Our discovery of novel viruses in invasive camelids in Australia leads us to propose a simple idea: RNA viruses may repeatedly evolve functional modules at the 5โฒ end of their genomes.
#Virology #RNAvirus #VirusEvolution
#Picornavirus #VirusDiscovery
doi.org/10.64898/202...
Phionah Tushabe was the winner of our poster prize! Her study used metagenomics to identify viruses in stool of patients with non-polio acute flaccid paralysis. She not only had a beautiful poster but did a fantastic job of presenting her project. We canโt wait to see her work in the future!
Day 4 of the metagenomic virus discovery workshop is all about phylogenetics and virus evolution! Thanks to Eduan Wilkinson, Jackie Mahar and @spyroslytras.bsky.social
@ceri-news.bsky.social
This morning weโre starting bright and early with a hands on tutorial in handling large sequencing output and designing a virus discovery pipeline
The advanced metagenomics for virus discovery workshop is underway in South Africa. Participants from 20 countries, global South such as Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, and Ghana, collaborating with expert teams from CERI, Karolinska Institutet, Germany, Australia, Japan
Today, we start one of the most advanced virus discovery & metagenomics workshop in the world in Stellenbosch. Experts from Australia, America, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Italy, Nederlands, Japan, U.K and Sweden come together to teach participants from 20 countries.
Day 1 of the metagenomic virus discovery workshop is underway with lectures on project planning. Fantastic to have teachers and participants from 20 countries here together in Stellenbosch
The Metagenomic Virus Discovery workshop kicks off bright and early on Monday morning in gorgeous Stellenbosch, South Africa. We hope our participants are ready for a week packed full of insightful lecture and practical sessions with our panel of experts from around the world
Join us in the Neeslie Cinema, Stellenbosch University, on Wednesday 19th November at 14:00GMT (16:00 SAST) for the MVD workshop keynote. We have two fantastic talks from Dr Maja Vukovikj from Uppsala university, Sweden and Dr Erik Karlsson from Insitut Pasteur, Cambodia
tinyurl.com/ytj3sppm
Just over one month until we welcome our teachers and participants from all around the world to beautiful Stellenbosch, South Africa, for five days of hands on metagenomic virus discovery sessions
RA job description
postdoc job description
Our local beach - blue waters and white sand
Elephant hawk moth
Research assistant + postdoc position on a NERC funded project working w @darrenobbard.bsky.social and collaborating with @savebutterflies.bsky.social on the ecological and evolutionary drivers of the virome of UK moths @uniexecec.bsky.social. Descriptions below and links here benlongdon.com/join/
Just under 6 weeks until the metagenomic virus discovery workshop kicks off in Stellenbosch, South Africa. We're excited to be bringing together a fantastic group of speakers and teachers with expertise in all aspects of virus discovery from around the world.
Photograph of Dr Jackie Mahar, a researcher based at Agriculture Victoria Research. Her portrait is decorated with cartoons of microbes. Dr Jackie Mahar is an invited plenary speaker for MicroSeq2025.
โจ #MicroSeq2025 Plenary Highlight! โจ
Dr Jackie Mahar is an evolutionary virologist & bioinformatician based at CSIRO, managing projects on NGS-based phylogenomics of zoonotic & animal viruses for pathogen discovery, surveillance & viral ecology.
Register๐
trybooking.com/events/landing/1424679
MicroSeq2025 is an ECR and PhD student-friendly online meeting focused on the interface between sequencing technology and microbiology. being held on 3rd and 4th September, 2025. Registration and abstract submission opens on July 21, 2025 and abstracts are due August 8, 2025. Participants can register at microseqconference.com.
๐ฃCalling Australian/NZ ECRs and PhD Students ๐ฃ Abstract submission and registration for MicroSeq2025 opens July 21! Abstracts for both medium-length and lightning talks will be welcome.
Got a great idea for a metagenomic virus discovery project but not sure what to do next? We are running a 5 day hands on workshop in beautiful Stellenbosch, South Africa with experts from around the world. Applications are open until 31st July. climade.health/2025/06/22/m...
Interested in metagenomic virus discovery but don't know where to start? In collaboration with CERI and a group of virus discovery experts from around the world, we'll be running a 5 day hands-on workshop in virus discovery.
Find out more here: climade.health/2025/06/22/m...
Please!
Iโm so excited to finally have this work published. Fantastic work from @julienmelade.bsky.social culturing a virus identified through metagenomic virus discovery methods
I'm thinking of organising a meeting on endogenous viral elements (RNA, DNA and retroviral) - if you'd potentially be interested, please fill out the form here - forms.gle/wrCiWMw4yXZe... - so I can gauge interest. Please RT or share with anyone maybe interested! ๐งช๐งฌ๐ฅ๏ธ๐ฆ #virology #bioinformatics
After just short of nine years in the Holmes group, itโs come time for me to move on and stop spending Eddieโs money. Iโve had an incredible time working with everything from Antarctic ticks to Brazilian bird poo. But Iโm excited to be starting a Humboldt fellowship and joining FLI in Germany
We would love feedback on a new NCBI-BLAST service we are launching today: sky-blast.com
Under the hood it's the same BLAST executable and databases provided by NCBI, with a replica of the NIH's interface - providing an alternative to the US gov service that's less congested, faster & more reliable
The first measles death in the US in a decade -- the tragic, preventable death of a child whose parents chose not to protect them with vaccination -- should spark an immediate nation-wide campaign to ensure all children are protected against preventable diseases. Anything less is unconscionable.
I know all the headlines about the recent Japanese Encephalitis death in NSW state โa man from Sydneyโ but please keep in mind that there is currently no evidence the virus is active in mosquitoes along the east coast (inc. Sydney). https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/20250225_01.aspx
The abstract submission & registration for #RdRpSummit2025 is NOW OPEN!!! ๐๐
Do you work on RNA virus discovery using RdRps? Are you joining the #ViBioM2025 in Portugal?
Consider submitting your research in one of our sessions!
More info: RdRp.io
๐จ๐จ๐ฝโ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ฟโ๐ฌ๐ฃ๐ผ๐๐๐ฑ๐ผ๐ฐ ๐ต๐ถ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฎ๐น๐ฒ๐ฟ๐!
Work with us to develop supervised learning and graph analysis of the evolutionary and genomic links between viruses, the tissues they can infect, and the hosts that can be infected.
3y role based at @cvrinfo.bsky.social, apply by 18 Mar:
vibelab.co.uk/blog/25-02-1...
Who appointed the ICTV or its members and gave them authority? Taxonomy should facilitate clear and accurate communications. For many viral Families constantly changing names (not just binomials) have consistently created confusion - and been largely ignored by workers in the field.
Turns out that metatranscriptomic sequencing of animal gut contains can identify exotic plant viruses that are biosecurity threats. Work led by Jackie Mahar and Solomon Maina. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Within the order jingchivirales it seems random what has been classified vs not. Within the family some of the genera are not monophyletic and again, what is classified vs not seems random
Donโt even get me started on the chuviridaeโฆ
Now @erinharvey.bsky.social is taking us through increasingly weird viruses in increasingly weird marsupials. Tassie devils, antechinus, numbats, oh my! #AVS12
