Alexander Price

🧬 Exciting news from our lab 🧬 The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) has approved our project studying KSHV and RNA decay: our first grant since re-launching the lab in Switzerland 🎉 We’re now looking for a Postdoc and a PhD student to join the team (start date January 2026) - please repost!

I'm thrilled to announce I'll be joining the Department of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology at the University of Florida in January 2026! My lab will study RNA virus-host interactions with a particular focus on the spatial regulation of viral replication and innate immune activation. genoyerlab.com

Amazing and congrats! They are a great department down there!

This work was led by Claire O'Brien, our amazing Research Assistant who has learned every molecular virology technique under the sun in putting this together. I bring it up because she is applying for grad schools this fall and would be an amazing addition to any program!

We believe these tools will be useful to adenovirologists, as well as those that simply use this powerful little virus as a vector. In the manuscript we demonstrate using the E4 region for multicistronic gene expression, as well as a single vector system for doxycycline-induced gene expression.

Using the amazing AdenoBuilder system we have constructed a set of fluorescent and bioluminescent Ad5 viruses. By exploiting the existing transcriptional units of the virus, our single color and dual color (early/late) reporters reflect the staging of the virus with wildtype replication kinetics.

Replication-competent adenovirus reporters utilizing endogenous viral expression architecture | Journal of Virology This research provides powerful new tools to rapidly study adenovirus gene expression and replication. By integrating fluorescent and secreted luciferase reporters into native viral regulatory element...

Very excited to share the first publication from the Price Lab, "Replication-competent adenovirus reporters utilizing endogenous viral expression architecture", is now online at Journal of Virology!
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

So excited to see our newest study out in print! Led by the brilliant @jgezelle.bsky.social and @sophiekorn.bsky.social, we discovered how viruses from highly divergent families converge on a shared RNA structure mechanism to inhibit cellular nucleases. #RNAsky #LoveVirology

First ever Price Lab paper accepted this morning!!! Hopefully follow-up post soon to showcase our new systems.

Stats: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/number...

(also you can buy the mug and other smbc stuff here: smbc-store.myshopify.com/products/goo...)

#smbc

The 20 years of sneezes to the face is what sent me, but every panel has a line that makes me laugh!

Excited to share that our latest story on Restrictor is out now in @genesdev.bsky.social!! Big thank you to my fellow co-first author Hanneke, Karen @adelmanlab.bsky.social and co-authors Nathalie and Allison!

EBNA leader protein orchestrates chromatin architecture remodeling during Epstein-Barr virus-induced B cell transformation Abstract. Epstein-Barr virus Nuclear Antigen Leader Protein (EBNA-LP) plays a pivotal role in the transformation of B cells by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), fu

We are excited to share our recent work:
EBNA leader protein orchestrates chromatin architecture remodeling during Epstein-Barr virus-induced B cell transformation url: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Also serial numbers of random equipment!

The Price Lab turned two years old this week! Of course we celebrated with cake, but the cherry on top was submitting our labs very first manuscript today! Excited to see what the rest of the year holds.

Postdoc positions available! Please re-post!

Are you interested in how viruses manipulate chromatin? Are you excited to discover unknown facets of molecular biology? If so, we’d love to hear from you! Come check us out at:
avgoustilab.org

Environmental stress drives clearance of a persistent enteric virus in mice - Nature Microbiology Cage change of mice with persistent murine astrovirus infection triggers stress responses marked by corticosterone fluctuation, which is followed by CD8 T cell activation and induction of epithelial a...

Excited to share with you my postdoctoral work published today in Nature Microbiology!

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

We have known for a while that stress can impact the outcome of infectious diseases; however, we reveal in our paper that it is not always detrimental.

Environmental stress drives clearance of a persistent enteric virus in mice - Nature Microbiology Cage change of mice with persistent murine astrovirus infection triggers stress responses marked by corticosterone fluctuation, which is followed by CD8 T cell activation and induction of epithelial a...

#NewResearch

🚨Out now!

Environmental stress drives clearance of a persistent enteric virus in mice 🐀
@christinviral.bsky.social @cadwelllab.bsky.social

#MicroSky #VirusSky

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

My then 2 year old said "it means daddy dropped something", right after using it in perfect context when she dropped a crayon. Little information sponges...

Love Park in Philly today for the No Kings protest 👏👏👏

#NoKings protest in Philadelphia

From novice to expert: preparing your peer review | mBio Peer review is the process that academic journals, conferences, and funding agencies use to ensure the quality of scholarly work before it is published, presented, or funded. Reviewers for academic jo...

Excited to share our editorial on peer review, out now in #mBio! This was a mighty group effort with my mBio Early Career Editorial Board peer mentoring group
@proctordm.bsky.social and Rachy Abraham.

From novice to expert: preparing your peer review | mBio journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Gammaherpesvirus infection triggers the formation of tRNA fragments from premature tRNAs | mBio Diverse conditions of infection and cellular stress incite the cleavage of transfer RNAs (tRNAs), leading to the formation of tRNA fragments (tRFs) that can directly regulate gene expression. In our s...

Gammaherpesvirus infection triggers the formation of tRNA fragments from premature tRNAs journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Yes! We bought a starter kit during the end of the pandemic but for various reasons never got around to using it. This first one operated like a charm, but a second expired one failed to reach 37C. Analyzing the data now to see if it's actually useable.

I also thought the experience was rather painless, but our grad student (who made this slide for our following lab meeting) had different opinions?

With all that is happening it is very exciting to see the Price Lab's very first, in-house, Oxford Nanopore direct RNA seq running! Not bad for a ~3 year expired flow cell!

Sign The Open Letter to Stand Up For Science Now! Science is under siege. Trump’s latest Executive Order calls for politically appointed science commissars to evaluate research. Join us in adding your name to our open letter condemning Trump’s escala...

🚨 URGENT RESPONSE CALL 🚨

Trump’s Fool’s Gold Science EO is a dangerous sham.
It gives his appointees the power to dismiss entire bodies of research and punish researchers who fail to fall in line with his agenda.

We’ve launched an open letter.

SIGN & SHARE NOW: actionnetwork.org/petitions/op...

Congrats!!

Congrats Joe!!

Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus induces mitochondrial fission to evade host immune responses and promote viral production - Nature Microbiology Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus changes mitochondrial architecture via vBcl-2 interaction with a host NDP kinase, which triggers mitochondrial fission and inhibition of MAVS allowing for virus...

🚨 Out Now!

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus induces mitochondrial fission to evade host immune responses and promote viral production

#MicroSky #Virus 🦠

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