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...

Polymerase trapping as the mechanism of H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus genesis Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) derive from H5 and H7 low pathogenic avian influenza viruses (LPAIVs). Although insertion of a furin-cleavable multibasic cleavage site (MBCS) in the...

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/...

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

Deltaviruses spread through a viral Trojan Horse Hepatitis D-like satellite viruses, known as deltaviruses, have been recently discovered in a wide range of animals. These viruses are thought to expr…

We found a viral Trojan Horse: a virus can hide inside another virus.This one surprised us: deltaviruses don’t just borrow a helper virus. They can travel inside it.
A literal Trojan Horse “virus-in-a-virus” route into cells. 🤯 Kudos to 1st author @viroscope.bsky.social and co-authors !

Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses "The legislature did not include a grace period." ERIN REED FEB 25, 2026 88 5 21 Share Kansas Sate Capitol // farzinvousoughian

1. Numerous transgender people in Kansas are reporting that the state has sent them a letter demanding the immediate surrender of drivers licenses.

Those driving could be arrested, charged, and see privileges revoked.

Subscribe to support our journalism.

www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-sen...

Should biology put complexity first? The dictum “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” poses a problem for biology. How simply can it be told without doing dama…

Should biology put complexity first? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... - excellent essay by @philipcball.bsky.social. I would add epistasis to polygenicity and pleiotropy as a ubiquitous and fundamental phenomenon, not some optional complication that we can try to account for afterwards

Out today in @natecoevo.nature.com!

📝 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We compare the mutational tolerance of enteroviruses A & B across their full proteomes, mapping distinct host interaction strategies 🦠 and identifying mutation-resistant regions that could inform antiviral development 💊

Grievance Is All You Need Understanding attacks on NIH, CDC and FDA through the lens of COVID revisionists

Thank you to @joshuasweitz.bsky.social. The origin of the current assault on science and public health has a direct tie to COVID contrarianism. But Bhattacharya, Prasad and the rest couldn’t rise without help and patronage. 1/ joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/grievance-...

A lot of people, including me, were wondering how an IRB could ever approve this study.

The answer is that no IRB did. The person who “signed off” on approval from the only ethics board that reviewed it had resigned three years earlier. His signature was used without his knowledge.

New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States According to new data analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures, rising seas and changing rainfall will profoundly reshape the way people have lived in North America...

In 2020, we mapped out the danger zones that will close in on Americans over the next 30 years — combining climate data with wildfire projections by US Forest Service researchers and others.

See what changes are in store for your county 👇

Prasad overruled FDA staff to reject Moderna's flu vaccine application The rejection is the latest instance of Vinay Prasad overruling career FDA scientists to place vaccines under harsher scrutiny.

Scoop: Top FDA official Vinay Prasad overruled the agency’s reviewers when he refused to accept Moderna’s application for a new influenza vaccine, STAT has learned.
www.statnews.com/2026/02/11/m...

Integrated single-cell analyses of affinity-tested B cells enable the identification of a gene signature to predict antibody affinity Chirichella and colleagues integrated single-cell transcriptomics, BCR sequences, and affinity measurements to identify High Signature, a gene expression signature predictive of sub-nanomolar antibodi...

Integrated single-cell analyses of affinity-tested B cells enable the identification of a gene signature to predict antibody affinity @astrazeneca.bsky.social @angelettilab.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell-systems...

Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs. The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Top CDC vaccine adviser questions need for polio shot, other longstanding recommendations The chair of a federal vaccine advisory panel charted a new course for the committee in a podcast released Thursday, questioning longstanding recommendations.

This is the chair of ACIP. Experimenting on America's kids. HE'S GOT TO GO. “What we’re going to have is a real-world experience of when unvaccinated people get measles,” he said. “What is the new incidence of hospitalization? What’s the incidence of death?” www.statnews.com/2026/01/22/v....

Regulatory hotspot on the influenza A virus polymerase revealed through the structure of the NEP-polymerase complex Structural studies reveal how influenza virus switches between making new RNA genomes and exporting them from the host nucleus.

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/...

Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026 Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.

🚨 New from me: Grant review at more than half of NIH's institutes could be frozen by the end of the year.

That's because crucial NIH grant-review panels are slated to be empty at those institutes by Jan 2027.

A wonky bureaucratic problem with big implications.

A short 🧵

Basal IFNλ2/3 signaling is required for ISG expression and viral control in human intestinal epithelial cells Author summary Interferon-lambdas (IFNλs) are antiviral molecules that help protect the surfaces of our body, such as the gut and lungs, from infection. While IFNλs are best known for being produced d...

Excited to share: We show that basal IFNλ2/3 signaling helps human intestinal epithelial cells stay ready for viral infections, even before an acute infection. A reminder that a lot of innate immune defense happens quietly in the background. journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

I came to Minneapolis to report on what's going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is "just what is the scale of the resistance?" After all, we're all used to the news calling Portland a "war zone" or whatever when it's just some protests in one part of town.

Rhinovirus triggers distinct host responses through differential engagement of epithelial innate immune signaling Rhinoviruses are the most frequent cause of common colds and also a major cause of respiratory distress in high-risk groups. Using single-cell sequencing of rhinovirus-infected nasal epithelial organo...

Rhinoviruses cause common cold & asthma attacks but are also often benign. Using nasal organoids, we learned how the community of cells in the lining the nasal passages coordinates to respond to rhinovirus and which responses lead to excess mucus & inflammation. www.cell.com/cell-press-b...

Minnesota: "School officials say the [5-year-old] child was used as bait. They say [ICE] agents made little Liam knock on the door to ask to be let in in order to see if anyone else was home."

Now live! Nearly all human genes contain multiple transcript isoforms - and the genes that predominantly control infection, ISGs, are no different. Using PacBio with analysis help from Yan Guo, Himadri noticed a never-before-seen transcript isoform of ISG15 that potently restricts flu 1/4

The thing I always come back to is how many people never despaired against longer odds, and how arrogant it would be to put myself above them.

Antibodies elicited by the 2025-2026 influenza vaccine in humans A new H3N2 variant (named subclade K) possesses several key hemagglutinin substitutions and is circulating widely during the 2025-2026 influenza season. In this report, we completed experiments to det...

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...

If you are submitting an NIH grant in February, you will be required to use SciENcv to prepare you biosketch.

IT IS MUCH WORSE THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE.

Set aside *at least* 4 hours just to transfer an existing an biosketch into SciENcv.

Why Denmark's vaccine schedule works for Denmark — but not for the United States With its vaccine schedule, “Denmark has made a values choice to accept preventable hospitalizations and illnesses that other countries have chosen to prevent.”

Three weeks ago I explained in @statnews.com why adopting Denmark’s vaccine schedule would leave American children unprotected. Today HHS did it anyway.
www.statnews.com/2025/12/19/d...

Happy to see @joelrc.bsky.social's paper identifying cellular heterogeneity in basal OASL expression as a major determinant of interferon induction during influenza virus infection out in its final form:

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Happy new year, hope everyone's 2026 is better than 2025!

Ooof thanks for the heads up

NIH leader resigns after flap over risks of seasonal flu virus study Agency may be expanding list of pathogens subject to dangerous “gain-of-function” regulations

www.science.org/content/arti...

Revisionism in the Wake of Covid A dialogue confronting the premise of revisionist efforts to diminish the pandemic's severity and dismantle public health institutions.

Macedo and Lee misrepresent what happened during the pandemic and are unable to confront Covid's actual toll, presumably because it undermines their premise. A longer take here w/my colleague Greg Gibson:

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/revisionis...

Global remodeling of ADP-ribosylation by PARP1 suppresses influenza A virus infection - Nature Communications Influenza A virus infection causes a dramatic upregulation of ADP-ribosylation that as part of the cellular antiviral response, a process that is counteracted by the viral NS1 protein.

🧵 Thread on our new @natcomms.nature.com paper: TLDR -- ADP-ribosylation inhibits viral replication and represents a previously under-appreciated arm of innate immunity during flu infection. Read along for the details…. (1/11) www.nature.com/articles/s41...