Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🇬🇧🍷🚀
@edrybicki.bsky.social
Semi-retired biotechnologist and virologist, interested in making vaccines, lover of 70s rock and hard SF. And good red wine. Posts are both personal and professional, and may include music and/or strong opinions. And possibly zombies.
Pinned
Cann's Principles of Molecular Virology
**Selected for Doody’s Core Titles® 2024 in Microbiology**Cann's Principles of Molecular Virology, Seventh Edition provides an easily access...
www.sciencedirect.com
"Cann's Principles of Molecular Virology 7th Edition revised extensively by Ed Rybicki, is an easily accessible introduction to modern virology, presenting principles in a clear and concise manner."
**Selected for Doody’s Core Titles® 2024 in Microbiology**
www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128...
**Selected for Doody’s Core Titles® 2024 in Microbiology**
www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128...
Oui, Wordle 1,702 4/6, c’est splendide!
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February 15, 2026 at 6:02 PM
Oui, Wordle 1,702 4/6, c’est splendide!
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I endorse that placard down to the right.
February 15, 2026 at 10:25 AM
I endorse that placard down to the right.
Reposted by Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🇬🇧🍷🚀
This is really beautiful work
I am excited to share our latest preprint - An evolutionarily divergent herpesvirus with a giant tail. Featuring symmetry breaking and genome annotation from structure using ModelAngelo. doi.org/10.64898/202...
February 14, 2026 at 5:24 PM
This is really beautiful work
Reposted by Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🇬🇧🍷🚀
Thought for Today:
Roses are red
Dead children are blue
Shunning vaccines
Can do that to you….
Roses are red
Dead children are blue
Shunning vaccines
Can do that to you….
February 14, 2026 at 8:58 AM
Thought for Today:
Roses are red
Dead children are blue
Shunning vaccines
Can do that to you….
Roses are red
Dead children are blue
Shunning vaccines
Can do that to you….
Reposted by Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🇬🇧🍷🚀
Out Now! Realizing phage therapy in the UK #MicroSky
Realizing phage therapy in the UK
Nature Microbiology, Published online: 13 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02280-zOn 25 November 2025, the international phage therapy research and biotechnology communities gathered in Liverpool, UK, to discuss progress in implementing clinical phage therapies and the latest technological breakthroughs in phage biology and engineering, while UK regulators and health agencies provided the latest guidance.
go.nature.com
February 14, 2026 at 12:12 AM
Out Now! Realizing phage therapy in the UK #MicroSky
Oh, come on! Minnie, is it??Wordle 1,700 6/6
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February 13, 2026 at 8:28 PM
Oh, come on! Minnie, is it??Wordle 1,700 6/6
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Reposted by Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🇬🇧🍷🚀
This is such a fun thread on a conceptual head twister of a paper. Bold hypothesis and clever selection scheme. Kudos to the authors!
How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller?
Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
1/n
Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
1/n
A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand
The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...
www.science.org
February 13, 2026 at 5:37 PM
This is such a fun thread on a conceptual head twister of a paper. Bold hypothesis and clever selection scheme. Kudos to the authors!
Reposted by Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🇬🇧🍷🚀
This is incredibly cool
How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller?
Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
1/n
Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
1/n
A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand
The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...
www.science.org
February 13, 2026 at 3:10 PM
This is incredibly cool
Reposted by Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🇬🇧🍷🚀
Greek mythology @edrybicki.bsky.social style
February 13, 2026 at 2:58 PM
Greek mythology @edrybicki.bsky.social style
Just finished "Stormland" by John Shirley @johnshirley2024.bsky.social. SERIOUSLY good - but bleak as fuck. You read!
February 13, 2026 at 2:40 PM
Just finished "Stormland" by John Shirley @johnshirley2024.bsky.social. SERIOUSLY good - but bleak as fuck. You read!
Reposted by Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🇬🇧🍷🚀
Polyomaviruses are masters of persistence and dissemination: we show there are two forms of long-term persistent PyVs in the kidney: the majority being cryptic (non-shedding) and a minority that actively shed, and these fates are determined shortly after infection.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
February 13, 2026 at 1:31 PM
Polyomaviruses are masters of persistence and dissemination: we show there are two forms of long-term persistent PyVs in the kidney: the majority being cryptic (non-shedding) and a minority that actively shed, and these fates are determined shortly after infection.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Oh, I DO like Sir Terry’s turns of phrase!
Discworld QOTD, from Wyrd Sisters
February 13, 2026 at 1:49 PM
Oh, I DO like Sir Terry’s turns of phrase!
There you are, @cooks4luv.bsky.social!
February 13, 2026 at 1:25 PM
There you are, @cooks4luv.bsky.social!
I think that calls for a little celebration? 😁
February 13, 2026 at 12:17 PM
I think that calls for a little celebration? 😁
It only took 48 years to sort out this little issue...my Zambian passport extended in validity by one month, and then 3 years, because of the refusal of British authorities to recognise matrilineal entitlement to being British. Thanks, Mum! It finally came through 😁
February 13, 2026 at 9:23 AM
It only took 48 years to sort out this little issue...my Zambian passport extended in validity by one month, and then 3 years, because of the refusal of British authorities to recognise matrilineal entitlement to being British. Thanks, Mum! It finally came through 😁
Reposted by Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🇬🇧🍷🚀
The replicase???
Ooooh. Cool new paper on origins of life. A simple 45-nucleotide RNA molecule that can perfectly copy itself.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand
The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...
www.science.org
February 13, 2026 at 6:44 AM
The replicase???
So NA suddenly looks like a good subunit vaccine target for flu - and especially H5N1?? Nice!
Population immunity to clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 is dominated by anti-neuraminidase
antibodies
«we determined that human sera contain widespread, functional antibodies targeting H5N1 neuraminidase, which correlate with virus neutralization…»
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
#H5N1
antibodies
«we determined that human sera contain widespread, functional antibodies targeting H5N1 neuraminidase, which correlate with virus neutralization…»
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
#H5N1
February 13, 2026 at 9:00 AM
So NA suddenly looks like a good subunit vaccine target for flu - and especially H5N1?? Nice!
Reposted by Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🇬🇧🍷🚀
Why hasn't this paper gotten more attention?
A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand
The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...
www.science.org
February 13, 2026 at 1:40 AM
Why hasn't this paper gotten more attention?
Actual demo 10-40% sucrose gradient separation by ultracentrifugation of three viruses in 1982. I did SO many of these...!
February 12, 2026 at 8:00 PM
Actual demo 10-40% sucrose gradient separation by ultracentrifugation of three viruses in 1982. I did SO many of these...!
Mementos.... I had a Ché poster on my wall in the Upper VI dormitory in 1973.
February 12, 2026 at 7:56 PM
Mementos.... I had a Ché poster on my wall in the Upper VI dormitory in 1973.
Awwwww...! Layla, also of fond memory, as a pup in 2014.
February 12, 2026 at 7:47 PM
Awwwww...! Layla, also of fond memory, as a pup in 2014.
Suzy, of fond memory, having a tummy rub in 2014 😢
February 12, 2026 at 7:45 PM
Suzy, of fond memory, having a tummy rub in 2014 😢
Ah, now; who can interpret this?? Actual Ouchterlony test, with anti-BMV serum (centre) against 3 wells of virus, 1 of PBS, and 1 of isolated coat protein! Ed Rybicki, MSc dissertation, 1979.
February 12, 2026 at 7:42 PM
Ah, now; who can interpret this?? Actual Ouchterlony test, with anti-BMV serum (centre) against 3 wells of virus, 1 of PBS, and 1 of isolated coat protein! Ed Rybicki, MSc dissertation, 1979.
I used to use this as a lecture slide: I think it's very apposite, here and now....I
February 12, 2026 at 7:33 PM
I used to use this as a lecture slide: I think it's very apposite, here and now....I