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Reposted by Andy Pekosz

Dept of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology at Johns Hopkins @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social · 13d

PhD Candidate & @andrewpekosz.bsky.social Lab member Camille Wouters defends her PhD thesis tomorrow.

Good Luck, Camille!

📆 Friday, Sept. 26, 2025
⏰ 10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
📍 @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social
🏢 W2030

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Reposted by Andy Pekosz

Dept of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology at Johns Hopkins @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social · 23d

A profile in @jhu.edu's HUB highlights JH-CEIRR's @ceirrnetwork.bsky.social important influenza research,
led by co-directors @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social virologist & professor @andrewpekosz.bsky.social & @hopkinsmedicine.bsky.social Richard Rothman, MD

More here:
hub.jhu.edu/2025/09/10/j...

JHU Center of Excellence leads global fight against influenza

Experts at Johns Hopkins and across the country work together to better understand the behavior and characteristics of respiratory viruses, how our immune system responds to them, and how we can preve...

hub.jhu.edu

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Reposted by Andy Pekosz

Dept of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology at Johns Hopkins @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social · 21d

Virologist, @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social Professor & @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social vice-chair @andrewpekosz.bsky.social explains mRNA vaccine technology on @npr.org @wfae.bsky.social Charlotte Talks

Listen here for answers & clarity around COVID-19 vaccines
www.wfae.org/show/charlot...

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Aug 21

Found this book in my department mailbox yesterday. No envelope, no shipping information, no note and I was the only person to receive this "gift". Clearly, someone needs to come to my lecture on the origin and evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic to get educated on the facts.

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Reposted by Andy Pekosz

Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · Aug 15

Shop is restocked with itty-bitty paintings #sciart ko-fi.com/1626SLXL3044F neuro, micro, genetics, algorithms

Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · Aug 14

I'm going to post one more round of itty-bitty paintings on my ko-fi tomorrow. After that I need to start saving them for upcoming irl events. #sciart

Several small watercolor paintings on themes of science and technology

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Reposted by Andy Pekosz

Dept of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology at Johns Hopkins @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social · Aug 11

“It’s not so much that the virus has become less dangerous, it’s that we have immunity, so we fight off the virus more efficiently than we did early in the pandemic,” said @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @jhu.edu Professor and Virologist @andrewpekosz.bsky.social

www.iflscience.com/rfk-jr-pulls...

RFK Jr Pulls Millions Of Dollars Of mRNA Vaccine Funding, Citing Misinformation – Here's What To Know

The Health and Human Services Secretary claimed, against all scientific consensus, that these vaccines are ineffective.

www.iflscience.com

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Reposted by Andy Pekosz

ASM @asm.org · Aug 8

Requiring grant review by political appointees will continue to delay and disrupt critical research and interferes with scientists’ ability to help protect the nation’s health and security. Read our statement: asm.org/press-releas...

ASM Responds to Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking

ASM calls on the Trump Administration to put science ahead of politics and immediately end its plan to force scientific grants to be reviewed by political appointees.

asm.org

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 29

Congratulations to Jerome Edwards on defending his PhD thesis on mechanisms driving the attenuation of Live attenuated measles vaccine virus replication. Jerome did great things and is yet another example of Diane Griffin's mentoring. @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social

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Reposted by Andy Pekosz

Dr Emma Hodcroft @firefoxx66.bsky.social · Jul 25

📢New job posting!📢
Are you excited by the idea of building global infrastructure to make pathogen sequencing more accessible, interpretable, and equitable? 🧑🏻‍💻🧬

My group at @swisstph.ch has an opening working with ARTIC2, @pathoplexus.org, & Loculus - read on!

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An image showing the ARTIC and Pathoplexus logos connected by blue lines, with the text "Hiring: post-doc/software engineer" and "Global open-source pathogen tools" and "Join Swiss TPH, Work on ARTIC2 and Pathoplexus, Basel, Switzerland"

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Reposted by Andy Pekosz

Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · Jul 21

There it is
artologica.etsy.com/listing/4338...

gray and black brain painting with curving lines and text - there is no such thing as artificial intelligence

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Reposted by Andy Pekosz

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · Jul 25

Covid vaccination saved ~2.5 million lives between 2020-2024
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Lives and life-Years Saved From COVID-19 Vaccination

This comparative effectiveness study analyses the number of lives and life-years saved worldwide among those who had been vaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020-2024 years.

jamanetwork.com

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 25

Our two summer students wrapped up their stays in the laboratory with posters on the influenza viruses that circulated this past year. One preprint is up and another is coming. lots of thanks to @ceirrnetwork.bsky.social and @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social for support and collaborations!

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 25

Read the paper for more data and some speculations as to why we are seeing such changes in age susceptibility and antigenic drift with C.3re. Lots of support for this study from @ceirrnetwork.bsky.social @johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social

Dept of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology at Johns Hopkins (@johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social)

Basic science dept focused on control, prevention & treatment of infectious diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, parasites and fungi. MMI is part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heal...

johnshopkinsmmi.bsky.social

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 25

Second, C.3re escaped influenza vaccine induced serum neutralizing antibody in a very significant way.

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 25

Why is this important? First, the C.3re infections skewed to a much younger age group than the C.5 infections that had been occurring earlier in the influenza season.

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 25

Finally, we named it C.3re because it’s a reassortant virus between a C.5.1 and a C.3 clade virus, with a little uncertainty about where the NS segment came from

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 25

It also encodes an NA with some mutations at known antibody epitopes and near the enzyme active site

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 25

The first interesting thing about this IBV variant, C.3re, is that it has a mutation that reintroduces a N-linked glycosylation site at 197 of HA – a site known to mask a neutralizing antibody epitope

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 25

...when we saw a surge of IBV cases in the Baltimore/DC area, driven by clade C.3, which hadn’t dominated in some time.

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 25

The past influenza season was rather quiet when it came IBV www.cdc.gov/fluview/surv... until about March...

Weekly US Influenza Surveillance Report: Key Updates for Week 28, ending July 12, 2025

Seasonal influenza activity is low.

www.cdc.gov

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 25

A new preprint from the lab describing an influenza B virus that emerged late in the 2024-25 season that underwent both reassortment and antigenic drift with @eakin.bsky.social leading my team in this collaboration with Heba Mostafa at Johns Hopkins Medicine ‪ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Emergence of an Antigenically Drifted and Reassorted Influenza B Virus at the end of the 2024-25 Influenza Season

BACKGROUND Influenza B virus is a significant contributor to annual total and severe cases of influenza, particularly in the young and elderly. Coupling whole virus genome sequencing with the monitori...

www.biorxiv.org

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 17

5/5 This work was driven by PhD student Annie Werner, in collaboration with @Virusnerdette and Cossette @cosettegrace from the University of Maryland with help from Elgin Akin from my group

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 17

4/5...but it may indicate that boosting NA antibodies might be a faster way to induce human population immunity to bovine H5N1. Several other studies have indicated similar things.

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 17

3/5 The N1 NA crossreactive antibodies are boosted after seasonal influenza H1N1 infection, but not by H3N2 infection or seasonal influenza vaccination. Of course, we don’t know how these crossreactive NA antibodies modulate H5N1 disease...

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Andy Pekosz @andrewpekosz.bsky.social · Jul 17

2/5 While there is little H5 HA binding or neutralizing antibody responses, there is a significant amount of antibodies that recognize bovine N1 NA and that inhibit NA enzymatic activity.

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