Happy to share EVBC Newsletter No. 102 (April 2026), including:
📢 Updates on ViBioM 2026
📜 Newest EVBC member publications + tools
📅 Upcoming events + deadlines
💼 Open vacancies
🎤 Webinar announcements
🔗 https://evbc.uni-jena.de/evbc-newsletter/
#bioinformatics #virology

In collaboration with Nicola Muller, and led by @lambod50.bsky.social, we have a new preprint out that's all about reassortment! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Using TargetedBeast, we built massive (9000 tips!) Bayesian phylogenies of North American H5Nx viruses, and inferred the host...

FULLY FUNDED PhD - Visualising avian influenza virus tropism and co-infection in avian hosts at University of Glasgow on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - FULLY FUNDED PhD - Visualising avian influenza virus tropism and co-infection in avian hosts at University of Glasgow, listed on FindAPhD.com

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...

Out now at PLoS Pathogens @plos.org. Nice collaboration with @danielhurdiss.bsky.social @utrechtvirology.bsky.social. Some beautiful glycoproteomics work by @tshamorkina.bsky.social mapping N- and O-glycan shield of coronaviruses infecting whales and dolphins 🐋🐬🐳.
journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Fact-checking Matt Ridley’s “Scientific Freedom Lecture” at NIH (Part I) Matt Ridley, global warming skeptic and co-author with Alina Chan of a book promoting a lab origin of SARS-CoV-2, was invited by Jay Bhattacharya, the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NI...

In March, Matt Ridley gave the inaugural "Scientific Freedom Lecture" at NIH, on a lab leak origin of COVID-19.

The talk was so full of misrepresentations, omissions, falsehoods and lies that I will need several blog posts to debunk it. Here's Part I:

pandemonium.hypotheses.org/995

🧪 #covidorigin

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...

Phage receptor prediction from genome sequencing alone. Bacterial receptor (blue) interacting with phage proteins (purple) is shown here

📣Huge preprint 🔔
Today we share something our group has been working toward for a long time, led by @lucasmoriniere.bsky.social We asked can we predict which receptor a phage targets from its genome sequence alone? For most phages, we couldn’t. So Lucas set out to do something I had only dreamed of.

So pleased to contribute to this preprint on H5N1 spillover from birds to dairy cattle from the Moo Flu Crew, led by the excellent @jevp.bsky.social.

We traced both B3.13 in Texas and D1.1 in Nevada and Arizona to look at how the virus evolves and what changed👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We did a plasma proteomics study on dengue disease severity in children with Tineke Cantaert and identified early markers of endothelial and inflammatory activation. Great work by @tshamorkina.bsky.social and Sofia! Thanks to all co-authors @hecklab.bsky.social.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

This is so cool:

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Discovery of a Genetic Toxin-Antidote System in Vertebrates

hat tip to @asaflevylab.bsky.social

Not all bat viruses spread the same way 🦇

A new study from @averyholmes.bsky.social & colleagues looked at six viruses in vampire bats in Peru & found contrasting patterns of circulation.

Some reflect bat movement, others were influenced by human activity.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

📢 Registration for ViBioM 2026 is now open!
Join us in Vilnius this May for ViBioM 2026 and connect with researchers working at the intersection of virology and bioinformatics.
🗓️ Registration deadline: 30 April
🔗 evbc.uni-jena.de/events/vibio...
#ViBioM2026 #virology #bioinformatics

⏰Abstract submission for #ViBioM2026 is open until midnight tonight (00:00 CET) - Don't miss your chance to present a talk at the International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting! 🎤🦠🧬💻
👉 evbc.uni-jena.de/events/vibio...
#virology #bioinformatics

I love delicious figures!

These show changes in the relationship between symptom onset and viral load over time among SARS-CoV-2 variants (Fig.3) and the impact of vaccination on peak (lower) and length (shorter) of infectious virus or viral genetic material produced over time (Fig.4)

So I pleased to announce the conceptual spawn of FigTree: PearTree (acronym still to be finalised). If you want to dive right in it is hosted as a web app here: artic-network.github.io/peartree (click the “Example...” button for immediate candy and then click every button you can find).

The last part abt how measles disrupts immunity vs other infections is, imo, underappreciated (& mechanism was recently clarified). It's part of why measles vaccination was seen to help beyond just reducing measles complications - not getting measles reduces severity of subsequent infections too.

Structure and mechanism of antiphage retron Eco2 Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - This study shows how the bacterial retron Eco2 defends against viruses. Phage nucleases trigger activation of Eco2, which cuts RNAs, shuts down protein...

1/6) Hot off the press @natsmb.nature.com 🔥! Jasnauskaite et al. reveal how the minimal bacterial retron Eco2 defends against #phage 🛡️. Phage nucleases trigger Eco2, which cuts RNA, shuts down protein production and stops phage replication 🦠🚫. #phagesky #immunity #microbiology #cryo-em rdcu.be/e4AyH

Structure and mechanism of antiphage retron Eco2 - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology This study shows how the bacterial retron Eco2 defends against viruses. Phage nucleases trigger activation of Eco2, which cuts RNAs, shuts down protein production and stops phage replication.

Now that @mftorresj.bsky.social & I are based at VU Life Sciences Center (one of the birthplaces of CRISPR tech) our publication portfolio gets extra diverse thanks to our phylogenetics & data vis skills. Here's one collaboration with @patrick-pausch.bsky.social:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Something very different and cool for my lab. Sequencing a 4.4mb TB genome using the Artic-style PCR amplicon method with >5128 primers in two reactions 🤯

Enables culture-free WGS for TB!

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

SFI External Professor Santiago Elena elected to the American Academy of Microbiology SFI External Professor Santiago Elena has been elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, joining 62 other fellows in the class of 2026, each selected for their contributions in the ...

SFI’s Santiago Elena has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

He joins 62 fellows in the 2026 class. His work explores how RNA viruses adapt to hosts and manipulate cellular resources. Since joining SFI in 2008, he has organized several working groups on virus evolution.

What Measles Did to My Family My mom always told me that measles was what made my sister sick. I was 8 when she finally explained the whole thing.

The return of measles will mean the return of SSPE.

If you don't know what that is, read this. www.voicesforvaccines.org/what-measles...

How did life arise from simple chemical building blocks?

New #LMBResearch led by @edogia.bsky.social in @philholliger.bsky.social group has identified a small self-replicating ribozyme that could be the answer.

Read more: mrclmb.ac.uk/news-events/...

Controversial Danish vaccine research group faces new allegations Researchers say they couldn’t find complete data for 10 trials that together enrolled tens of thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau

Have I ever mentioned how surreal it is to be an Editor-in-Chief of a journal called Vaccine right now?

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

It’s pretty wild, at least by typical academic journal editorial office standards.

A woman by a flipchart during a course. Text highlighting the EMBO Lab Leadership for #Postdocs course on 10 - 12 March 2026 in Leimen, Germany still has places available

Take time to focus on your interpersonal skills, discover tools to support your development and tune up your interpersonal and communication skills at the @embo.org Lab Leadership course for #Postdocs: 10 - 12 March 2026. Places still available: www.embolableadership.org/course/embol... #EMBOLabLead

University of Helsinki to recruit top international researchers with €10 million in funding from the Research Council of Finland | University of Helsinki The University is strengthening its research in environmental policy, international law, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, and zoonotic virology through new international recruitments.

The University of Helsinki is strengthening its research in environmental policy, international law, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, and zoonotic virology through new international recruitments.
www.helsinki.fi/en/news/univ...

📢Join us for the next ECR #Viromics Webinar
"How viral evolution is shaped during long-term infections of immune-compromised hosts"
‍🎙️Jonas Fuchs, University Hospital Freiburg, Germany
🗓️11 Feb 2026, 4 PM CET
📍Online/Zoom (register for login details)
👉 evbc.uni-jena.de/events/ecr-v...

Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below!
Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage

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...

Our paper on the Genomic Epidemiology of DENV2/3 in Colombia and the Americas is finally out @cp-cellreports.bsky.social, check it out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Big thanks to my collaborators @lambod50.bsky.social, @viralverity.bsky.social, @nathangrubaugh.bsky.social, and many others!

Global solidarity in genomic surveillance improves early detection of acute respiratory virus threats. "Importantly, these benefits cannot be attained by siloed expansion in countries that already possess strong capacity." Well done to the team! www.nature.com/articles/s41...