Just Security summarizes the COVID-19 Mass General Grand Rounds, led by Bruce D. Walker, breaking down the key findings of the Greater Boston Consortium for Pathogen Readiness. @MGH_RI justsecurity.org/69202/highligh…

To beat #COVID19, its replication and transcription machinery has to be taken down. To do that well, we need to know its high-resolution #3D structure. Today we've got the cryo-EM. + tied to remdesivir, a promising drug science.sciencemag.org/content/early/… Science Magazine h/t Holden Thorp, dormant account

Deployable CRISPR-Cas13a diagnostic tools to detect and report Ebola and Lassa virus cases in real-time disq.us/t/3r37ie2

Origin and cross-species transmission of bat coronaviruses in China disq.us/t/3r8rptv

We mapped how all mutations to #SARSCoV2 receptor-binding domain (RBD) affect recognition by convalescent polyclonal human sera (biorxiv.org/content/10.110…). Among implications: E484K (South African lineage) worrying for immune escape; RBD mutations in UK lineage less so (1/n).

At this point, the countries with most genomic data to analyze spread of the variant virus belonging to cov-lineages.org B.1.1.7 lineage or Nextstrain clade 20I/501Y.V1 are the UK, Denmark and the USA. Here I compare growth rates of B.1.17 across these countries. 1/13

$MRNA preprint on variants: biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

We have just uploaded a pre-print to MedRxiv sharing our data on the potential for sera from recipients of currently administered mRNA vaccines to neutralize 10 different circulating strains of #SARSCoV2. Before it posts online, I'd like to put them into context. A thread: 1/12

If anyone is interested in reading the complete pre-print, it is now available for download on out lab's website: balazslab.partners.org

First day of #HumanViruses Dynamics & Evolution conference. I’ll give a flavour in the thread below. HIV & SARS-CoV-2, sequencing & modelling & immunology. Talks listed here cpd.ucsd.edu/hivdynamics/ag…. Organisers Dr. Manon Ragonnet Sergei Pond @ucsandiegocme @ucsdcme 1/N

Until the pre-print posts, I figured I would put together a thread for those who want to see the data. Many thanks to Wilfredo F. Garcia-Beltran, MD, PhD, @kstdenis29, Evan Lam, Adam Nitido, Vivek Naranbhai who have been up at all hours of the night both at the bench and writing the paper! 1/16

Our method to improve confidence and prevent common errors in SARS-CoV-2 sequencing is out in Nature Microbiology. What started as a pandemic scramble to help out in some way, turned into project and team I am so proud to be part of! nature.com/articles/s4156… a brief overview: (1)

We are looking to recruit new techs to join the lab and help us engineer immunity against SARS-CoV-2 and HIV infection! If you are passionate about virology and immunology and want to be part of creating the next-generation of interventions please apply! partners.taleo.net/careersection/…

Our preprint is live! We find that IgG antibody subclass has a big influence on protective efficacy of VRC07 broadly neutralizing antibody against vaginal HIV transmission in humanized mice. We also show that even a little VRC07 yields protection in vivo. biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

I will be defending my Ph.D. dissertation (via zoom) on August 24 at 11AM ET! If you want to watch it, send me a DM, and I'll share with you the link.

Ever wonder why despite the extreme mutation rates of RNA viruses, diversity in nature is concentrated in a few viral proteins? Could it be because viral proteins have different abilities to tolerate mutations? Our full proteome DMS study looks at this! biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh…

New pre-print from the lab🥳🥳!! Amazing team effort between Douam Lab, Balazs Lab and Christelle Harly's group in Nantes. Congrats to Devin Kenney for spearheading the work. biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Our preview of a new paper describing the development of a new mRNA vaccine against mpox is now available online. Thanks to Adam Nitido for the great team effort putting this together! sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

QuickFit: A high-throughput RT-qPCR-based assay to quantify viral growth and fitness in vitro biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh… #biorxiv_micrbio

'Virology—The next fifty years' - a perspective by Eddie Holmes, Felicia Goodrum🇺🇦 and myself in Cell cell.com/cell/fulltext/…