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...
A panel of immunohistochemistry images showing infection of a panel of IAV viruses (as 6:2 reassortants on a PR8 backbone) in epithelia from the teat and gland cisterns of Aberdeen Angus, Limousin and Holstein Friesian cattle
🚨New pre-print!🚨
Using a panel of different H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b viruses and human seasonal influenza, and mammary explants from common beef and dairy cattle breeds, we add to the growing data showing that H5N1 spillovers into cattle should be seen as an ongoing risk
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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...
If you know anyone who might be interested please pass the ad on! Ed or I are very happy to answer any questions!
Funding only available for UK home students (apologies1)
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...
Our paper describing the #cryoEM structures of unusual spike proteins from marine mammal–infecting gammacoronaviruses is now published in PLOS Pathogens! 🐬
journals.plos.org/plospathogen...
This work has been a massive collaborative, multidisciplinary effort with a ton of authors, including a few on bluesky @bdadonaite.bsky.social @drclairesmith.bsky.social @brianrwasik.bsky.social @joerjames.bsky.social @influenzal.bsky.social @prmurcia.bsky.social @jbloomlab.bsky.social + many more!
Phylogenetic tree and map showing the distribution and evolution of US cattle H5N1s
This is a companion piece of work to the in depth evolutionary analysis on the US H5N1 spillovers lead by Jonathan Pekar which several authors were also involved with.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Graph of receptor binding curves showing an ancestral and recent H5N1. The ancestral virus does not bind NeuGc receptor well, whereas the recent virus birds NeuGc and NeuAc containing receptors equally.
Really excited to be able to share our latest preprint, describing how during its evolution in cattle, H5N1 has got better at using a type of alternative receptor that's abundant in cows, but not found in humans and birds.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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)
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
🤓🦠🐓
5 more dairy cows tested positive for #H5N1 #birdflu antibodies on the Dutch farm where a previous cow tested positive. No surprise that if 1 was positive, others would be too. This dairy farm is the first outside the US to report H5N1 transmission. www-melkvee-nl.translate.goog/artikel/1450...
A data figure showing a phylogenetic tree of H3N2 with 2025-K highlighted, the structure of the HA trimer with mutations characteristic of K highlighted, and box and whisker plots showing % neutralisation of the 2022 H3N2 vaccine strain, and of 2025 clade K, by various human antisera
🚨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...
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...
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...
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...
am indeed still working in this area! the clade currently circulating globally (minus australia) is 2.3.4.4b, there are a few extant clades other than that but theyre localised (e.g. some 2.3.2.1 decendents in south east Asia, Bangladesh and India), maybe some 2.3.4.4 cousins in China still as well?
We find that subclade K viruses are antigenically advanced; however, this year's flu vaccine surprisingly elicited antibodies in many individuals that efficiently recognized these viruses. The implications are clear: go get this year’s vaccine if you haven’t already!
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
WASHINGTON, D.C., December 19, 2025—On December 14, 2025, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced the first detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in a dairy herd in Wisconsin. On December 17, the National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) completed whole genome sequencing and confirmed that the virus is H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b genotype D1.1. Analysis indicates that this detection is a new spillover event from wildlife into dairy cattle, separate from previous events. Key Points Most detections in U.S. dairy herds have resulted from movements linked to the original spillover event that occurred in the Texas Panhandle in late 2023, involving the B3.13 strain. In early 2025, through the National Milk Testing Strategy, USDA detected two spillover events in Nevada and Arizona dairy herds. Both were identified early, and no further herd infections occurred through animal movements. These events involved the D1.1 strain. The Wisconsin herd, also detected through the National Milk Testing Strategy, represents a new, separate spillover event and involves the D1.1 strain. At this time, no additional dairy herds have been identified as infected in association with this event.
#H5N1 : An infected herd was recently detected in Wisconsin, and genome sequencing indicates that this is yet another spillover event, making it the fourth detected one.
How do these spillovers happen and why are they restricted, so far, to the US?
www.aphis.usda.gov/news/agency-...
A flurry of snowflakes with text reading 'Virus Snowflakes: a collection of paper art viruses by Ed Hutchinson - Download now!' along with the logo of the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research
If you'd like to celebrate the biology of viruses - or the fight against viral diseases - this winter, try out our free and updated #VirusSnowflake designs.
Please share, and if you have any photos of Virus Snowflakes in your area it would be lovely to see them!
cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl...
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...
I want to spell this out in case the implications aren't clear:
This means all public tools/webapps of GISAID data (all the ones you've been used to seeing thru the pandemic, as far as we can tell) are prohibited.
The file allowed this. Cut that - cut off all tools the public & others were using.
🚨 NEW: The majority holder of the world's genetic sequence data is a bad actor who can cut off access to critics and competing services. We've tolerated this for years, and now it threatens the pandemic treaty. Time for WHO to step in. With @ctrlalttim.com: www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/to-f...
A diagram depicting a PhD project whereby editing salmon cells or ova leads to viral resistance from ISAV.
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.
We’ve identified a highly divergent betacoronavirus from South American bat that encodes a functional furin cleavage site.
Another fascinating reminder of how diverse coronavirus evolution is in wildlife reservoirs.
#Virology #VirusEvolution #Bats #Coronavirus
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A banner in a Charles Rennie Mackintosh style showing and influenza virion and reading 'Influenza Update Meeting'
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Influenza Update 2025
University of Warwick, 15th - 16th December
warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/...
Registration from £50 - £120
DEADLINE: 7th November
We hope you can join us there!
After years in the making, Joe McKellar @viroscope.bsky.social’s final PhD paper is finally out today in PNAS! 🎉 🎉🎉
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
And the sister paper from collaborator and good friend Katie Doores ... A deeper dive into how some of these broadly neutralising #sarbecovirus #coronavirus #sars2 #covid antibodies actually work www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Our first post on here and it's a doozy 😍🤩. Our epic piece on #sarbecovirus host range. #virology #sars2 #covid #vaccines. Enjoy and please repost. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...