Dr. Jenna Kelly 👩🏻‍🔬👩🏻‍💻🧬🦠🌎

Very cool!

This week’s main story is about the budget and staffing cuts being made to public health agencies in the U.S. under RFK Jr.’s leadership, how those cuts will impact all of us, and some foolproof ideas for what scientists can do in the absence of totally superfluous stuff like, y’know, centrifuges.

GitHub - shandley/awesome-virome: A listing of software, tools and databases useful for virome analysis A listing of software, tools and databases useful for virome analysis - shandley/awesome-virome

Check out this list of awesome #virome tools and be sure to add yours!

github.com/shandley/awe...

#phagesky #microsky

How the NIH dominates the world’s health research — in charts (and what we stand to lose)
@nature.com @natureportfolio.nature.com
🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

CDC Staff Prohibited From Co-Authoring Papers With World Health Organization Personnel It’s just the latest “Orwellian” crackdown on government scientists.

I don’t even know how this could be presented as being in service of anything other than hindering scientific progress.

Everyone who ever got funding through NIAID should be aware of this bill and start sending messages to their US legislators. The bill intends to dissolve NIAID. This is Project 2025
www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

CDC's "disease detectives" halved as part of DOGE cuts at health agencies More than 1 in 10 of the health agency's workers are being let go, including an entire new class of CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service officers.

Half of EIS, the CDC's renowned "disease detectives," gone. These folks respond to emergencies in the US and around the globe, and are now in tatters.

Opinion | I Shudder to Imagine Kennedy Running Our Health Agencies. We have to go toe-to-toe with this administration and resist its attacks on public health.

A fantastic article by Dr. @gregggonsalves.bsky.social on the dangers we’re facing and a potential path forward 👇🏻

📢 Don’t miss the deadline ⚠️ 27 February ⚠️ to submit your abstract to the [BC]2 Basel #ComputationalBiology Conference.
From #GeneExpression to #evolution or #biomedicine - we are waiting to learn more on your research projects at #bc2basel!

👉Submit your abstract now: tinyurl.com/49w6wthj

RFK as HHS Secretary is a disaster for public health.

His long history of spreading vaccine misinformation & undermining science puts lives at risk.

It’s disappointing officials didn't take a stronger stand against this—our health depends on leaders who trust evidence, not conspiracy theories.

Environmental sampling—air, water, and surfaces—in live bird markets coupled with NGS can outperform traditional poultry swabs in avian influenza (H5N1) and other zoonotic threats.

Check out our preprint here: www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-5...

#virosky #idsky 🧪🦠🔬🧬🐓

Trump policies spark fears of brain drain, threatening to undermine U.S. dominance in biomedicine A torrent of Trump administration policies is alarming scientists who fear the current climate is weakening researchers’ resolve to stick with careers in academic science.

The Trump administration's cuts in science funding will likely lead to an exodus of scientific expertise, the research community warns. "That beacon of research that the US was for several decades — it’s just not going to be there.” www.statnews.com/2025/02/12/t...

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Marie Curie, Physicist and chemist.

Today is International Day of Women & Girls in Science.

Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. Her contributions have left an indelible mark on the world of science & health & continue to inspire generations of scientists & innovators. 🔬 #WomenInScience #WomenInSTEM

This is a very concerning development: H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, genotype D1.1 detected in dairy cattle. The D1.1 genotype may be connected to more severe disease in humans.

www.aphis.usda.gov/news/program...

Near Real-Time Genomic Characterization of the 2025 Sudan Ebolavirus Outbreak in Uganda’s Index Case: Insights into Evolutionary Origins Introduction Case History: On January 30, 2025, the Ministry of Health declared an outbreak of Sudan Ebola Virus (SUDV) Disease in Kampala, Uganda, following the death of a healthcare worker at Mula...

First genome sequence from the Ugandan Ebolavirus outbreak with analysis: virological.org/t/990 and first filovirus genome submitted to Pathoplexus database: pathoplexus.org/seq/PP_0011C.... Great (and rapid) work from the National Health Laboratory, UVRI and partners.

How the World Health Organization can thrive without the United States If the 193 remaining member nations want the WHO to succeed, they must find a way to pay for it.

Diseases, especially infectious diseases, do not respect borders. If countries genuinely want & value an organization that champions health for all, they must all step up to support WHO

(Our editorial this week)
#MedSky
@nature.com
@who.int
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Bat genomes illuminate adaptations to viral tolerance and disease resistance - Nature A systematic analysis of 115 mammalian genomes, including 10 new bat genomes, reveals prevalent positive selection in immune genes in bats and shows key adaptations in the antiviral gene ISG15 that ai...

🚨 FINALLY OUT IN @Nature.

A tour de force effort. 🦇 10 new bat genomes, excess of immune gene adaptations, species specific adaptations in ISG15, and anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity of bat ISG15. @hillermich.bsky.social @batresearch.bsky.social #LZCI #Bat1K

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

‘Never seen anything like this’: Trump’s team halts NIH meetings and travel In an unprecedented move, research-grant reviews have been suspended indefinitely at the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research.

Operation Dark Ages is going well so far.

✔️Putting the livelihoods & careers of 1000s of researchers in jeopardy

✔️Not publishing the MMWR, which has been going strong for 6 decades

✔️Withholding key reports about H5N1, which is a rapidly increasing pandemic risk

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Trump orders U.S. to withdraw from World Health Organization The move to exit the WHO is historic and controversial. The U.S. has long been the most generous provider of humanitarian assistance.

During his first term, US President Donald Trump signaled his intention to withdraw from the #WHO. He signaled today he intends to carry through on a move that experts say will threaten global health security. www.statnews.com/2025/01/20/t...

Within-host genetic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 across animal species Abstract. Infectious disease transmission to different host species makes eradication very challenging and expands the diversity of evolutionary trajectori

First paper of the year is "Within-host genetic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 across animal species."

TLDR: Deer contain more within-host viral diversity than humans! Why? Read on.

(brief 🧵; 1/n)

academic.oup.com/ve/article/1...

🚨 Save the Date! 🚨
We're excited to announce #ViBioM2025, the International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting, happening 13–15 May 2025 in Lisbon, Portugal! 🦠💻
Stay tuned for further details: evbc.uni-jena.de/vibiom2025/
#VirusBioinformatics

CDC just confirmed the first severe case of #H5N1 in the US in a patient in Louisiana. This virus seems to be the same genotype D1.1 that is spreading in birds at the moment (so not the cattle genotype B3.13) that severely sickened the teenager in Canada. #IDsky 🧪

"What's happening with this mystery illness in the Congo"

I've gotten this text dozens of times in the past few days.

Here's what we know. What we don't.

And what really matters 🧵

Why hasn’t the bird flu pandemic started? Some scientists examining mutations found in H5N1 viruses fear major outbreak is imminent but others says pathogen remains unpredictable

If an #H5N1 pandemic starts tomorrow or in three months, there will be little mystery as to how it happened. The conditions are all there. They have been for a while.
So in some ways the more interesting question to me at the moment is: Why aren’t we in a pandemic yet?
Story here, 🧵 to come:
🧪#IDSky

Unknown disease kills 143 people in south-west DRC, local authorities say Infected people described as having flu-like symptoms including high fever and severe headaches

“Infected people had flu-like symptoms including high fever and severe headaches, Remy Saki, the deputy governor of Kwango province, and Apollinaire Yumba, the provincial minister of health, said on Monday.