CVR Bioinformatics

Today we have been at the Glasgow Science Centre showcasing our new Lego based DNA sequencer: GO-Seq, to learn about respiratory viruses, their DNA and sequencing. @cvrinfo.bsky.social @glasgowscience.bsky.social

Multi-omics analysis of SFTS virus infection in Rhipicephalus microplus cells reveals antiviral tick factors - Nature Communications Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus (SFTSV) is a deadly tick-borne virus and a growing global health threat. In this study, Petit et al. used a multi-omics approach on SFTSV-infected tick cells to study its impact and reveal host antiviral responses and key restriction factors.

SFTSV is a deadly tick-borne virus. In this study, Petit et al. used a multi-omics approach to reveal antiviral responses in SFTSV-infected tick cells

@virotick.bsky.social @brennanlab.bsky.social @cvrinfo.bsky.social
@uniofsurrey.bsky.social

Are you doing a PhD or research Masters in Virology? Want to be part of a community of like-minded researchers from across the UK and Ireland?

We're excited to announce the first annual conference run by and for postgraduate research students in Virology. Please sign up, and please spread the word!

The image shows a large group of people seated in an auditorium attending an event. Some individuals are standing at the front. On the right side, there is a banner or projection displaying the text "Glasgow Virology Workshop"

📢 EVENT | 27th Glasgow Virology Workshop

Join us for a day of interesting talks & discussions.

Speakers: Adam Bailey, Louis Lambrechts, Kirsty Roy, Judy Breuer, Sheila Graham, Juan Reguera & a selection of students.

📆 Fri 5th Sept 2025
🔗 Register: gla.ac.uk/research/az/...

man presents to an audience in a conference room. The projected slide reads “Anatomical origin of exhaled SARS-CoV-2 within the respiratory tract” and features a colourful virus illustration. Attendees are seated and focused on the presentation.

A group of people sits around a long table in a dimly lit restaurant. The table is filled with drinks. The setting features wooden wall panels and modern hanging light fixtures.

A group of people sits in a conference room with large windows, participating in a discussion. Attendees are taking notes or using laptops.

Twelve people pose for a group photo in front of a wall displaying logos for the Medical Research Council- University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research. They are dressed in business casual attire. The setting is an indoor office.

Last week we welcomed colleagues from ‪@helmholtzhzi.bsky.social‬ Centre for Infection Research & other project partners for our CVR-HZI Collaborative Development Fund Symposium.

We heard about exciting research projects and discussed new opportunities to further our collaborations.

cvr-hzi.co.uk

Our viral #Bioinformatics course has come to an end 🎉 @cvrinfo.bsky.social
This year we welcomed 15 amazing participants from Europe, Asia, Africa & Oceania🌍
Huge thanks to everyone who joined — and to our instructors!

Had a delicious #VGB2025 course dinner at Ka Pao 🍽️😋
At another buffet-style social, @quangu.bsky.social welcomed everyone with a traditional Scottish folk song 🎤

As the collaborating centre of @woahglobal.bsky.social , we’re thrilled to launch our 8th annual course on viral bioinformatics & genomics! Welcome speech by @cvrinfo.bsky.social director @emcat1.bsky.social & head of Bioinformatics @davidlrobertson.bsky.social 🧬📊 #bioinformatics #genomics

Multi-omics analysis of SFTS virus infection in Rhipicephalus microplus cells reveals antiviral tick factors - Nature Communications Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus (SFTSV) is a deadly tick-borne virus and a growing global health threat. In this study, Petit et al. used a multi-omics approach on SFTSV-infected tic...

OMG! I can finally share my joy to see my SFTSV work published in @natcomms.nature.com! This adventure started by the award of my MSCA grant and my move to the Kohl and @brennanlab.bsky.social at @cvrinfo.bsky.social. Let's chat about how we discovered novel tick anti-viral effectors!

Variable rates of SARS-CoV-2 evolution in chronic infections Author summary Novel SARS-CoV-2 variants such as Alpha and Omicron were characterised by the presence of multiple genetic changes not found in other SARS-CoV-2 viruses at the time. One hypothesis is t...

Read the paper: journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Research led by Ewan Smith in the Illingworth Lab (@chrisillingworth.bsky.social).
Collaborations: @cambridgeup.bsky.social
Funding: @ukri.org @wellcometrust.bsky.social

The recency and geographical origins of the bat viruses ancestral to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 Recombination-aware evolutionary analyses of the entire genomes of SARS-CoV-1-like and SARS-CoV-2-like viruses indicate that SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 descend from bat coronaviruses that circulated as...

📄 NEW | Genetic Study shows that Wildlife Trade sparked COVID-19 Virus Emergence in Humans

SARS-CoV-2 arrived in Wuhan too quickly for bat hosts to have carried it there.

cell.com/cell/fulltex...

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

@davidlrobertson.bsky.social
@spyroslytras.bsky.social
@bljog.bsky.social

📢 You have until Friday 30th May to submit an abstract to present at this year's #GlasgowVirologyWorkshop!

We'd love to hear from delegates of all backgrounds and career stages.

Send a PDF with your abstract (200 words max), name, email and affiliation to cvr-gvw@glasgow.ac.uk.

Members of the CVR's Bioinformatics Team (@cvrbioinfo.bsky.social) attended this year's International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting (ViBioM) in Lisbon.

Postdocs Kieran Lamb and Fran Young and students Rubayet Alam and Robert Strange presented interesting posters.

evbc.uni-jena.de/events/vibio...

The UK Pandemic Sciences Network meeting & One Health Computational Network meeting 👍@cvrinfo.bsky.social @ukri.org @uofglasgow.bsky.social

UK Pandemic Sciences Network Conference 2025 The UKPSN meeting at University of Glasgow will explore pandemic preparedness, surveillance, innovation, response, and global collaboration.

📅 DEADLINE EXTENDED | UK Pandemic Sciences Network & One Health Computational Network

Register for the event before Tues 8th April.

Don't miss out this incredible opportunity to take part in these important events.

UKPSN: ukpsn2025.eventbrite.co.uk
OHCN: ohcn2025.eventbrite.co.uk

Congratulations Dan! 🎉

Dan Liu's thesis focuses on leveraging pre-trained protein language models to predict virus-host associations and training large language models to predicted protein-protein interactions within and across species.

@cvrbioinfo.bsky.social

🌍 We recently visited Nairobi & Kilifi for a partnership meeting hosted by the Kenya Medical Research Institute Centre for Virus Research & Wellcome Trust Research Programme.

Together we aim to drive impactful research to tackle viral threats & improve global health.

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

📢 New paper in @naturecomms.bsky.social

Check out Emma's thread below ⬇️

We hope everyone attending @microbiologysociety.org's conference this week has a brilliant time! 🦠

Dan from The Robertson Lab has just passed her viva! Congratulations 🥂 🎉 @cvrinfo.bsky.social @davidlrobertson.bsky.social

A promotional banner for the One Health Computational Network Symposium 2025. On the left, a blue background contains white text reading "One Health Computational Network Symposium 2025" alongside the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) logo. On the right, a researcher wearing a lab coat, gloves, a mask, and glasses is using a pipette to load a sample into an Oxford Nanopore GridION sequencing device. The bottom of the banner features logos of partnering institutions, including the University of Glasgow, CVR, The Pirbright Institute, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, University of Birmingham, University of Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh.

📢 Join us at the upcoming @ukri.org One Health Computational Network Symposium #OHCN2025, we'll be discussing surveillance, AI's potential, genome epidemiology & public health.

Connect with experts and help advance pandemic preparedness.

Register now: bioinformatics.cvr.ac.uk/one-health-c...

An International Women's Day graphic, featuring cartoon representations of four individuals performing the Accelerate Action pose around the words Happy International Women's Day

🟣 Happy International Women's Day!

Today, we celebrate two of the women leading by example in @uofgsii.bsky.social.

We are especially proud to highlight these inspirational figures as the first females to lead Sii and @cvrinfo.bsky.social.

🔗 www.gla.ac.uk/schools/infe...

#IWD2025

🧵 1/4

Finally made it to KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme, 5 years after a planned visit was scuppered by the pandemic.

Thanks to Charles Nyaigoti & James Abuje for being great hosts and showing us the fantastic science they are doing.

@cvrinfo.bsky.social
@davidlrobertson.bsky.social

🇰🇪🦠🔬🧬

Join us for UKRI One Health Computational Network Symposium!
📅 24th April
📍 @uofglasgow.bsky.social
Experts in AI & computational methods tackling viral threats! 🦠
🔗 Register: tinyurl.com/cvrohcn
@cvrinfo.bsky.social
#AI #ComputationalBiology #InfectiousDiseases

3y postdoc role available in computational biology! | VIBE Research Lab Work with us in a three year postdoc research role! The role will develop supervised learning and graph analysis methods to understand the evolutionary and genomic links between viruses, the tissues t...

🚨👨🏽‍🔬👩🏿‍🔬𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗱𝗼𝗰 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘁!

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...

🦟How do bunyaviruses spread via mosquitoes?

A new study shows the NSm protein is key. NSm helps the virus move cell-to-cell in the mosquito midgut, a crucial step for transmission. Without it, infection fails.

Find out more: gla.ac.uk/research/az/...
Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41...

Pathogen genomic surveillance and the AI revolution | Journal of Virology Genomic pathogen sequencing during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical role of surveillance in understanding the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in the human population despite high levels of pro...

Recently we have been doing lots of work on how modern #AI methods can be applied to studying virus evolution, so it felt like great timing to write a perspective about it!

Very happy to see our paper as editor's pick in JVI!🥳🥳

doi.org/10.1128/jvi....

A promotional graphic for fellowship sponsorship at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR). The background features two researchers in white lab coats and face masks working in a laboratory. Bold yellow text reads "Fellowship Sponsorship at the CVR." Below, a blue banner contains white text outlining the CVR’s commitment to supporting a diverse and inclusive research community, ending with "Get in touch!" in yellow. Logos for UKRI, the Medical Research Council, the University of Glasgow, and CVR are displayed at the bottom.

📢 Fellowship Sponsorship at the CVR
📆 Deadline 2/4/25

We have an open sponsorship process and are committed to supporting a diverse, inclusive & well-supported community.

We particularly welcome applicants from underrepresented backgrounds.

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

A man with short grey hair and a beard stands against a wooden panel background, wearing a light blue shirt. An inset hexagonal frame in the foreground contains a portrait of a woman with short brown hair, wearing a yellow floral blouse and smiling

📢 After 14 years of successful leadership, Prof Massimo Palmarini has stepped down as CVR Director.

Prof Emma Thomson, a leading expert in emerging infectious diseases, will act as Interim Director, continuing the CVR’s vital work in virus research.

🔗 gla.ac.uk/news/headlin...

Modelling the potential use of pre-exposure prophylaxis to reduce nosocomial SARS-CoV-2 transmission The nosocomial transmission of respiratory pathogens is an ongoing healthcare challenge, with consequences for the health of vulnerable individuals. Outbreaks in hospitals can require the closure of b...

Could a commonly-prescribed drug, given under medical supervision, help to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission in hospitals?  We used mathematical modelling to carry out a preliminary assessment.  medrxiv.org/cgi/content/....  Thread follows.