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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas
@evogytis.bsky.social
1.4K followers 180 following 75 posts
PI @ Vilnius University Life Sciences Center 🦠🧬🌳🌍🐾📈. Enthusiast of orthomyxos (& other (-)ssRNA viruses), RNA virus discovery, evolution & ecology, genomic epidemiology, data-vis, matplotlib. EMBO installation grantee. evogytis.github.io
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · Jul 17
This is quite late but our lab has a preprint out about a SARS-CoV-2 situation we had in mink in Lithuania back in 2021. It's a doozy with re-emergence of extinct lineages, a country-wide test of all mink farms in Lithuania & some interesting dynamics in mink. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/5🧵
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Reposted by Gytis Dudas
joachim123.bsky.social
Joachim Frank @joachim123.bsky.social · 2d
I'm excited to report that a species has been named after my son Ze Frank, "in recognition of his outstanding contributions to science communication, which have inspired curiosity, wonder, and deeper public engagement with the natural world"
The certificate by Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance, issued in Voncina, 2025, spells out that a newly described species of chiton has been formally named Craspedochiton zefranki. This is in recognition of his outstanding contributions to science communication, which have inspired curiosity, wonder, and deeper public engagement with the natural world.
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darrenobbard.bsky.social
Darren Obbard @darrenobbard.bsky.social · 4d
Great story! (Although I think that this is a TE, not an endogenous retrovirus)
rpianezza.bsky.social
Riccardo Pianezza @rpianezza.bsky.social · 4d
We discovered an endogenous retrovirus that's still spreading in natural D. melanogaster populations! It was horizontally transferred from D. erecta in Central Africa, so we named it "Kuruka", which means "jump" in Swahili. Read its cool story here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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edrybicki.bsky.social
Ed Rybicki 🇿🇲🇿🇦🍷🚀 @edrybicki.bsky.social · 6d
Invasive mosquito vector species detected in surveillance traps in United Kingdom
Invasive mosquito vector species detected in surveillance traps in United Kingdom
Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes are vectors of multiple diseases including dengue, chikungunya and Zika, posing a public health risk to populations within their native range.
phys.org
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Thelonevirologist @thelonevirologist.bsky.social · 6d
LRP8 is a receptor for tick-borne encephalitis virus

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
LRP8 is a receptor for tick-borne encephalitis virus - Nature
LRP8, an apolipoprotein E and reelin receptor with high expression in the brain, is a receptor for tick-borne encephalitis virus.
www.nature.com
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Jayna Raghwani @jraghwani.bsky.social · 9d
Excited to share that our paper on the relationship between viral load and metagenomic outputs in wildlife samples is now published in Microbial Genomics @microbiologysociety! 🎉 Fantastic collaboration with a brilliant team.

More info: 📖 tinyurl.com/ywb7tvjm
Quantifying viral load and characterizing virus diversity in wildlife samples with target enrichment sequencing
Metagenomics is a powerful tool for characterizing viruses, with broad applications across diverse disciplines, from understanding the ecology and evolutionary history of viruses to identifying causat...
tinyurl.com
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spyroslytras.bsky.social
Spyros Lytras @spyroslytras.bsky.social · 10d
New exciting resource published!! The Viro3D paper is out, describing our comprehensive database of predicted virus protein structures! 💻🧬

Work with @ulad-litvin.bsky.social , @grovearmada.bsky.social , Alex Jack, @bljog.bsky.social , @davidlrobertson.bsky.social

www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
Viro3D: a comprehensive database of virus protein structure predictions | Molecular Systems Biology
imageimageViro3D provides proteome-level, high confidence AI-protein structure predictions for >4,400 viruses, allowing mapping of form and function across the human and animal virosphere. Viro3D i...
www.embopress.org
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · 12d
EMBO Young Scientists Forum 2025 in Vilnius wrapped up today. Huge thanks to fellow organisers, volunteer teams, @itaiyanai.bsky.social for a wonderful Night Science workshop & all speakers & attendees. Here's fellow organiser Stephen Jones taking YSF attendee entertainment to the next level.
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · 14d
> be at conference
> slide mentions human roseolovirus 6 beta
> don't know what that is
> ah, *technically* it's Roseolovirus humanbeta6b (in italics too)
> googling says it's actually just good old human herpesvirus 6

Thanks, ICTV 👍👍👍 I see your "facilitating communication" is going real well.
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · 16d
That's >10 yrs of undetected flu D circulation in cattle, an animal humans interact with & depend on. That reflects very poorly on our surveillance efforts & there's many other examples of late virus discovery - Tilapia lake virus, human metapneumovirus, etc. We need to do better. 6/6
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · 16d
Influenza A-D viruses are more closely related to flu in fish than to each other. To me that implies a propensity to spillovers into mammals directly from fish/amphibians or via unknown hosts. Assuming current flu D diversity dates back to its spillover means it happened in 1998. 5/6
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · 16d
Having said that, I see an interesting metagenomic angle here. @eddieholmes.bsky.social, @marypetrone.bsky.social & many others have revolutionised our understanding of influenza virus evolution over the last decade, showing a smooth continuum of influenza virus diversity in fish & amphibians. 4/6
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · 16d
Importantly, our results also seem to be heavily influenced by available sequence data. Even though we reconstruct the origin of current flu D HEF gene diversity as US or Japan, we aren't fully convinced by this. With limited location sampling at this time, substantially more data are needed. 3/6
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · 16d
Indrė, as a data sciences MSc, has done an excellent job at collating sequence & predictor data for a BEAST GLM, even teaching me a few things along the way. Our results implicate (weakly) cattle trade & short distance (shared land border and intra-continental) migrations in moving flu D around. 2/6
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · 16d
My MSc student Indrė Blagnytė has a #preprint up on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social on influenza D virus: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... Flu D was discovered back in 2011, mostly circulating in cattle. Despite lots of research, a comprehensive analysis of its phylogeography had been missing. 1/6
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chantalvogels.bsky.social
Chantal Vogels @chantalvogels.bsky.social · 19d
📢New preprint on the impact of dengue virus genetic diversity on inhibition by Wolbachia 🦟🦠🧬

Project led by Afeez Sodeinde, @emiliefinch.bsky.social, and @keli5734.bsky.social! ✨

Key findings in thread below 👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Heterogeneity in inhibition of genetically diverse dengue virus strains by Wolbachia
The release of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes transinfected with the virus-inhibiting Wolbachia bacterium has the potential to reduce the burden caused by dengue virus (DENV). However, the robustness of thi...
www.biorxiv.org
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liambrierley.bsky.social
Dr Liam Brierley @liambrierley.bsky.social · 20d
🚨📝 New work via @thepandemicinst.bsky.social now preprinted!

We took ~19000 sequences of avian influenza virus and trained machine learning models on >40000 genomic/proteomic features - the resulting ensemble can predict zoonotic potential with AUC=0.95. More below!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
An AI for an AI: identifying zoonotic potential of avian influenza viruses via genomic machine learning
Avian influenza remains a serious risk to human health via zoonotic transmission, as well as a feasible pandemic threat. Although limited zoonotic cases have resulted from the current epizootic outbre...
www.biorxiv.org
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flodebarre.bsky.social
Flo Débarre @flodebarre.bsky.social · Sep 8
@zachhensel.bsky.social and I have a new paper on the origin of SARS-CoV-2! 🧪

There are a lot of reviews on the topic already, so we tried to do something different: characterize "lab leak" scenarios, and directly address those on SARS-CoV-2's furin cleavage site.▫️1/9

doi.org/10.5802/crbi...
doi.org
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kgandersen.bsky.social
Kristian G. Andersen @kgandersen.bsky.social · 27d
We just went through the submission process with a Lancet sub-journal for consideration of our latest preprint.

Then we got to the "fees" page - more than $8,000.

I'm not sure journals realize how squeezed ID funding is, but what I'm not going to spend eight grand of tax-payer money on is that.
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · 27d
Agree & I think @embo.org made the right move - preprints with outsourced peer-review (e.g. Review Commons) count as full publications for grant apps. I'd like to think that a peer endorsement system of preprints might work, can't be worse than predatory journals publishing any crap for money.
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peacockflu.bsky.social
Tom Peacock @peacockflu.bsky.social · 29d
Really excited to have been a small part of this work investigating sarbecovirus host range, receptor usage and antigenicity!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.03.673949v1
Understanding the future risk of bat coronavirus spillover into humans: correlating sarbecovirus receptor usage, host range, and antigenicity.
Sarbecoviruses interact with their receptor, angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), via the receptor binding domain (RBD) of Spike, the immunodominant target for neutralising antibodies. Understandin...
www.biorxiv.org
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jbloomlab.bsky.social
Bloom lab @jbloomlab.bsky.social · Sep 8
In new study led by @ckikawa.bsky.social, we provide near real-time data on human neutralizing antibody landscape to influenza by measuring ~26,000 titers to >100 recent viral strains

Data can inform vaccine selection & evolutionary/epidemiological modeling
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Near real-time data on the human neutralizing antibody landscape to influenza virus to inform vaccine-strain selection in September 2025
The hemagglutinin of human influenza virus evolves rapidly to erode neutralizing antibody immunity. Twice per year, new vaccine strains are selected with the goal of providing maximum protection again...
www.biorxiv.org
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boghuma.bsky.social
BK. Titanji @boghuma.bsky.social · Sep 5
In under 24h following the newly identified outbreak of #Ebola in the DRC, the virus has been isolated, sequenced and the virus sequence data made publicly available.
virological.org/t/the-16th-e...
The 16th Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Bulape Health Zone, Kasai, Democratic Republic of the Congo: A new spillover event from an unknown reservoir host
Background The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is currently facing concurrent outbreaks including mpox, cholera and malaria (1-4). The Ministry of Public Health, DRC has declared the 16th Ebola...
virological.org
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evogytis.bsky.social
Gytis Dudas @evogytis.bsky.social · Aug 28
Last week we had a 3-day lab retreat at Vilnius University's base in Puvočiai with Lander de Coninck & @ingrida.bsky.social joining us as visitors. These retreats keep getting better & more productive thanks to the students & especially fellow PI @mgabrielaite.bsky.social. I'm super proud!
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wsdewitt.github.io
William DeWitt @wsdewitt.github.io · Aug 26
A short blog post about a recent preprint (work hatched as a very fun all-postdoc collaboration at @sfiscience.bsky.social)
A dynamical perspective on triggering multiscale immune responses
Preprint: BH Schlomann, WS DeWitt, Y Zhang, K Shah. Ignition criteria for trigger waves in cell signaling. arXiv:2508.16810 [q-bio.CB]
dewitt-lab.github.io
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kgandersen.bsky.social
Kristian G. Andersen @kgandersen.bsky.social · Aug 15
"Last week’s attack on the #CDC could have been a slaughter."

Absolutely.

And, importantly, thanks to the inflammatory rhetoric, falsehoods, disinformation, and conspiracy theories constantly spouted by the very same person who's responsible for the agency - HHS Secretary RFK Jr.

He must go.
helenbranswell.bsky.social
Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 @helenbranswell.bsky.social · Aug 15
This point isnt being made enough. Last week’s attack on the #CDC could have been a slaughter.
www.statnews.com/2025/08/15/c...
The CDC shooting was public health’s Jan. 6
“In RFK Jr.’s America, it will never be safe to practice public health or medicine," write an epidemiologist and a former CDC staffer.
www.statnews.com
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