Escape from Death: Flu virus spreads via tunnelling tubes it induces between cells; tube formation correlates with onset of apoptosis

📷 @danielweiriav.bsky.social et al @socialinfluenza.bsky.social lab @uofglasgow.bsky.social in
@plos.org PLOS Pathogens

➡️ bpod.org.uk/archive/2025...

ICYMI: @danielweiriav.bsky.social 's lovely work on influenza's secret tunnels between cells is now summarised in this video, as well as being the featured Biomedical Picture of the Day here: bpod.org.uk/archive/2025...

🦠 Influenza's Great Escape

New research from @danielweiriav.bsky.social & colleagues reveals that flu viruses use secret tunnelling nanotube-like structures to escape your immune system.

Full video: youtu.be/Opfpwy9yUew

gla.ac.uk/research/az/...

@socialinfluenza.bsky.social @uofgsii.bsky.social

Induction of tunnelling nanotube-like structures by influenza A viruses requires the onset of apoptosis

journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

🚨🔎 Out now in PLOS Pathogens ! 🔎🚨 This project has taken us @cvrinfo.bsky.social @uofgmvls.bsky.social on a wild and wonderful journey. I am excited to share our story of how influenza A viruses (IAVs) exploit cell death to facilitate its covert spread. N/1 journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Well done Daniel! 👏

Thanks to everyone who came along to the Virus-Host interactions forum today at Microsoc 2025! A privilege and pleasure to present my PhD work with @socialinfluenza.bsky.social @cvrinfo.bsky.social. A story, which has grown and taken me on a crazy Flu ride that I hope is just starting!

Shameless plugs: if you're at the meeting please say hello to members of our group, they are all fab:
(1) @danielweiriav.bsky.social talks about TNTs and flu in the Virus:Host Interactions Forum (Weds 2nd 14:45)
(2) Junsen Zhang has a poster in block A on pasteurising flu in milk (A036)
...

Why can't these viruses be friends?
In a new study from her PhD @cvrinfo.bsky.social, #AnnaSims shows that #SARS-CoV-2 infections segregate into distinct microdomains as they spread. But why? (1/N)
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Why can't these viruses be friends?
During her PhD, Anna Sims showed that influenza viruses segregate into genetically-distinct lesion through a process called superinfection exclusion. In a new preprint, she shows that the same process also applies for SARS-CoV-2
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Really proud to share our preprint describing early adaptation of H5N1 to US dairy cattle, and showing how these mutations enhance the ability of the virus to infect other mammals, such as pigs and humans.

With @influenzal.bsky.social @vidhid.bsky.social @drclairesmith.bsky.social and many more!

🔬 CVR Bioimaging recently hosted an Imaging Competition in collaboration with Zeiss.

JP Parvy won with 'Mosquitoes don’t discriminate.' Ewan Parry and @danielweiriav.bsky.social were runners up.

All images will be used to decorate the walls of the CVR!

Thank you to everyone for taking part in this year's Influenza Update Meeting, it was really fun to catch up. All the presentations were great, but particular congratulations to Cal Bentley-Abbot and Daniel Weir for winning the vote for best talk and poster, respectively: well done!

inaugural post on the new blue app I'll be wasting my time on!

I was conferencing last week and spent a lot of time talking about #H5N1 with colleagues. Particularly the curious human case from BC, Canada 🍁.

This week the sequence is out and I'm back in Tokyo, so I made some trees! 🧵