I am thrilled to share our story online at @cellpress.bsky.social . Big thanks to all authors: Zhiping, Bill, @lubanlab.bsky.social, Keith & bluesky-less!

authors.elsevier.com/c/1kjdaL7PXu...

How to tame a genome invader? It takes wild koalas 🐨🐨 to learn it.
#Retrovirus #koala #piRNA

More below 👇

State Department Permits Distribution of H.I.V. Medications to Resume — for Now (Gift Article) Experts fear a resurgence of infections in low-income countries if the ban were to continue. The waiver remains in place, while officials review foreign aid programs.

Keep speaking up because it matters. Call out inhumane policies that will kill people. PEPFAR funded HIV drug distribution resumes...for now.
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/h...

Fascinating. The first endorsement on the official description of the book is by Luc Montagnier who died a year before the book was published. Amazing stuff. Luc deserves a second Nobel.

Thanks. Someone had to do it.
But don’t worry. Despite claims by those who wish to ban books from libraries, there is no evidence that reading will ligate foreign nucleic acid into your chromosomes or implant a nanochip into your brain.

Where can you find this stuff, assuming someone wants to read it?

MFSD6 is an entry receptor for respiratory enterovirus D68 Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) is a leading non-polio enterovirus that causes severe respiratory diseases and poliomyelitis-like illness in children. Viral …

"MFSD6 is an entry receptor for respiratory enterovirus D68"

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Lots of new viruses (and other known pathogens) here, especially in carnivores and rodents. Of most interest, a bi-segmented coronavirus sampled from diseased red (lesser) pandas (Ailurus fulgens) and that represents a new genus. Work led my Mang Shi and Shuo Su. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

screenshot of Eddie Holmes' tweet: @edwardcholmes All, an initial genome sequence of the coronavirus associated with the Wuhan outbreak is now available at Virological.org here: [link to virological]

Five years ago (Saturday 11 Jan 2020), first public announcement and availability of a sequence of the new coronavirus.
It was posted by @eddieholmes.bsky.social at 01:05 UTC on Virological, and announced on Twitter at 01:08 UTC. ▫️1/

web.archive.org/web/20200118...
archive.is/z880d

Genetic Sequences of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Viruses Identified in a Person in Louisiana CDC has sequenced the influenza viruses in specimens collected from the patient in Louisiana who was

Recently:
- a severe case of H5N1 infection in British Columbia (required ICU, now recovered)
- a lethal case in Louisiana.

Features of the Flu sequences from both patients:
- closest to flu found in birds
- HA mutations likely to be adaptations to humans

www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/spo...

screenshot of linked website, with submission date highlighted (05-JAN-2020) LOCUS MN908947 30473 bp ss-RNA linear VRL 12-JAN-2020 DEFINITION Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus isolate Wuhan-Hu-1, complete genome. ACCESSION MN908947 VERSION MN908947.1 KEYWORDS . SOURCE Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus ORGANISM Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus Viruses; Riboviria; Nidovirales; Cornidovirineae; Coronaviridae; Orthocoronavirinae; Betacoronavirus; unclassified Betacoronavirus. REFERENCE 1 (bases 1 to 30473) AUTHORS Zhang,Y.-Z., Wu,F., Chen,Y.-M., Pei,Y.-Y., Xu,L., Wang,W., Zhao,S., Yu,B., Hu,Y., Tao,Z.-W., Song,Z.-G., Tian,J.-H., Zhang,Y.-L., Liu,Y., Zheng,J.-J., Dai,F.-H., Wang,Q.-M., She,J.-L. and Zhu,T.-Y. TITLE A novel coronavirus associated with a respiratory disease in Wuhan of Hubei province, China JOURNAL Unpublished REFERENCE 2 (bases 1 to 30473) AUTHORS Zhang,Y.-Z., Wu,F., Chen,Y.-M., Pei,Y.-Y., Xu,L., Wang,W., Zhao,S., Yu,B., Hu,Y., Tao,Z.-W., Song,Z.-G., Tian,J.-H., Zhang,Y.-L., Liu,Y., Zheng,J.-J., Dai,F.-H., Wang,Q.-M., She,J.-L. and Zhu,T.-Y. TITLE Direct Submission JOURNAL Submitted (05-JAN-2020) Department of Zoonoses, National Institute of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Changping Liuzi 5, Beijing 102206, China

Five years ago (Sunday 5 Jan 2020), scientists in Zhang YongZhen's group in Shanghai obtained their first sequence of the new virus, from samples obtained outside of the official national protocol.
They submitted it to GenBank with an embargo. ▫️1/

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MN90...

Scientists Are Racing to Develop a New Bird Flu Vaccine The most promising approach uses mRNA.

“The beauty of mRNA is the ability within a moment’s notice to change the vaccine.”

time.com/7203820/h5n1...

HMPV: China's new virus outbreak explained As reports of a new virus outbreak circulate, here is everything you need to know about human metapneumovirus (HMPV).

The Outbreak of human metapneumovirus in China has caused a bit of a stir . It is not a novel virus but seems to be causing a significant outbreak coinciding with the winter. HMPV, was discovered in 2001 in the Netherlands.
www.newsweek.com/human-metapn...

Do you know where transcription of a gene actually stops? Hint: it is not the annotated gene end.
In our new paper in Nucleic Acids Research we argue that phosphorylation on threonine 4 of RNA Pol II CTD is a marker of transcription termination in animals... 🧵
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

A generative framework for enhanced cell-type specificity in rationally designed mRNAs mRNA delivery offers new opportunities for disease treatment by directing cells to produce therapeutic proteins. However, designing highly stable mRNAs with programmable cell type-specificity remains ...

This looks like it could be very useful!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Case report of 13 year old in British Columbia with H5N1 infection. Progression in one day from left-sided pneumonia to complete lung involvement (see chest x-rays)
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Coupling antigens from multiple subtypes of influenza can broaden antibody and T cell responses The seasonal influenza vaccine contains strains of viruses from distinct subtypes that are grown independently and then combined. However, most individuals exhibit a more robust response to one of the...

Cool paper on broadening anti-influenza immune response to vax:
- human data: twins, newborns, & tonsil organoid; & mouse data
- Host genetics > original antigenic sin
- Covalent coupling of diverse HAs decreases anti-HA antibody strain bias, probably via T cell help
www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Five years ago (Monday 30 Dec 2019), a turning point: the news of an outbreak in Wuhan spread on messaging apps, social media (Weibo, then Twitter), and got out of China, culminating with a ProMED alert sent to the international medical community on 30-31 Dec. ▫️1/

Postdoctoral Researcher in Structural Virology This project is focused on deciphering the role of virally encoded AAA+ ATPases in the replication cycles of Enteroviruses and Noroviruses.

I’m looking for a postdoc to join my team under a recently funded ERC Starting Grant.

If you’re passionate about structural #virology and have experience in #cryoEM SPA and/or #cryoET, get in touch!

Application deadline: January 19th.

Please share with your networks 🙏

Job link: tiny.cc/7v33001

1/ 🎄 What’s the best gift under the tree for a computational biologist? 🎁 A new experimental assay that refines our view of gene regulation: ACCESS-ATAC! This creative idea from Richard Sherwood was developed collaboratively between his lab and mine. #Genomics
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Egg prices soar as bird flu takes toll on US hen flock Average price of eggs rose nearly 30 cents since October, with egg production down 4% from prior year

You don't say...
The price of eggs will define 2025. I am calling it 😏
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...

GAP Kids Commercial (1997) YouTube video by Commercial Collections

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume?

Me: I’m highly susceptible to any music jingles…”🎶fall into the gap”
youtu.be/QDavTPWxB4w

Thomas Pindani Nyalile defended his Ph.D. thesis today:
"Regulation of HIV-1 gene expression, provirus reactivation, and replication dynamics by EIF3H"
Congrats Dr. Nyalile!!!
Next Spring he'll be heading back to Tanzania to do some molecular biology:

CDC Confirms First Severe Case of H5N1 Bird Flu in the United States December 18, 2024-- A patient has been hospitalized with a severe case of avian influenza A(H5N1)

It is a first such case in the US, and of course scary, especially for the patient, but not a harbinger of a change in the virus. The person had exposure to sick birds. This is not infection with the dairy cow virus.
www.cdc.gov/media/releas...

Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.
I always thought they favored the Mets over the Yankees

We discovered the source of the super high tech multicolored drones:
Veggie Galaxy on Mass Ave near MIT (so obvious once you think of it)

~40 non-human primates have their own SIVs/lentis/immunodef viruses. For ex, SIVsyke’s monkey, or SIVmandrill, all structurally similar to HIV-1

The ICTV Lentivirus classification is flawed. Lentivirus humimdef1 (HIV-1) is not monophyletic (i.e. multiple jumps), nor is Lentivirus simimdef (SIV), and whereas HIV-1 has a single host and originated quite recently, SIV infects diverse primate species and is 1000s of years old. AKA inconsistent.

phylogeny of H5N1, with the cattle outbreak and the BC case highlighted: they belong to different branches of the tree

Here is why it is incorrect to blame the US response to the #H5N1 outbreak in dairy cattle for the human case in British Columbia: they are unrelated.

H5N1 is diverse, and the genotype involved in the dairy cattle outbreak is not the same as the one collected in BC

nextstrain.org/avian-flu/h5...

Agree! Huge scientific breakthrough - now we need global access to see the real change happen!

Video recording of 2024 MassCPR Symposium is online
Yoshihiro Kawaoka, Eva Harris, JJ Stone, David Bean, Shira Weingarten-Gabbay, Wanyu Li, Milky Abajorga, Erika Weiskopf
UMadison/Tokyo, Berkeley, UMass, Harvard, Tufts, Boston Univ, MIT, Broad
masscpr.hms.harvard.edu/masscpr-symp...