Had an absolutely wonderful few days at #JSV72 in Hamamatsu & IMSUT in Tokyo.
Huge thanks to @shusukekawakubo.bsky.social, @shigeru0701.bsky.social, @spyroslytras.bsky.social & everyone in the @systemsvirology.bsky.social lab for being such brilliant hosts. Japan has been an amazing experience 🇯🇵✨

🚨Our study on characterising the within-host SARS-CoV-2 evolution during persistent infections is now out in @lancetmicrobe.bsky.social!
👉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Looking forward to welcoming you tomorrow, @spyroslytras.bsky.social! Spyros will be giving a seminar in Biology (Mansfield Road) at 11am on ‘AI-enabled structural comparisons uncover the deep evolutionary histories of viral glycoproteins’ — come along if you’re around!

Looking forward to tomorrow’s @smtpb.bsky.social event (5:30–7:00pm UK time)! If you’re interested, you can register here: stanford.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🚨We’re hiring a Postdoc to join our group at Oxford!

We’re developing methods to understand how pathogens evolve—across hosts, over time, & through molecular & structural change.

Keen or know someone who is? Please share!

🕒 3-year post
📅 Deadline: 30 May
🔗 Apply: www.jobs.ox.ac.uk/vacancy/179640

1/ Hello, BSky community! 👋
I’m an incoming Wellcome Trust Early Career Fellow & Group Leader at the University of Oxford. My research focuses on the molecular evolution of pathogens, especially viruses with pandemic potential. You can find out more about our work here: users.ox.ac.uk/~univ4613

Again naively eyeballing this H3N2 tree from Nexstrain, It seems like something funky is happening around 1985. Added lines to show the approximate rates — red seems to be a bit faster. But there doesn't seem to be a jump in distance. So, probably nothing to do with persistents?

I'm not as familiar with the influenza A literature, but is there a known cause for the distinct rate variation observed in hemagglutinin over time? It seems a lot like a step-wise increase, which I might naively attribute to a persistent infection. Could that be the case?

Looking ahead, it'd be exciting to see if we can find more evidence for ancient origins of plant viruses.

P.S.: After a few tries, I've come to the conclusion that DALL·E is really not good at making inspiring images of plant viruses!

Lineage replacement and evolution captured by 3 years of the United Kingdom Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...