Sam Díaz-Muñoz (they / ella)

Virus Evolution: Scaling up efforts to target evolving viruses High-throughput neutralisation tests could lead to a better understanding of the evolution of human influenza.

The final version of record of this study has been published in @elife.bsky.social alongside a nice insight perspective: elifesciences.org/articles/110...

Figure 3 of our paper, which shows viral coinfection networks at the virus level

New preprint! 🥳🎉 We looked at viral coinfection patterns at the largest scale ever in wildlife. We found a strong association among CoVs, PMVs, and influenza A, and higher coinfection rates in wildlife trade; plus, evidence that bats accumulate persistent infections. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Welcome! No worries. There is *a lot* going on.

Stockings with lab member names

Holiday Decoration on lab door

Happy Holidays from the Díaz-Muñoz Lab! May your stockings be stuffed with great summary statements, NOA's, and proofs!!

Nothing like starting the day with shiny proofs 🤓

We are searching for a lab manager!
If you are detailed oriented, like southern california, HSV-1, sequencing and microscopy, please get in touch :)

4/ #DYK during pregnancy🤰, cells are exchanged between mothers + offspring, & even twins? Awardee @elizostrow.bsky.social will study how microchimerism mediates genetic conflict and drive resource competition.
🍾 Congrats Dr. Ostrowski! @uwbothell.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout @paulturnerlab.bsky.social

PSA to aspiring graduate students: If you have a submitted or pre-printed publication, **please** list it on your CV, mention it in your research statement, and in the application. Don't leave out the one thing that can make your application automatically higher ranking! #GradSchool Pls RT

Very cool! Can't wait to read.

Phage–bacteria dynamics: The tragedy of the commons at hyperspeed A recent study found that apparently stable coexistence between a clinically important pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and its integrated prophages can break down, setting off an evolutionary cycle ...

It was great to write a brief commentary with @sociovirology.bsky.social on @nanamikubota.bsky.social and @vscooper.micropopbio.org's recent discovery of cheat-driven cycles in Pseudomonas (www.cell.com/current-biol... - amazing example of the tragedy of the commons!

🧪 #socialviruses #evosky

A wonderful commentary by @asherleeks.bsky.social and @sociovirology.bsky.social on our recent work with P. aeruginosa filamentous cheater miniphages!

@vscooper.micropopbio.org @shellyscrib.bsky.social

NIH Directors: The World Needs a New Pandemic Playbook The old one failed to cope with Covid and may even have caused it.

A new approach to pandemic preparedness:

1️⃣ Stop preparing for pandemics
2️⃣ Rewrite history of the last major pandemic
3️⃣ Go to the gym

Simple - 🤷‍♂️.

www.city-journal.org/article/nih-...

Yearly reminder for letters of recommendation: Double and triple check your language for gender bias!!

It is super easy to counter our unconscious bias. Check, be mindful, and use a calculator like this one: www.tomforth.co.uk/genderbias/

A very belated spooky season post from our lab! 🎃👻🕸️✨

UC to Stop Funding Systemwide Postdoc Program Established in 1984 to encourage women and minority Ph.D.s to pursue academia, the program has attracted right-wing criticism for prioritizing diverse candidates.

One more step backward, one more reminder that progress in academia is never linear. But take heart, familia. Nos quisieron enterrar, pero no sabían que éramos semillas.

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

22-Oct 2022 headline from The Economist A new paper claims SARS-CoV-2 bears signs of genetic engineering But it has yet to be peer reviewed. And others strongly disagree

🧵Remember the preprint claiming SARS-CoV-2 has a "synthetic fingerprint"?

It said a restriction map was "extremely unlikely to have arisen by random evolution.”

I took its claims seriously.

The "synthetic fingerprint" hypothesis collapses. My new preprint explains why.

arxiv.org/abs/2510.23833

Come be my chair at The University of Arizona! We have great bike riding, hiking, and of course, science! arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Change Clothes and Go: Viral Mutations and the Remix of Infection YouTube video by American Society for Microbiology

Wonderful and engaging presentation from #ASMicrobe by @jaycdoesid.bsky.social of @ucsandiego.bsky.social on important vaccine awareness work that is so needed in these days of disinformation. @asm.org

Terrific writeup of our new paper led by @nanamikubota.bsky.social, thanks Pitt media!

www.medschool.pitt.edu/news/bacteri...

Thanks so much for settling this dispute!

I'll see if they can convince the science teacher to participate in #2026MMM!

🤣🤣🤣

OK, so this is timely to my household because one of my kiddo's friends insists that a bear would beat a hippo - no one else agrees. I think the Pygmy Hippo Championship in 2018 is sufficient evidence, but do you (or the #2026MMM community) want to weigh in?

a cartoon scene from spongebob squarepants with the words oh absolutely on the bottom Alt: a cartoon scene from spongebob squarepants of Patrick Star jumping over a coral landscape with a butterfly fish net with an arm pump saying "Oh Absolutely!"

Have we already finalized the #2026MMM line-up?
Yes.

Is it epic?
For sure.

But is it ridiculous?

Did you know that it only takes one spontaneous mutation in your bacterial culture to activate a phage, and trigger a subsequent cascade of bacterial/phage evolution? 🧪 Curious how you could detect similar events in your experiments? Check out Nanami’s work!

Published in Current Biology! P. aeruginosa can use its filamentous phage to inhibit competitors but high phage production is susceptible to cheater miniphage invasion. Subsequent phage tragedy of the commons can lower bacteria and phage fitness. Link: authors.elsevier.com/c/1lt5I3QW8S...

A graphic advertising phage ecology and evolution research at the University of South Carolina, showing a central image of a tide pool flanked by a photo of an agar plate containing diverse microbes and a TEM image of a virus particle.

Very happy to share that I will be starting as an Assistant Professor in the department of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina in January! My group will be working on environmental phage ecology and evolution, and I am recruiting for the upcoming year (more info below).

Jane Goodall, ethologist and conservationist, has died. She was 91

This moment from our latest episode with science writer @edyong209.bsky.social is 🔥

We asked Ed — how do we talk up the benefits of science in the face of government cuts? He told us that's the wrong approach. 🧪

Listen wherever, or watch on Spotify 👇

open.spotify.com/episode/7Evh...

🌐 From the first web page created in 1991… to 1 trillion web pages archived today.

Every meme, blog, tweet & vanished site is part of our shared story. This is our collective memory. And it’s being saved.

Join in our celebration this October: blog.archive.org/trillion/

#Wayback1T #WaybackMachine

Host cell state: an overlooked factor impacting the production of influenza A deletion-containing viral genomes and non-infectious particles | mBio Within the infected host, influenza A virus has a bipartite existence as intracellular viral genomic segments undergoing replication and assembly into progeny particles and extracellular progeny parti...

New out in #mBio from our lab! Dr. Ile Agu reviewed developments on *host* influences on influenza deletion containing viral genomes (DelVGs, fka defective viral genomes).

Hoping for more research in this area. So much promising basic and applied science!
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org