If you'd like to celebrate the biology of viruses - or the fight against viral diseases - this winter, try out our free and updated #VirusSnowflake designs.
Please share, and if you have any photos of Virus Snowflakes in your area it would be lovely to see them!
cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl...

Fascinating multi-disciplinary study from @itingtu.bsky.social showing that vampire bats are being exposed to H5 HPAIVs 😄 Really excited to have been a small part of this story and cannot wait to see where it goes next 🦇🦠🦭

We talked about this back when the first trial for lenacapavir first said the magic words everyone wants to hear, "halted for efficacy"(*), so a recap: this is not a vaccine or a treatment. It's PrEP aka "pre-exposure prophylaxis": you take the drug so if exposed to the virus, you will not catch it.

📢 We’re delighted to announce that Professor Emma Thomson has been appointed as the new Director of the CVR.

An internationally recognised expert in emerging infectious diseases, Emma will continue to lead the CVR in its role in national and global pandemic response.

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

Important work from the Flu-TrailMap-OneHealth Consortium demonstrating that unpasteurised milk poses a risk of transmitting H5N1 - great to see this out there to help people make informed choices about raw milk consumption (…basically, don’t…)🥛🐄 🐑 🦠

Absolutely thrilled to announce the launch of ARTIC2 - a £5.5M 5 year project funded by @wellcometrust.bsky.social to build on the ARTIC approach of low-cost, globally accessible genome sequencing for surveillance of outbreaks, epidemics and endemic diseases: www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2025/am...

Very excited to be at my first #microbio2025 conference! If emerging infectious diseases, coronaviruses, adaptive immunity or epidemiological modelling interest you come see my talk in the Viruses: Adaptive Immunity session on Wednesday 👨‍⚕️🦠🔬

Excited to be at my first @microbiologysociety.org annual conference with the Hutchinson Lab @socialinfluenza.bsky.social! Please come and find me at poster 005 (block A) if you want to talk about biosafe methods to study HPAIV H5N1 🦠

1/3 How long do you think it takes for highly pathogenic avian flu H5N1 sequences to be uploaded to GISAID after collection? How long should it be? In this commentary, we find a median delay of 228 days, with half the countries taking more than 6 months. rdcu.be/eeZGU @naturebiotech.bsky.social

I’ve now been asked about the USDA H5N1 action plan quite a few times, so maybe I should say a few things about it.

There are a few things I like about it, more things I don’t, and some things about it that are completely WTAF.

This is the 5 step plan:

Exciting new preprint from Imrie et al looking at how changes in population immunity after the COVID-19 pandemic have influenced the potential emergence of ‘SARS-CoV-X’ (with classically beautiful data vis) @cvrinfo.bsky.social