Cassandra Koh 🦟🔬🧪

🚀New preprint from our lab!
I am very excited to finally share what has been the main focus of my PhD for the past almost 3 years! It is about viral dark matter and a powerful tool we built to shed light on it. 🧬💡
Continue reading (🧵)

YouTube video by TEDx Talks The social lives of viruses | Asher Leeks | TEDxNewEngland

I gave a talk last year at TEDxNewEngland aimed at introducing the idea of viral sociality to a general audience, including implications for evolution & virology. Video now available online below.

#socialviruses #evosky #virosky 🧪

I'm so excited to share this with all of you!
This is the very first paper where I am the first author 🥹
Let me share some insights about our work 👇🧵(1/5):

How do persistent viral infections impact the host?

What happens when a fly becomes persistently infected by a virus?

The final round this year for international PhD scholarships at Monash are now open (August 31st 2025). Interested in evolutionary ecology, global change, sex differences, and/or infectious disease? Maybe some ecotox together with @bbmwong.bsky.social. Get in touch. There will be Daphnia involved...

We look forward seeing you Aug. 12 for our next webinar on Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. Dr Maringer @maringerlab.bsky.social will present "Virus-specific innate immune responses in Aedes aegypti". Register: lnkd.in/gJdiYGm7. @astmh.bsky.social @sbvirologia.bsky.social @utmbhealth.bsky.social

We have a postdoc position available in which we’re using flavivirus replication/molecular biology to make refractory mosquitoes - in collaboration with the Trevor Sweeney lab at @pirbrightinst.bsky.social. Check out the advert on LinkedIn and apply by 12/6.

www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...

📣 I'm recruiting a postdoc researcher to join my team for a project on mosquito-specific viruses and host interactions. Peep the job description & how to apply below. Perfect for soon-to-be or recent PhD graduates in mosquito vector biology 🦟 or arbovirology 🦠
🗓️ Application deadline 31 August 2025

Aedes albopictus (asian tiger mosquito)

🦟 Bioinformatics Research Scientist position open in my lab in Nice (FR) to study Aedes mosquito retrotransposons & their interactions with arboviruses collab w/ @salehlabparis.bsky.social & @lambrechtslab.bsky.social
Apply: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/359830
Please boost! #ArboRetro #Bioinformatics

new from the lab -- we investigate 100% ethanol, DMSO salt solution (DESS), EDTA, RNAlater, and AllProtect as possible approaches for short term room temperature preservation of mosquito HMW DNA, nuclei for Hi-C, and RNA towards high quality reference genome creation. the key findings/tips are ....

Thrilled (and humbled!) to share that since today I am the Chair of the Virology Department at @pasteur.fr. Grateful to my colleagues for their trust. Now let’s push the frontiers of virus research together. The sky is the limit! 🦠🔬 #Virology #Science #TeamPasteur

ECE 2026 - XIII European Congress of Entomology It is our great pleasure to welcome you to Tours, France, in the heart of the Loire Valley, from June 29 to July 3, 2026.

🚨 Save the date!!
We're hosting the next European Congress of Entomology (ECE) in Tours, France 🇫🇷 from 29 June to 3 July 2026 🐞🦋🐜
🔬 50+ symposia covering nearly every aspect of insect science
📅 Registration opens 10 July 2025
🔗 Stay tuned: www.ece2026.org
#ECE2026 #Entomology #Insects

In about a week we (Biological Sciences @ Monash Uni in Melbourne, Australia) will be opening a search for 3 (!!!) permanent academic positions (40% research, 40% teaching, 20% service) at Lecturer/Senior Lecturer. 1 Genomics, 2 Ecology. Please share, email me, DM, follow, send carrier pigeons…

Paris Postdocs Seminars - 2025/2026 series Application form for the 2025/2026 Paris Postdocs Seminar series

Big news! Applications for the 2025/2026 Paris Postdocs Seminars series are now open ⭐

Don’t miss the chance to present your scientific work in one of our 13 participating institutes and increase your network!

📆 Register by June 15th, 2025 here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#ParisPostdocs

Blood-feeding patterns of #mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) collected in an area of high arbovirus transmission in West-Central Brazil JMedEnt

Glad to see this out!! It’s been bafflingly difficult to convince people that assuming mosquito transmission of Oropouche is a sloppy prior directly contradicted by all available evidence 🥲 and that, in turn, it’s a serious problem that we know so little about Culicoides paraensis distribution…

A graphic for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), showing a historical portrait of Marie Skłodowska-Curie overlaid with an image of four young researchers walking down a hallway. The European Commission logo is in the top left. Text reads: "Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – €404.3 million to support postdoctoral researchers”

Choose Science. Choose Europe.

A new Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 call is now open.

With a budget of €404.3 million, it will support around 1,650 researchers from Europe and beyond.

Apply by 10 September → europa.eu/!fBTMgF

The co-receptors Orco and Ir8a are required for coordinated expression of chemosensory genes in the antennae of the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.23.650034v1

🧵1/ Introducing ExpBites, a lightweight #rstats 📦 to analyze mosquito biting exposure according to hourly activities and locations of human and #mosquitoes. Built for modeling true expected #bednet efficacy.🦟⛺️

📦 GitHub: buff.ly/tImDQdv
🎚️ Shiny app: buff.ly/t9oMOwv

#malaria #anopheles

Demographic history, genetic load, and the efficacy of selection in the globally invasive mosquito Aedes aegypti Abstract. Aedes aegypti is the main vector species of yellow fever, dengue, Zika and chikungunya. The species is originally from Africa but has experienced

Excited to see the final version of this paper with @samurscicop.bsky.social and Daniel Matute out in @genomebiolevol.bsky.social!

We took a dive into the complicated demographic history of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and its impact on the distribution of genetic diversity
doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

Our new preprint (ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...) describes✨AedesTraits✨ (zenodo.org/records/1514...) - A global database on temperature-trait responses in Aedes mosquitoes. #AedesTraits holds >31,000 rows of fully open data extracted from published literature (1930s to 2025)!

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 #yellowfever

#IDsky ⚕️ #EpiSky 🦟

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

Come and work with me!

The Nature Micro team is expanding and we're looking for someone to champion microbial ecology, plant micro & related areas for the journal

Knowledge of microbial ecology/plant micro is desirable but we're open to applications from all microbiologists

Link below 👇

Is it time to consider west Nile and Usutu viruses endemic in central Italy? West Nile (WNV) and Usutu (USUV) viruses co-circulated in a region of Central Italy (Lazio) in 2018, as evidenced by the detection of WNV in the nervo…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🦟

Too important a read not to repost
#NewPI 👀

I forgot that first author @kdainty.bsky.social is on Bsky too...Congrats Kim on this nice work!
#SymbioSky 🦟

Check out this neat piece of work using transcriptomics to link viral infections to altered aging processes... Also doesn't love a study with its own mascot? 🧪🪰🦠

New work out from @heatherflores.bsky.social & colleagues: Wolbachia genome show little variation post-introgression into natural Aedes aegypti populations, a non-native insect host. Super interesting finding on host-symbiont relationships and great news for Wolbachia-based vector control efforts!🦟🧪

Dengue virus susceptibility in Aedes aegypti linked to natural cytochrome P450 variants The mosquito Aedes aegypti is the primary vector for dengue virus (DENV), which infects millions of people annually. Variability in DENV susceptibility among wild Ae. aegypti populations is governed b...

Happy to share our work exploring the genetic basis of dengue susceptibility in Aedes aegypti and revealing the antiviral role of a cytochrome P450. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
It had been a long and wild ride that started back when I was a postdoc within @lambrechtslab.bsky.social ! A thread ⬇️

Prepare your calendars 📅 because the March 2025 #ParisPostdocs Seminars’ newsletter is out 💫 See you all at @institutcurie.bsky.social @crcordeliers.bsky.social and Paris Brain Institute!

Those factors certainly do play a role! And they're being studied by ecologists and epidemiologists who are better equipped that I am to investigate from those angles, though I'd love to collaborate with them someday! Mosquitoes are just one part of the equation