Emma Harding

It is almost five years since I first applied AlphaFold to a handful of viral proteins.

Today, hundreds of thousands of predictions and many discoveries later, we are delighted to announce the integration of our Viro3D dataset into the @ebi.embl.org and Google DeepMind AlphaFold Database.

Mathematics and statistics | Faculty of Science | University of Helsinki The Department of Mathematics and Statistics is Finland’s largest university department for mathematical sciences. Its multifaceted research has received the highest points in numerous assessments. The Department collaborates actively with other higher education institutions and with several government research institutes both in Finland and abroad.

The University of Helsinki seeks a postdoctoral researcher for a 3-year role in statistical ecology and evolution, focusing on sex-specific differences in immunity and life history. Apply by Feb 28, 2026. More in… https://www.helsinki.fi/en/faculty-science/faculty/mathematics-and-statistics #postdoc

'Too many sharks': Calls grow for controversial experiment in Aussie waters Australia is searching for answers following four shark attacks.

Proposing targetted culls of sharks is a nonsense & demonstrates Dr Adam Smith is ignorant about shark life history, ecology & behaviour, & changing the statistical probability of exceedingly rare events. Sharks behave nothing like kangaroos, koalas & starfish. au.news.yahoo.com/calls-grow-f...

Open Senior Bioinformatician position at
@sangerinstitute.bsky.social
Tree of Life, to work on the Biodiversity Cell Atlas initiative with @marakat.bsky.social and me.

📅 Apply by January 18
🔗 sanger.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Wellco...

Please share with anyone who might be interested!

I've slowly been reformatting notes from my population and conservation genetics course at Montana State University into a web book—a rough draft is now live here: elinck.org/popgen_conge...

We also find that ancient viruses, now embedded in amphibian genomes as endogenous viruses, are surprisingly active after millions of years 🦴⏱️

Lastly, we note that some endogenous retroviruses exist as thousands of copies within a genome 🧬 - a significant mutational burden left unchecked.

The retrovirome of each amphibian class is very different - caecilians can harbour the widest diversity of retroviruses whilst frogs and toads harbour the least 🐸

Two caecilian retroviruses are more similar to bird 🐦‍⬛ and mammal viruses than to other amphibians - a drastic host jump!

Transcriptome mining reveals diversity and evolution of circulating and endogenous amphibian retroviruses - Retrovirology Background The evolutionary history of retroviruses and their impact on vertebrate evolution remains poorly understood, particularly in non-mammalian hosts. In this study, we explore retroviruses asso...

Happy to share our new paper on retroviruses in amphibians - a labour of love for our team @unswbabs.bsky.social with Prof. Peter White.

We explore 102 amphibian species to understand what type of retroviruses infect them and their evolution, highlights below 🧵

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Creation of new junior research groups at the Institut Pasteur - Call for applications 2026 - Research The Institut Pasteur is launching an international call to recruit new junior research group leaders leveraging cutting-edge transdisciplinary approaches to exploring infectious diseases, host-microbe...

🔬 Call to create junior research groups at the Institut Pasteur

Focus: Infectious diseases, host-microbe interactions, vaccines
Special interest: AI methodologies

📅 Deadline: Feb 9, 2026
👥 2-12 years post-PhD

Apply now 📝 research.pasteur.fr/en/call/crea...

#JobOpportunity #Research

Pangenomics transforms evolutionary biology | Royal Society This Theo Murphy meeting organised by Dr Joana Meier, Dr Henry North and Dr Charlotte Wright, will showcase cutting-edge pangenome tools, applied uses of pangenomes which are transforming health and a...

Are you excited about pangenomics? If so, join us in Edinburgh on 8-9th June to discuss the latest methods & insights from using these approaches across biodiversity! More details here:

royalsociety.org/science-even...

Organised together with @henrylnorth.bsky.social & @joanameier.bsky.social!

Save the date - don't miss out!
The 72nd Australian Mammal Society Conference will be held in Canberra (Shine Dome) from 5th - 10th July 2026! This very special conference will be jointly held with the #australasianbatsociety
- ECR workshops on 5th
- focussed #bat and #dasyurid symposia on 6th
🦇🐾🐭🐨

GitHub - alanrogers/popgen: A course on population genetics A course on population genetics. Contribute to alanrogers/popgen development by creating an account on GitHub.

I taught (and co-taught) a course on human population genetics from 2000-2024. Having retired, I'm now making all the course materials public: github.com/alanrogers/p... #popgen #evbio

A group of Adélie penguins in #Antarctica. Photo courtesy Arvind Varsani/ASU.

Studying penguin virology in #Antarctica:
@arizonastateuni.bsky.social researchers lead in discovery of new viruses in Antarctic penguins, expanding knowledge of polar ecosystems @viralnomad.bsky.social

news.asu.edu/b/20251124-s...

We want to make EVE research as accessible as possible and hope HI-FEVER let's people explore virus evolution! 🦴🧬🕑

We tested it on Windows, Mac and Linux and implemented it in PIXI with Apptainer and Conda to make installation and running as easy as possible. 🖥️💻

HI-FEVER scans host genomes for endogenous viral elements (EVEs), reconstructs the ancestral viral protein and predicts it's classification. 🧬🔍✔️

The best part: it runs on everything from small laptops to HPC computers needing as little as 5GB storage space (including databases!).

HI-FEVER: a Nextflow pipeline for the high-throughput discovery and annotation of endogenous viral elements AbstractSummary. Endogenous viral elements (EVEs) offer valuable insights into virus and host evolution, but their detection remains computationally and bi

I'm excited to introduce our new workflow for detecting endogenous viral elements - HI-FEVER. 🖥️🧬

academic.oup.com/bioinformati...

🧵

Big thanks to @ariskatzourakis.bsky.social, @humanceae.bsky.social, José Gabriel and Cormac for bringing this from conception to fruition!

SMBE 2026 | Registration is open

Registration is now open for SMBE 2026!

Head over to the registration page to find all the details and secure your spot 🏃‍♀️

📝 smbe2026.org/registration
🐦 Early-bird deadline: March 31, 2026

If you are an active member of the SMBE you can register for the meeting with discounts.

#SMBE2026

Apply: Workshop on Phylogenomics 2026 - Evolution and Genomics Application for the 2026 Workshop on Phylogenomics Use this form to apply for the 2026 Workshop on Phylogenomics being held in Cesky Krumlov, Czechia from 25th January through 7th February, ...

Come join the Workshop on Phylogenomics in Cesky Krumlov, Czechia, from January 25 through February 7, 2026!

Applications close November 15!

#phylogenetics #evolution #genomics #ai

evomics.org/apply-worksh...

Split image. On left is a radio chart showing a squiggly line annotated with the date and sky reference, of where the pulsar was detected. On the right is a woman standing with a chart in her hand, with a large radio telescope in the background.

One of astronomy's most inspiring figures, Dame Prof. Jocelyn Bell Burnell was in Sydney this week.

@cosmicrami.com sat down for an interview with her, discussing the impact of her discovery and community advocacy legacy.

www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/inte...

#SpaceAustralia

📸 Uni. of Cambridge

Now published: EnVhogDB, a large database of viral protein family HMM profiles to help functional annotation of new phage genomes - peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10....

Haunted lately by @galaxyproject.bsky.social CO₂e estimates for jobs. This one MEGAHIT assembly: ~450g CO2e. I've run this ~150k times on HPC, ~75 tonnes of CO2e 😬. Perhaps ARC/NHMRC would accept Australian Carbon Credit Units as part of the grant cost for offset? What others are doing in AUS/INT?

🦴🧬🦴🧬🦴

Abstract submission is now open for the 1st International Conference on Palaeogenomics!

June 23–26 2026, in Stockholm.

Join researchers from across the field for 4 days and >100 talks (+ poster sessions)!

Submit abstracts here 👉
icp2026.palaeogenomics.org/abstracts/

Deadline: Nov 30th

Website link: AussiERV share.google/n4Bt6fJJIEO4...

AussiERV 2025 AussiERV: Australia’s first symposium dedicated to endogenous retroviruses. Join us for this one-day virtual event on November 7th!

Do you research endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) or want to learn more about them? 🧬🤔

Consider presenting at or attending AuusiERV - an inaugural online symposium for ERV research in Australia 🇦🇺 (and abroad) 🗺️

Abstracts due 1st October!

events.humanitix.com/aussierv-2025

#ERV #retrovirus

SMBE2026 - Call for Symposia Proposals

📢 The Call for Symposia for SMBE2026 is now open. We warmly invite you to submit a symposium proposal and help shape the scientific content of our annual meeting.

🗓️ Key dates
Call for symposia: Sep. 1 - Oct. 15
Announcement of accepted symposia: Nov. 3

More information: smbe2026.org/symposia

🚨 Proceedings B is recruiting new Data Editors!
Join our editorial board to help ensure data/code transparency across biology.
🗓 Term: 3 yrs from Jan 2026
📩 Apply by 30 Sep 2025 with a 2-page CV + cover letter: proceedingsb@royalsociety.org
🔗 Info: jackbrand.work@gmail.com /dylan.ge.gomes@gmail.com

Recent advances in the inference of deep viral evolutionary history | Journal of Virology Phylogenetic studies examining the origins, emergence, and spread of viruses have arguably been one of the most active and successful areas of evolutionary biology and form the bedrock of the flourishing field of genomic epidemiology. This, in part, reflects the ability of viruses, particularly those with RNA genomes, to evolve at rates much greater than their cellular counterparts (1). The rapid rate at which viruses evolve and accumulate mutations enables evolutionary signals to be identified through comparative genomics at short timescales relevant for outbreak investigation and response. The integration of phylogenetics and epidemiology, known as phylodynamics, has become a vital tool in response to numerous viral outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics, including Ebola (2), Zika (3), and, more recently, COVID-19 (4) and mpox (5).

There’s been a bunch of new approaches looking at deep viral evolutionary history. We’ve put together a mini review highlighting some recent advancements in structural phylogenetics and time-dependent rate models and what they could do for the field 🦠
🔗 journals.asm.org/doi/full/10....

Whilst in humans deltaviruses like hepatitis D virus need a helper virus to infect cells, we didn't find any evidence of a helper in termites.

They may transmit directly through feeding or vertically from the queen, but further research on this will help us understand how satellite viruses work 🤔

This is the first evidence of endogenous deltaviruses within animal genomes. 🧬

We also find a deltavirus that has become part of a host gene, fusing with a nucleoplasmin as part of a co-option event! 🧬🫂

#deltavirus #virus