Dr Liam Brierley

That'll be St Elmo - same chap who gives his name to the nautical fire!

Virus researchers! Please consider participating in this project - it would be a huge help to our lab, and we think it'll lead to some really exciting synthesis. Plus, you'll get an invitation to participate in a workshop later in the project! 🦠😷

We have a job going for a bioinformatician / computational biologist at the CVR in Glasgow. www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/computat...

What is this nightmare of flesh

If I had a nickel for every consecutive year we've had janky 3D-rendered big cats, I'd only have two nickels but it's weird it's happened twice.

A protein language model for exploring viral fitness landscapes - Nature Communications Ito et al. present CoVFit, an AI model that predicts variant fitness (transmissibility) from spike protein sequences alone. They further demonstrate its utility in forecasting viral evolution via sing...

I look forward to reading www.nature.com/articles/s41...!

I'm only able to join ViBioM virtually (thank you @evbc.bsky.social for making this available!!) but some fantastic talks from the @systemsvirology.bsky.social lab who are innovately retraining protein language models to infer virus evolution, antigenicity, and epi! おめでとうございます

@uofgpe.bsky.social
@uofglasgow.bsky.social
@unistrathclyde.bsky.social

So much #scicomm in Glasgow in the next month!

Talks in a pub? ✔️ - @pintofscience.uk: pintofscience.co.uk/events/glasgow

Family activities? - ✔️ Glasgow Science Festival: www.gla.ac.uk/events/scien...

and my (biased) fave - Science comedy??? - ✔️ Bright Club: www.thestand.co.uk/performance/...

(I know it's the same guy cause the photocopy always caught his shirt cuff in the scan)

I was tracing the first human reports of every RNA virus in my PhD and I quickly learned about interlibrary loans!

Any uni library can make a request for a paper for you, usually I'd get pdfs, sometimes hardcopies, sometimes even photocopies from a guy at the British library who wore funky shirts.

Last day for abstract submission to present your work at the 𝗚𝗹𝗮𝘀𝗴𝗼𝘄 𝗩𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽 and connect with researchers across all directions of virology! We would love to have more representation and contributions from ECRs and students!

Abstracts info in link below!

🎓Big Congratulations to Dr Hollie French for passing her Viva yesterday! 🎉

📄Thesis: ‘Genomic Surveillance and Biogeography of Vampire Bat Rabies in Central America and Mexico.’ 🦇🦠and thank you to her supervisor:
@danielstreicker.bsky.social

Yes please! Great to see!

Influenza of avian origin confirmed in a sheep in Yorkshire Influenza of avian origin (H5N1) has been confirmed in a single sheep in Yorkshire.

The UK’s Chief Veterinary Officer has confirmed a case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) in a single sheep in Yorkshire following repeat positive milk testing.

To my knowledge, this is the first time the virus has been detected in sheep.

www.gov.uk/government/n...

Comparative study of tropism and emergence of virulent companion animal viruses using AI-powered text mining at University of Glasgow on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Comparative study of tropism and emergence of virulent companion animal viruses using AI-powered text mining at University of Glasgow, listed on FindAPhD.com

Come do a PhD with me using LLMs and comparative methods to understand the emergence of companion animal viruses! 🧠☠️🕸️🐕🐈🖥️

Fully funded 3.5 year PhD based at @sbohvm.gla.ac.uk and @cvrinfo.bsky.social supervised by myself, Margaret Hosie, and Willie Weir

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

We love to hear about about the amazing work of our William Guy Lecturers in bringing stats to young people!

Want to inspire the next generation with a talk about stats and AI?

There's still time to apply for our 2025/26 lectureship 👉 rss.org.uk/news-publica...

Don't forget this is tonight! Last tickets available below!

yes yes yes yes yes yes!!

Get them tickets if you want some dazzling academics tickling your funny bones with tales of asexuality, booze, saints, sensory stimulation, and more!

www.thestand.co.uk/performance/...

🎺 PhD studentship available at @lshtm.bsky.social and RVC! @influenzal.bsky.social and I are advertising for a project to investigate the unexpected phenomenon that mutagenic antiviral drugs can give rise to viruses with hundreds of mutations which are still viable. 🧵
www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-a...

For those aiming to go that route, what's the one thing you would change about how postdoc interviews work?

asking b/c we're hiring and I am all about making that interview process equitable and accessible if I can!

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...

And we're all good for the new date of *this Sunday*, 1.30pm! Venue and registration @ www.meetup.com/glasgow-huma... !

Unfortunately Pestilence took this personally and got to me today, so we're looking at rescheduling for another Sunday this month!

Sorry for inconvenience, but watch this space..

📅 Glasgow Virology Workshop (5 Sep, c/o @cvrinfo.bsky.social ): www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/...

An informal and friendly workshop in all aspects of virology interactive discussions throughout the day. Undergraduates and Masters students welcome!

📅 UKRI's One Health Computational Network Symposium (24 Apr, c/o @cvrbioinfo.bsky.social ): bioinformatics.cvr.ac.uk/one-health-c...

Featuring discussion on computational approaches to better predict, detect, and prevent emerging viral diseases.

Discounted joint tickets for both meets available!

UKPSN Conference 2025 The next UKPSN conference will be held in Glasgow on 23rd April 2025 at the Sir Charles Wilson Building, University of Glasgow. Further details and links below.

Glasgow's calendar is full of hosting some fantastic virology meetings this year! Register below for....

📅 UK Pandemic Sciences Network conference (23 Apr): ukpsn.org/ukpsn-confer...

Bringing together experts in the field to discuss key challenges and research developments in pandemic threats!

It goes back to Fisher, but doesn't have much of a quantitatively solid basis! www.bmj.com/rapid-respon...

CDC Scientists Ordered to Withdraw Studies That Say ‘LGBT’ or ‘Pregnant People’

Things like the "Banned Word Scrub" can feel Orwellian, but distant.

Today I am reviewing abstracts for an upcoming conference, & realising some may be withdrawn due to this. This is a conference about human viruses & health - not politics.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02...

1/2

Plane crashes, you say...