Virological investigation of elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus 1B infection in an Australian captive herd of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

mvif 46 program

It's Friday!
...and a new #MVIF program is out! 🤩

Free registration: cassyni.com/s/mvif-46

Highlights:
🇺🇸 Rebecca L. Knoll
🇯🇵 Akito Sakanaka

Keynote:
🇺🇸 @simrouxvirus.bsky.social

⭐️ Talks:
🇦🇺 @jeremyjbarr.bsky.social
🇨🇦 @erikbakkeren.bsky.social
🇨🇳 Guanxiang Liang

B3.13 viruses have high pathogenicity in mammals but low transmissibility: bovine and human derived viruses killed mice in 3-4 days, infected mice and hamsters. rMichigan/90 had slight slower replication. Bovine TX2/24 has broader tissue tropism
👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Gut Microbiota Composition in Adolescents From Mexico City, Associations With Nutritional and Socioeconomic Factors: Results From a Pilot Study This study analyzed the gut microbiota composition of 95 adolescents and its relationship with body mass index, dietary habits, and socioeconomic status using 16S rRNA sequencing (V3-V4). The dominan...

New paper out! Gut microbiota in Mexican adolescents is shaped by BMI, diet, and socioeconomic status.
Obesity was linked to lower microbial diversity and higher Bacteroidetes and sugar-rich diets, and lower SES were associated with potential pathogens.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Workshop on Molecular Evolution | Marine Biological Laboratory The workshop serves graduate students, postdocs, and established faculty from around the world seeking to apply the principles of molecular evolution to questions of anthropology, conservation genetic...

Applications are now open for the 2026 Workshop on Molecular Evolution (MOLE)!

www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

Claudia Solis-Lemus and I will be holding an informational session on Zoom next Wed (1/21) from 10:30-11:30 AM Central for those interested:

lsu.zoom.us/j/4968115684

Deadline to apply: 1/26

I’m happy to share a preprint I contributed to, analyzing the evolutionary “fingerprints” of protein-coding genes in RNA viruses. Surface-exposed proteins from enveloped viruses show patterns consistent with relaxed purifying selection rather than adaptive evolution.

Join the University of Connecticut's RAD-seq virtual workshop (Jan. 13-16) for beginners. No prior bioinformatics experience needed. Learn data processing and variant calling. Register: https://bioinformatics.uconn.edu/cbc-workshops/ #workshop

🚨 New tool for viral genomics!

Meet CLAE: a high-fidelity Nanopore sequencing strategy that pushes accuracy to Q30, boosts throughput >800 Mb/100 pores, and recovers full-length viral genomes from complex samples 🌊🦠

👉 [https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202505978]

#viromics #nanopore #genomics

📢Join us for the next ECR #Viromics Webinar:
"Characterising novel viral proteins using protein language models (PLMs)"
‍🎙️ Kieran Lamb (@kieranlamb.bsky.social) | University of Glasgow/UK
🗓️ 8 October 2025, 4 PM CEST
📍 Online | Zoom (register for login details)
👉 coms.osu.edu/webinars/ecr...

🚨 We’re hiring! 🚨

The Integrative Viromics Lab @UCalgary 🇨🇦 is looking for a Lab Technician!

🔬 Phage isolation & culture
🧫 Anaerobic chamber work
📦 Lab management & student mentoring

Apply now & help us explore the virosphere!

You must have work authorization to work in Canada already.

#USDA posted an analysis of the D1.1 #H5N1 #birdflu viruses that infected Nevada cows — the new spillover event. They spotted a mutation in the PB2 gene that is associated with mammalian adaptation. What's this mean? Dunno. But 2 spillovers means more could come. www.aphis.usda.gov/sites/defaul...

Postdoc publications and citations link to academic retention and faculty success | PNAS Postdoctoral training is a career stage often described as a demanding and anxiety-laden time when many promising PhDs see their academic dreams sl...

More than 40 percent of #postdocs leave academia.

Those who landed a coveted faculty position were more likely to have had a highly cited paper, changed their research topic between their PhD and postdoc, or moved abroad after receiving their doctorate. #ChemSky

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

More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals Publishing highly cited papers helps postdoctoral researchers to land a faculty job.

More than 40 percent of #postdocs leave academia. Those who landed a coveted faculty position were more likely to have had a highly cited paper, changed their research topic between their #PhD and postdoc, or moved abroad after receiving their doctorate. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @pnas.org

Near Real-Time Genomic Characterization of the 2025 Sudan Ebolavirus Outbreak in Uganda’s Index Case: Insights into Evolutionary Origins Introduction Case History: On January 30, 2025, the Ministry of Health declared an outbreak of Sudan Ebola Virus (SUDV) Disease in Kampala, Uganda, following the death of a healthcare worker at Mula...

First genome sequence from the Ugandan Ebolavirus outbreak with analysis: virological.org/t/990 and first filovirus genome submitted to Pathoplexus database: pathoplexus.org/seq/PP_0011C.... Great (and rapid) work from the National Health Laboratory, UVRI and partners.

The mutational landscape of Staphylococcus aureus during colonisation - Nature Communications The authors applied a genomic and evolutionary approach to study Staphylococcus aureus in host adaptation during colonisation revealing signals of adaption in metabolic genes, in regulators of quorum-...

What are the genotypes promoting human colonization in S. aureus? Authors pooled >~7k genomes from >1500 ppl & looked at genomic variation to infer adaptation. Hits in metabolic genes (esp. nitrogen), QS, and antibiotic targets (incl. new resistance mutations). Cool!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Crucial stepping stones in freshwater microbiology - Nature Microbiology Three different studies in this issue use metagenomics to study the bacterial and viral dynamics of freshwater microbiomes, highlighting the ecological and environmental drivers of these ecosystems.

News and Views by @naturemicrobiol.bsky.social on our recent papers describing the 20-year study of ecology and evolution of viruses and bacteria in freshwater systems. @archaeal.bsky.social @quendi.bsky.social @uwmadison.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 Save the Date! 🚨
We're excited to announce #ViBioM2025, the International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting, happening 13–15 May 2025 in Lisbon, Portugal! 🦠💻
Stay tuned for further details: evbc.uni-jena.de/vibiom2025/
#VirusBioinformatics

Order of amino acid recruitment into the genetic code resolved by last universal common ancestor’s protein domains | PNAS The current “consensus” order in which amino acids were added to the genetic code is based on potentially biased criteria, such as the absence of s...

We identified protein domains in LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor). Their distinctive amino acid usage reveals the order amino acids were added to the genetic code, based mostly on size. Older proteins hint at earlier alternative codes. 1/15 @seekingluca.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Spread-gl: visualising pathogen dispersal in a high-performance browser application academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/advance-a... 🧬🖥️🧪 https://github.com/GuyBaele/SpreadGL

MVP: a modular viromics pipeline to identify, filter, cluster, annotate, and bin viruses from metagenomes - PubMed While numerous computational frameworks and workflows are available for recovering prokaryote and eukaryote genomes from metagenome data, only a limited number of pipelines are designed specifically for viromics analysis. With many viromics tools developed in the last few years alone, it can be chal …

MVP: a modular viromics pipeline to identify, filter, cluster, annotate, and bin viruses from metagenomes.

DOI: 10.1128/msystems.00888-24

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39352141/

Results highlight the significant impact of fiber and UPFs, with distinct differences observed by sex and dietary habits.

Gut Microbiota: Association with Fiber Intake, Ultra-Processed Food Consumption, Sex, Body Mass Index, and Socioeconomic Status in Medical Students The gut microbiota plays a vital role in various physical and physiological processes, including immune system regulation, neurotransmitter production, inflammatory response modulation, and the inhibi...

New paper out! www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16.... In this study assessed how gut microbiota composition in 91 medical students varies based on fiber intake, ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption, sex, body mass index (BMI), and socioeconomic status.

A photo of a mountain road covered in snow with a rock wall on the right side and tall conifer trees on both side of the road. A bright orange sunset is in the background of the photo. Taken on Mt. Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains above the city of Tucson, Arizona.

🧪 Join us in Tucson! We will begin reviewing applications on December 9 for our tenure track faculty position on the genomics of resilience @uofa-eeb.bsky.social! Apply here: arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

As #ViBioM2024 approaches, we are excited to provide you with the final list of keynote speakers!
Register now: evbc.uni-jena.de/events/vibio...

Working on phages and considering maybe attending ASM Microbe 2025 in Los Angeles ? Then you should 100% join us and submit your abstract to the "Phage Ecology: From Prophage Decision Making to Ecosystem Modulation", led by @phagebeelicious.bsky.social and @cathyhernandez.bsky.social ! \o/

Our Big Fantastic Virus Database (BFVD) is now published NAR! It contains protein structure predictions of major viral clades, enhanced by petabase-scale homology search and it's explorable on the web.
🌐 bfvd.foldseek.com
💾 bfvd.steineggerlab.workers.dev
📄 academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...