia 1. Creative thinking. French professor investigated for awarding himself fake prize www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

First time out in the woods at Palacerigg this year. Not too shabby groups, although my bow feels very heavy… will take a bit of practice before I shoot a round I think.

🚨New pre-print!🚨 Because influenza virions are highly variable in form no single method can show their molecular architecture in detail. Here, we integrate multiple structural and compositional approaches to identify new features of these beautiful virus particles www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Delighted to share our latest preprint describing an integrative model for influenza A virions. We combined proteomics, lipidomics and cryo-ET to build a comprehensive set of models, using subtomogram averaging we show that IAV filaments package cofilactin. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The abstract deadline for the 21st International Microscopy Congress has been extended to 20th March. Pranav Shah and I will be chairing a one-day session on “Imaging pathogen biology from structure to mechanism” and we would love to hear about your work! www.imc21.org.uk

A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, the Institut Pasteur, and EMBL has shown in a Nature paper how the influenza polymerase, a molecular thief, uses the host RNA to replicate. Check out the MPI press release: www.mpinat.mpg.de/5179649/pr_2...

Abstract submission closes this Friday. If you have a story to tell and have just seen this do apply! @dbhella.bsky.social and myself look forward to your abstracts!

Thanks so much to Profs. Manidipa Banerjee, Ashok Patel, Ramanathan Natesh, Prem Kaushal and Subhash Yadav for inviting me to participate in this years EMBO CryoEM and 3D Image Processing workshop. It is so inspiring meeting all the fantastic students and hearing about their exciting science!

Very excited to share our work, a fish herpesvirus' cryo EM structure. It features a long PVAT tail, with new and host-like proteins discovered using modelAngelo, Dali, and Viro3D, including a host-like macrodomain doi.org/10.64898/202... @dbhella.bsky.social @grovearmada.bsky.social

I am excited to share our latest preprint - An evolutionarily divergent herpesvirus with a giant tail. Featuring symmetry breaking and genome annotation from structure using ModelAngelo. doi.org/10.64898/202...

Calling all microscopy enthusiasts! I have been working with Gail McConnell to coordinate the life-science section of the 21st International Microscopy Congress taking place in Liverpool, UK this September. We have some great symposia lined up! Registration and abstracts 👉 www.imc21.org.uk

Thanks to @sjorsscheres.bsky.social and Kiarash Jamali for coming to hear me fan-boy about Relion and ModelAngelo in my talk and bringing more advice on how to do cool stuff even better….

Had a fantastic day visiting the Virology Division in the University of Cambridge Dept of Pathology. Thanks to Myra Hosmillo, Ian Goodfellow, Andrew Firth, Hazel Stewart and Valeria Lulla for great virus- and science-life chat.

The UK cloud cover forecast for tomorrows geomagnetic storm. If there is one guarantee in life it’s 100% cloud cover when there is a forecast of northern lights. www.bbc.co.uk/weather/arti...

Huge congratulations to Emma Davis, the winner of 2025's Early Career Microbiologist of the Year prize! We agree with Emma that all of the finalists' talks were brilliant and a massive well done to everyone involved!

My nightmare: “Almost 100 people came down with norovirus aboard a Royal Caribbean ship amid a 13-day voyage, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported earlier this week… The first reports of illness were made on Sept. 28, with four crew members and 94 guests falling ill”

This is the coolest resource - so much more than a repository of predicted viral protein structures. Check it out…

Check out this new BBC documentary on Disease X and pandemic preparedness, broadcast tonight (22/09) and on BBC iPlayer. It features @cvrinfo.bsky.social's work using #AI to investigate #virology and much, much more. 🧪🦠🤖 It was a real pleasure working with Chris VT and the team. Thank you!

I am delighted to share this preprint describing the structure and transcriptomics analysis of adenovirus D10 - a fantastic collaboration - and a lot of hard work by Kasim and Rosie.

Second time in a week - so proud of Charlotte’s achievements. ECR oral presentation prize at the 9th international Calicivirus workshop. So accomplished and just starting year 3 of her PhD.

Our PhD studentship programme is officially open; pass it on If you are looking for a fully-funded PhD in the mechanisms underlying human disease, here are the details... Great science and a great environment! www.path.ox.ac.uk/news-article...

Well this is terrible… honestly the stuff I have to do for science - in Banff for the 9th international Calicivirus workshop.

Proud supervisor moment - congratulations Charlotte Lewis on winning the ECR best presentation prize at the Glasgow Virology Workshop. 👏👏👏👏👏👏

First field archery competition in ~25 years. I was terrible 😀 - but it was lovely being out in the woods again.

Last week we welcomed colleagues from ‪@helmholtzhzi.bsky.social‬ Centre for Infection Research & other project partners for our CVR-HZI Collaborative Development Fund Symposium. We heard about exciting research projects and discussed new opportunities to further our collaborations. cvr-hzi.co.uk

Epseptimavirus phagemcphageface made my day... doi.org/10.1099/jgv....

Please join us if you can for this year's Influenza Update Meeting, and please spread the news! It will be another fun opportunity to meet other influenza researchers, make connections and discuss our ongoing research.

Isn’t it strange how the most ardent capitalists are suddenly very worried about the influence of the profit motive in pharma - while simultaneously screaming about state regulation of eg finance sector. It must be strange being in their heads.

At the international virus assembly workshop in Alghero, Sardinia. This afternoon we took some time out to tour the old town. A beautiful walk with friends.

A nice photo from last week’s ’Celebration of 50 years of Virology’ in St Andrews - marking a milestone in the distinguished career of Rick Randall - a great virologist, colleague and friend - congratulations Rick!

Congratulations on your excellent thesis defence Hollie - @cvrinfo.bsky.social

2 years ago GSC made my wife redundant. She brought in £400k p/a in education contracts and was well regarded by educationalists across Scotland. They lost her contacts and the excellent reputation she had built over 20 years. Competence is seen as a threat by those in power who are less capable.

One of the many lovely things about having a dog is encounters with urban wildlife while out for a walk. Here is a greater spotted woodpecker spotted this morning in our local woods.

I am thrilled that University of Glasgow is supporting cryoEM in Scotland by investing in talented young technical professionals to manage SCMI and help us deliver great science. The energy and enthusiasm in the team is amazing and infectious.

New in Nature Comms: We applied metagenomic + targeted NGS to serum from febrile patients in Uganda. Post-COVID, LMICs have sequencing infrastructure that could be repurposed for pathogen discovery. 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am def gonna read this later…

A couple of photos from a wonderful night out - Ozric Tentacles and The Orb. Lots of smiling and dancing…. Lovely.

🚨I promised I'd say more on the Royal Society and Elon Musk, so here it is. 🚨 I've resigned my position as Associate Editor at Royal Society's journal Open Science in protest at their lack of action over Elon Musk. My op-ed in @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

🔊 Calling all parasite enthusiasts - come join us to study Toxoplasma and Plasmodium organelle biology 🔬 www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/research...

On 15 March 1939 Hitler and his deputy summoned the Czech President to Hitler’s residence in Berlin and then bullied him to submitting to a German invasion of his country. They drove him to the point of physical collapse, threatening him until he eventually signed his country’s death warrant.

PLOS has issued a statement on recent US Executive Orders and scientific integrity. We are determined to stand firmly behind our mission, our values and our principles, and against any attempt at censorship or undermining of the core principles of scientific inquiry. plos.io/3D4O8cH

More exciting AI tools in the pipeline then…