Veena Menon

Some common viruses may steeply raise risk of cardiovascular disease

www.cidrap.umn.edu/influenza-ge...

Global mortality associated with 33 bacterial pathogens in 2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 The 33 bacterial pathogens that we investigated in this study are a substantial source of health loss globally, with considerable variation in their distribution across infectious syndromes and locati...

Global mortality associated with 33 bacterial pathogens in 2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 - The Lancet www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

ICMR to expand wastewater surveillance to 50 cities for early outbreak alerts - CNBC TV18 The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will scale up wastewater surveillance to 50 cities over the next year to track pathogens, strengthening India’s early warning system for outbreaks.

www.cnbctv18.com/india/health...

ggplot2 4.0.0 A new major version of ggplot2 has been released on CRAN. Find out what is new here.

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN.

It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package.

Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

Unraveling the role of viral interference in disrupting biennial RSV epidemics in northern Stockholm - Nature Communications This study conducted a 20-year analysis in Stockholm showing that RSV epidemic patterns shifted due to viral interference from influenza, particularly, pandemic H1N1, highlighting the complex interact...

Ecology of #respiratory #viruses and their interplay and their implications at population level. Viral interference from #H1N1 pdm09 impacts #RSV activity!!

#Virosky #IDsky

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

Determinants of human versus mosquito cell entry by the Chikungunya virus envelope proteins Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infects both humans and mosquitoes during its transmission cycle. How the virus’s envelope proteins mediate entry in cells from such different species is unclear. MXRA8 is a ...

In new study led by Xiaohui Ju, we define how mutations to Chikungunya virus envelope proteins affect entry in human vs mosquito cells.

Sheds light on functional constraints & enables us to make loss-of-tropism mutants, which could be of use for vaccines.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Cryo-electron tomography reveals lineage-specific replication features of Zika virus Zika virus (ZIKV), a member of the Flavivirus genus, can cause severe neurodevelopmental disorders when infection occurs during pregnancy. Phylogenetic analyses classify ZIKV into two major lineages: ...

ultrastructural differences may help explain the Asian strain’s greater pathogenicity.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Dengue virus harnesses mosquito Syntenin to load and secrete viral RNA into salivary exosomes Viruses exploit extracellular vesicles (EVs) to transfer infection-enhancing viral RNAs. However, mechanisms underlying viral RNA loading remain elusive. We leveraged our previous discovery that dengu...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A human homolog of SIR2 antiphage proteins mediates immunity via the Toll-like receptor pathway Key actors of mammalian immunity originated from bacterial antiphage systems. The full extent of immune system conservation between bacteria and eukaryotes is unknown. Here, we show that the silent in...

Many components of human immunity evolved from ancient pathways in bacteria. A beautiful story from @audeber.bsky.social‬ @enzopoirier.bsky.social‬ leverages this evolutionary connection to discover SIRal as a signaling protein in animal TLR-mediated innate immunity.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

World Health Organization raises concern about spread of mosquito-borne Chikungunya virus The World Health Organization issued an urgent call for action on Tuesday to prevent a repeat of an epidemic of the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus that swept the globe two decades ago, as new outbreaks linked to the Indian Ocean region spread to Europe and other continents.

🦟"World Health Organization @who.int raises concern about spread of #mosquito-borne #chikungunya #virus" via @reuters.com #arbovirus #GLAI

www.reuters.com/business/hea...

Practicing the theory: Applying genomic epidemiology to guide public health action Phyloseminar #149: Alli Black (Washington State Department of Health)

Alli Black (Washington State Department of Health) will be speaking in 24 hours on "Practicing the theory: Applying genomic epidemiology to guide public health action" Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=D__w...

Safety, tolerability, viral kinetics, and immune correlates of protection in healthy, seropositive UK adults inoculated with SARS-CoV-2: a single-centre, open-label, phase 1 controlled human infection... Our study demonstrates potent protective immunity induced by homologous vaccination and homologous or heterologous previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. The community breakthrough infections seen with the om...

Safety, tolerability, viral kinetics, and immune correlates of protection in healthy, seropositive UK adults inoculated with SARS-CoV-2: a single-centre, open-label, phase 1 controlled human infection study - The Lancet Microbe www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

WHO guidelines for clinical management of arboviral diseases: dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever Publicaciones de la Organización Mundial de la Salud

WHO’s Integrated Guidelines on the Clinical Management of Arboviral Diseases

#IDsky #Virosky #dengue #chikungunya #Zika

www.who.int/publications...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Molecular characterization of RSV infections in elderly patients during the 2023/2024 season in the era of nirsevimab introduction RSV can cause severe infections in the elderly. Nirsevimab is a novel prophylactic monoclonal antibody, widely used in infants in France during the 2023/2024 season. It may select for resistant RSV variants that, if transmitted in the community, could compromise vaccine efficacy in the elderly.

Molecular characterization of RSV infections in elderly patients during the 2023/2024 season in the era of nirsevimab introduction

✅ Just Accepted
#IDSky

Novel vaccine which combines computational antigen design and multivalent nanocage delivery. In mice, low doses elicited potent, cross-clade neutralising antibody and T cell responses against diverse H5 strains
👉 tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

TITAN-RNA: A hybrid-capture sequencing panel detects known and unknown Flaviviridae for diagnostics and vector surveillance - PubMed Clinical testing and public health surveillance can be significantly improved by incorporating sequencing-based molecular detection and subtyping for real-time monitoring of virus evolution. With phyl...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40501929/

Summary of our era of global boiling

Influenza A virus polymerase co-opts distinct sets of host proteins for RNA transcription or replication https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.06.658254v1

Born #OnThisDay in 1918 was Ruth Sanger FRS. She was known for her work on human red cell antigens and the genetic mapping of the human X chromosome. Her work on blood groups helped make blood transfusions safer. #HistoryOfScience #WomenInSTEM

Diverse bat organoids provide pathophysiological models for zoonotic viruses Bats are important reservoirs of zoonotic pathogens, but suitable model systems for comprehensively exploring host-pathogen interactions and assessing spillover risks remain limited. To address this g...

#NatureMicroPicks

🦇 ex vivo models for bat viruses!

Bat organoids as new models to study zoonotic viruses.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Saudi Arabia confirms 9 MERS cases, including hospital cluster

www.cidrap.umn.edu/mers-cov/sau...

#IDsky #Virosky #MERS

Immunogenicity and Safety of Influenza and COVID-19 Multicomponent Vaccine This study examines the immunogenicity and safety of an investigational mRNA-based vaccine against seasonal influenza and SARS-CoV-2 in adults 50 years and older.

mRNA-1083 was shown to be at least as immunogenic and well-tolerated as standard vaccines for # #influenza and #COVID-19 in adults aged 50 and older.
#IDsky #Virosky #vaccines

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Super psyched to have leading investigator @thehornerlab.bsky.social presenting her team's work THURSDAY 15th May on Zoom.
#flavivirus #virus-host-interactions #innate_immunity #DENV #ZIKV
All are very welcome and please re-post to get the word out. Email organisers for Zoom link. See you there!

Abstracts are now open Submit your abstract by June 30, 2025

Don’t miss your chance to present at ASM’s first-ever Global Research Symposium in India! 🌏✨ Join global experts at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to explore One Health, AMR, AI, drug discovery and more. 🚀 Submit your research today: asm.social/2oV

The overlapping global distribution of dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever - Nature Communications Arboviruses transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes have an expanding global distribution and identifying areas at risk is important for public health planning. Here, the authors present global disease maps f...

"The overlapping global distribution of dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever" now out with the WHO GAI team doi.org/10.1038/s414...

LGBTQ Agenda: Gay rights icons call for community to fight for makeup artist deported to El Salvador prison Two longtime LGBTQ leaders are trying to draw the community’s attention to the case of a gay makeup artist from Venezuela who’d been seeking asylum in the United States but was whisked to an infamous ...

From Cleve Jones: “Call your representatives in Congress. Name him honorary grand marshal of your Pride parades. Say his name. Only we can save his life.”

www.ebar.com/story/154050...

Multiorgan sequelae following non-COVID-19 respiratory infections: a review Acute respiratory tract infections (ARIs) are major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide [ 1 ]. Defined as infectious diseases of the respiratory tract, ARIs can be caused by a variety of viral or bacterial pathogens [ 2 ]. ARIs can be …

www.springermedizin.de/multiorgan-s...

WHO issues its first-ever reports on tests and treatments for fungal infections WHO's reports addressing the critical lack of medicines and diagnostic tools for invasive fungal diseases, shows urgent need for innovative research and development (R&D) to close the gaps. Fungal dis...

WHO report - “All countries, but particularly LMICs, need faster, more accurate, cheaper and easier testing for a broad range of #fungal priority pathogens, including #diagnostic tools that can be used at or near point-of-care.”- more research needed in this area…!!

#WHO #IDsky #microsky

Virus Genes VIRUS GENES publishes studies on analysis of virus genes, gene products and functions, regulation of virus gene function, cell biology of virus ...

🧬Check out our latest issue! 'Virus Genes' is dedicated to the publication of studies on the structure and function of viruses and their genes, providing a forum for the analysis of data and discussion of its implications, and the development of hypotheses. https://bit.ly/4gTzKC0 #VirEvol