Helen Lazear

Picture of Arinjay Banerjee

Picture of Louise Moncla

Congrats to the 2026 Ann Palmenberg Junior Investigator Awardees Arinjay Banerjee (left) and Louise Moncla (right). Check out their accolades in your member email. Read more about Ann Palmenberg's impact on virology and ASV here:

news.wisc.edu/remembering-...

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Two great 4y positions up for grabs with us and Ross working on his BBSRC MosquitoNI project, with collaborators in GB. Deadlines in a week (research fellow) and 2 weeks (RA). Lots of vector ecology and modelling but also looking at what viruses can we find in our 🦟!

There was a decision to announce ahead of the meeting to allow for more congrats and recognition!

Home - Cytokines 2026 Local Organizing Committee Simon A. Jones, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK, meeting co-chair Iain McInnes, University of Glasgow, UK, meeting co-chair Clare Bryant, University of Cambridge, UK…

Save the date: Cytokines 2026 in Glasgow, Scotland - Oct 18-21, 2026
Key dates:
→ Abstract deadline: May 15
→ Early-bird registration ends: June 26
→ Notifications: Mid-June
Reach out if you're interested in volunteering to review abstracts or more! buff.ly/n7n1tU7
#Cytokines2026

My department at Washington State University is recruiting an Assistant or Associate Professor in vector-borne disease 🕷️🦟🦠

Full job description is linked below.

Come join us on the Palouse!

Measles Outbreak Hits Florida College

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/w...

Confirmed Measles Case Reported at Chapel Hill Goodwill Store - Chapelboro.com The Orange County Health Department has reported that a person infected with measles recently visited a public place while contagious.

A confirmed case of measles in Chapel Hill was reported by the Orange County Health Department on Thursday.

Here’s what we know:

Exclusive: Key US infectious-diseases centre to drop pandemic preparation Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website.

Scoop: The NIH infectious-diseases institute (NIAID) will soon scrub “pandemic preparedness” and “biodefense” from its web pages, according to e-mails I obtained.

The directive is the start of a broader shake-up at NIAID, which has long been attacked by Republicans.

Registration and abstract submission are open for SERVC 2026!

Join us in Atlanta April 24-26 - this is a great opportunity for trainees to present their work and meet virologists from around the southeastern US. Abstracts due Feb 16!
tarheels.live/servc/

The deadline to submit an abstract for CSV2026 is in two days!

Submit your abstract by February 15, 2026 and join us in Guelph for a fantastic conference May 31-June 4, 2026.

UNC-Chapel Hill Preps Policy on Recording Professors The school aims to clarify guidelines after a secret recording controversy and growing fear of surveillance.

UNC-Chapel Hill is putting finishing touches on a university-wide policy governing recording of classes that would allow administrators to secretly record faculty in some cases.

www.theassemblync.com/news/educati...

Superb Owl Sunday X A special Sunday event: our tenth-annual photo collection celebrating these magnificent birds of prey. If you have some time before the big game (or are skipping the event entirely), we invite you to ...

www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Bhattacharya testified that he's taking this issue seriously, but I just spoke with a researcher who had completed all the screening and was disinvited from NIAID's council *today*.

NIAID's council is set to run out of voting members in October. No grants can be funded without Council.

a black cat is using an apple laptop with the words deadline is coming written below it Alt: a black cat is using an apple laptop with the words deadline is coming written below it

🚨ABSTRACT DEADLINE FEBRUARY 2🚨
🚨TRAVEL AWARD DEADLINE FEBRUARY 9🚨

Share your virology research by submitting an abstract for ASV 2026 by 11:59pm Eastern on Monday 2/2/26

Need financial support? Trainees & teachers can apply for travel awards

www.asv.org/abstract-sub...
www.asv.org/travel-awards

UI researcher loses grant funding amid NIH shakeup - The Daily Illini A University influenza research lab lost its NIH funding after shifting federal rules on gain-of-function studies.

“What she told me is that (the grant) was terminated for violating guidelines that don’t exist...She told me she doesn’t even know if anyone’s working on developing the guidelines.” dailyillini.com/news-stories...

#governmentefficiency

I'm so proud of this work and how it all came together!

I’m excited to recruit a postdoc to join my lab at NIAID (Rocky Mountain Labs). We study mucosal immunity and vaccine responses to respiratory viruses in a collaborative, supportive environment.
Details & apply: www.training.nih.gov/jobs/pdf-miv...
#Postdoc #Immunology #Virology #NIHJobs

Basal IFNλ2/3 signaling is required for ISG expression and viral control in human intestinal epithelial cells Author summary Interferon-lambdas (IFNλs) are antiviral molecules that help protect the surfaces of our body, such as the gut and lungs, from infection. While IFNλs are best known for being produced d...

Excited to share: We show that basal IFNλ2/3 signaling helps human intestinal epithelial cells stay ready for viral infections, even before an acute infection. A reminder that a lot of innate immune defense happens quietly in the background. journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

NC STEM Policy Post-Graduate Fellowship North Carolina Sea Grant news

Are you a recent graduate with a passion for science, technology, engineering, or mathematics — and a desire to influence public policy in North Carolina?

The NC STEM Policy Post-Graduate Fellowship is now open for applications through March 9, 2026.

ncseagrant.ncsu.edu/nc-stem-poli...

Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026 Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.

🚨 New from me: Grant review at more than half of NIH's institutes could be frozen by the end of the year.

That's because crucial NIH grant-review panels are slated to be empty at those institutes by Jan 2027.

A wonky bureaucratic problem with big implications.

A short 🧵

Abstract submission is open for SERVC 2026! Deadline Feb 16:
tarheels.live/servc/regist...

Southeastern Regional Virology Conference: April 24-26 in Atlanta

Nature Valentines Cards Nature Valentines Cards - Art by Rosemary Mosco and Bird and Moon at TopatoCo!

Nature-based valentines for sale: topatoco.com/collections/...

The American Society for Virology (ASV) is dedicated to advancing knowledge of viruses and the diseases they cause. ASV does not support the scaling back of the childhood vaccine schedule recently announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. See our statement attached.

Congratulations to MD-PhD student, Amanda Velez and all co-authors on our new PNAS paper describing how the innate immune protein calprotectin incapacitates autolysins, inducing tolerance to B-lactam antibiotics. A fun collaboration with Thomas Kehl-Fie. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Interested in how infections cause seizures? Then, read on! We discovered that Toxoplasma selectively eliminates inhibitory synapses in brain. You will study how these synapses are removed. Please send brief review of research interests and goals, CV, and names of 3 refs to: iblader@vt.edu.

📢 Attention undergrads & first-year med students! Apply now for Fred Hutch’s 8-week Summer Internship on Infectious Diseases in the Imunocompromised Host! Hands-on research + expert mentorship in state-of-the-art labs.

🦠 Apply by Jan. 30, 2026: https://bit.ly/48K89SV

St. Louis officials’ search for runaway monkeys enters new phase After searching for five days for an unknown number of monkeys, officials in St. Louis are shifting strategy. They’re now looking for the animals’ owners.

wapo.st/4jGjw1O

The infection enigma: why some people die from typically harmless germs Millions of people worldwide carry genetic mutations that weaken their immune system.

Why do some people become severely ill from infections that leave others unscathed?

go.nature.com/457vTOK

China’s ‘Dr. Frankenstein’ Thinks Time Is on His Side

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/w...

Monkeys Are on the Loose in St. Louis, City Officials Say

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/u...