Detailed report on 25 of the Polish cats, interrogation of 19 full HPAI genomes. No clustering based on geography. To date, are the only sequences with dual PB2 526R/627K mutations for mammalian infection.
👉eurosurveillance.org/content/10.280…

New #COVID19 update for Aotearoa New Zealand:
👉XBC.1.3 = 24% of sequenced cases, growing
👉XBB still common at 59%
👉XBC rises w/ decreasing total cases
👉EG.5 sublineage not causing a surge
👉 #Wastewater : XBC variant rising, XBB most prevalent

See more esr.cri.nz/our-expertise/…

Concise and accurate. Well worth five minutes of your time to cut through the maelstrom of shameful accusations being thrown around.

Highly pathogenic avian #influenza ( #vogelgriep ) may have killed millions of wild birds globally. Based in part on bioRxiv by Marcel Klaassen and @duckswabber: 'Wild birds’ plight and role in the current bird flu panzootic.' biorxiv.org/content/10.110… theguardian.com/environment/20…

There have been some interesting developments with the panzootic (aka a pandemic of animals) H5N1 in mammals over the last few months.

Though I'd write a brief thread covering Polish cats, South American sealions and European fur farms.

Mink farming poses risks for future viral pandemics | PNAS wendybarclay Tom Peacock pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

🚨 Want to fit a molecular clock, or 2? 🚨

👉 Try clockor2.github.io - a client side tool for fitting global and local clocks with root-to-tip regression.

Developed in collaboration with Wytamma, Gone to the other place, and Sebastian Duchene (rb.gy/dro6j)

Avian influenza H5n1 on five (!!) fur farms in Finland. Apparently no control measures except “ people need to be carefull”. Astounding. We do not learn from the past. GUESS WHAT: passaging wildly may generate mammalian adapted h5n1. Not good…. ruokavirasto.fi/elaimet/elaint…

Only 48 hours to go! I am so proud of the incredibly generous, hardworking & wonderful group of people I have had the privilege of working with the last two years, the International Congress of Genetics 2023 program committee! See you all soon for what is going to be an amazing meeting! 🧬😀👋

Well, folks - I'm considering going on the Post-Doc market. I have a strong track record of publication, media engagement, and teaching. Please let me know if you hear of anything suitable -

Interests: reptiles, amphibians, physiology, evolution, and reproduction🦎🐍🐢🐸

One of the bat coronaviruses described here from Yunnan province in China is a recombinant between SARS-1-like and SARS-2-like viruses. It has a receptor binding domain that is as close as any to SARS-CoV-2. nature.com/articles/s4146…

Total infectome investigation of diphtheritic stomatitis in yellow-eyed penguins (Megadyptes antipodes) reveals a novel and abundant megrivirus biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

You have to kiss (sequence) a lot of frogs before you find your prince (novel #flavivirus like tamanavirus).
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Our preprint on the evolutionary history of #hepaciviruses — the group of RNA viruses that includes #HCV — is out. Here we provide novel data, implement methodological advances and estimate the origin of the genus to be ~22 million years ago (1/4) biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

New #COVID update in Aotearoa New Zealand
👉XBB variants dominate (58% of sequenced cases)
👉XBB.1.5 decreases to 5%
👉XBB.1.16 holds at 20%
👉Other XBB variants at 32%
👉Age bias is seen in #COVID 19 genome sequencing
👉XBB.1.9 lineages are common
See more esr.cri.nz/our-expertise/…

CDC has updated the risk assessment of HPAI. The mink virus scored higher on 6/10 risk elements (antiviral treatment, disease severity & pathogenesis, genomic analysis, human infections, infections in animals, & transmission in animal models.
👉cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-r…

Virus genomic data from the UK eloquently demonstrate the shift to 2.3.4.4b H5N1 at the end of 2021 from H5Nx the previous year. Large diveresity of reassortants.
👉journals.asm.org/doi/epub/10.11…

Host specificity shapes fish viromes across lakes on an isolated remote island biorxiv.org/content/10.110…