AJ te Velthuis

RNA structure modulates Cas13 activity and enables mismatch detection - Nature Biotechnology An effective CRISPR RNA occlusion strategy enhances mismatch detection when using Cas13.

RNA structure modulates Cas13 activity and enables mismatch detection - @cambearon.bsky.social @princetonmolbio.bsky.social go.nature.com/4oglebG

Great work from our grad student Ben Larsen who tested this on flu coronavirus strains with collaborators @eakarlsson.bsky.social @jsiegers.bsky.social @dirkeggink.bsky.social

Now out in Science Advances: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

There is still time to apply; join our team to work on influenza virus replication mechanisms!

Excited to share our latest preprint in which we integrate mathematical modeling with experimental approaches to investigate how ⬆️ temperature influences aberrant RNA synthesis and innate immunity in flu infection 🦠

Flu infection => temperature⬆️ => NP levels⬇️ => aberrant RNAs⬆️ => interferon⬆️. Elegant modeling and experimental work by @karishmabisht.bsky.social and @danielweilandt.bsky.social! Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

3-year-old girl dies from H5N1 bird flu in Mexico’s first human case A three-year-old girl who became Mexico’s first confirmed human case of H5N1 avian influenza has died, the country’s Health Ministry announced. It marks Mexico’s first fatality linked to the bird flu ...

3-year-old girl dies from H5N1 bird flu in Mexico’s first human case bnonews.com/index.php/20...

Only works through Safari for me. Nothing with Firefox, Duckduckgo, Chrome.. Europe PMC works fine fortunately

Seems browser dependent for me

Yep, Pubmed here down as well

It is worth paying close attention to the new bill "Dangerous Viral Gain of Function Research Moratorium Act" introduced by Senator Roger Marshall.

If enacted, it will effectively stop all of virological research, including for vaccines.

www.marshall.senate.gov/wp-content/u...

🧵👇

The partnership that drives America’s leadership in medical discovery: How it works and what’s at stake With federal support, universities produce world-changing discoveries and the next generation of exquisitely well-trained researchers.

We are at risk of abandoning “a deal where the government provides funding, and in exchange it gets products, research, national security, prestige, and the next generation of qualified scientists.” #academicsky
www.princeton.edu/news/2025/02...

Drawing of Benjamin Frankling wearing a coonskin cap.

Franklin being received by the French court in 1778. The French are in powdered wigs.

FWIW, it's perhaps worth noting that when Benjamin Franklin visited France between 1776 and 1778 to ask for military support for the then-new-formed United States of America, he wore a coonskin cap. "Proper" French court attire at this time was a powdered wig.

AI is ‘beating’ humans at empathy and creativity. But these games are rigged | MJ Crockett Research pitting people against AI systems gives AI an edge by asking us to perform in machine-like ways

My new piece in @theguardian.com

Techno-optimism is human pessimism.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Congrats Alistair!

Analysis of NS2-dependent effects on influenza PB1 segment extends replication requirements beyond the canonical promoter - Nature Communications The eight genomics segments of Influenza A virus exhibit different replication dynamics during infection. Here, the authors show through a range of mutant libraries of HA and PB1 segments that Influen...

Despite everything, I still really want to celebrate the wonderful folks in my group, so I hope it is ok if i write about our latest work.

I am very proud of all the authors, and our collaborators, on our work just published in Nature communications.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Negative-Strand RNA Virus meeting #NSV2025 registration is now open!
Visit www.negativestrandvirus.org/home

A two-step mechanism for RIG-I activation by influenza virus mini viral RNAs Influenza A virus (IAV) non-canonical replication products can be bound by various host pathogen sensors, including retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I). However, it is not clear why non-canonical I...

Excited to share this new preprint showing that non-canonical influenza virus transcripts are produced in a sequence/RNA structure-dependent manner on aberrant RNAs: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A two-step mechanism for RIG-I activation by influenza virus mini viral RNAs https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.04.630666v1

Virus Snowflakes — CVR Engagement

They can all be downloaded from here: cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl..., except for...

Health officials say Louisiana patient is first severe bird flu case in US A person in Louisiana has the first severe illness caused by bird flu in the U.S., health officials said Wednesday.

What we are waiting for to wake up?

"The patient had been in contact with sick and dead birds in backyard flocks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said"

@adamjkucharski.bsky.social discusses effective outbreak response @plosbiology.org plos.io/3ZnpcnE

apnews.com/article/bird...
🧪

Novel CRITR-seq approach reveals influenza transcription is modulated by NELF and is a key event precipitating an interferon response Transcription of interferons upon viral infection is critical for cell-intrinsic innate immunity. This process is influenced by many host and viral factors. To identify host factors that modulate inte...

We have another new preprint up!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Influenza A virus transcription generates capped cRNAs that activate RIG-I During influenza A virus (IAV) infection, host pathogen receptor retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) detects the partially complementary, 5’-triphosphorylated ends of the viral genome segments and ...

(this is very consistent with another work from @ajtevelthuis.bsky.social which we were happy to contribute to, found at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...)

We have found a capped flu RNA that was hiding in plain sight. In our preprint we show how this RNA activates RIG-I through a non-canonical mechanism. Fantastic work by Liza Elshina and many thanks to collaborators @alistairrussell.bsky.social and Joe Marcotrigiano! biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Efficient genome replication in influenza A virus requires NS2 and sequence beyond the canonical promoter bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

We have a new preprint up!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Transient RNA structures underlie highly pathogenic avian influenza virus genesis bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

Transient RNA structures contribute to highly pathogenic flu emergence! Fantastic work by Mathis Funk and Mathilde Richard now on BioRxiv: biorxiv.org/content/10.1... For supporting data see: science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited to share a preprint on quantifying aberrant viral RNAs using Cas13. We reveal surprisingly reproducible kinetics of individual influenza virus mvRNAs in infection and detect mvRNAs even in clinical samples! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Masks Work. Distorting Science to Dispute the Evidence Doesn’t New mask studies relying on a medical paradigm do not erase decades of engineering and occupational science that show they work

The Scientific American mask article with @sameo416.bsky.social and @jvipondmd.bsky.social

www.scientificamerican.com/article/mask...