An illustration of an apical region of an animal cell in cross section, shown crowded with individual molecules. The plasma membrane is densely occupied by influenza virus glycoproteins, and from the surface bud influenza virions with different morphologies (L-R): spherical, bacilliform, filamentous with a genome, filamentous and empty, filamentous with a helical inner layer, and filamentous with a cofilactin cytoskeleton.

🚨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!

Photo of David Bhella with students at the Taj Mahal

Photo of David Bhella with CEM3DIP students

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

Image of a herpesvirus structure

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...

I will also be co-chairing a one-day symposium on "multimodal imaging of pathogens, from structure to mechanism”, along with @proteincapsid.bsky.social - our invited speakers are Prof. Wah Chiu (Stanford) and @marvintanenbaum.bsky.social
(Hubrecht Institute. Utrecht).

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….

Picture of Homerton College - University of Cambridge

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.

Cloud cover forecast showing lots of cloud over the UK

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!

Norovirus Outbreak Sickens Nearly 100 on Royal Caribbean Cruise

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!

46 articles and book chapters for me. The thing is, if Meta had licensed my work they wouldn’t have paid me - they would have paid Springer, Wiley et al. I am not saying it is right that they stole the work, it is just another layer of exploitation of creators.

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.

Applications now open for our PhD studentship programme - Dunn School Applications are now open to apply for our four year, fully-funded PhD programme in Molecular Cell Biology in Health and Disease.

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. 👏👏👏👏👏👏

I agree Edinburgh is terrible - all the more annoying that it has pulled routes away from Glasgow, which is much nicer. I expect it is cheaper for the airlines.
I think Stansted is worse tho… truly awful.

I didn’t know the Ontario science centre had closed ☹️. So many happy childhood memories from summers spent in Toronto. OSC blazed a trail for science museums around the world and the building is epic. I hope it can be saved and put to a use that respects the legacy.

“beans on toast, ngl, kinda gross” you are objectively and categorically wrong on this. Beans on toast is the perfect meal - breakfast, dinner, tea. Doesn’t matter which.

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

man presents to an audience in a conference room. The projected slide reads “Anatomical origin of exhaled SARS-CoV-2 within the respiratory tract” and features a colourful virus illustration. Attendees are seated and focused on the presentation.

A group of people sits around a long table in a dimly lit restaurant. The table is filled with drinks. The setting features wooden wall panels and modern hanging light fixtures.

A group of people sits in a conference room with large windows, participating in a discussion. Attendees are taking notes or using laptops.

Twelve people pose for a group photo in front of a wall displaying logos for the Medical Research Council- University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research. They are dressed in business casual attire. The setting is an indoor office.

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

Or Coccoliths?