@rachidtahzima.bsky.social
Virologist & Assistant Professor / Evolutionary Computational Structural Biology & Artificial Intelligence / One Health Virology 🦠@IBSquare/VUB
🤯🤩 New Bacterial Protein Discovery Challenges Textbook Biology
PopA’s Unique Lipid-Trapping Structure Reveals Hidden Complexity in Bacteria
Findings Open New Paths for Antibacterial Research and Structural Bacteriology
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
PopA’s Unique Lipid-Trapping Structure Reveals Hidden Complexity in Bacteria
Findings Open New Paths for Antibacterial Research and Structural Bacteriology
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Client Challenge
www.nature.com
January 14, 2026 at 8:23 PM
🤯🤩 New Bacterial Protein Discovery Challenges Textbook Biology
PopA’s Unique Lipid-Trapping Structure Reveals Hidden Complexity in Bacteria
Findings Open New Paths for Antibacterial Research and Structural Bacteriology
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
PopA’s Unique Lipid-Trapping Structure Reveals Hidden Complexity in Bacteria
Findings Open New Paths for Antibacterial Research and Structural Bacteriology
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Privatisation of viral data we barely can use : To Finish the Pandemic Agreement, WHO Needs a Trustworthy Viral Database www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/to-f...
To Finish the Pandemic Agreement, WHO Needs a Trustworthy Viral Database | Think Global Health
Online platforms for sharing virus sequences are in disarray. The World Health Organization has a chance to build something new
www.thinkglobalhealth.org
January 9, 2026 at 5:26 PM
Privatisation of viral data we barely can use : To Finish the Pandemic Agreement, WHO Needs a Trustworthy Viral Database www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/to-f...
Reposted
Save the date for phylogenetics!
RNA virus Journal Club returns ( @rdrpsummit.bsky.social ) with @evogytis.bsky.social intro to his "Baltic" - python module to visualise phylogenetic trees.
January 15th (Thu) - EEST Vilnius Time 3:00 PM
Join slack for updates: join.slack.com/t/rdrp-io/sh...
RNA virus Journal Club returns ( @rdrpsummit.bsky.social ) with @evogytis.bsky.social intro to his "Baltic" - python module to visualise phylogenetic trees.
January 15th (Thu) - EEST Vilnius Time 3:00 PM
Join slack for updates: join.slack.com/t/rdrp-io/sh...
January 9, 2026 at 1:31 PM
Save the date for phylogenetics!
RNA virus Journal Club returns ( @rdrpsummit.bsky.social ) with @evogytis.bsky.social intro to his "Baltic" - python module to visualise phylogenetic trees.
January 15th (Thu) - EEST Vilnius Time 3:00 PM
Join slack for updates: join.slack.com/t/rdrp-io/sh...
RNA virus Journal Club returns ( @rdrpsummit.bsky.social ) with @evogytis.bsky.social intro to his "Baltic" - python module to visualise phylogenetic trees.
January 15th (Thu) - EEST Vilnius Time 3:00 PM
Join slack for updates: join.slack.com/t/rdrp-io/sh...
Protein dynamics are critical for enzyme catalysis but are difficult to observe directly. These findings provide structural insight into millisecond-scale active-site motions that underlie enzymatic function.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com
January 6, 2026 at 10:53 AM
Protein dynamics are critical for enzyme catalysis but are difficult to observe directly. These findings provide structural insight into millisecond-scale active-site motions that underlie enzymatic function.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Up to a quarter of children entering intensive care have undiagnosed genetic conditions. To be treated properly, they must first get diagnoses—which means having their genomes sequenced. This process typically takes up to seven weeks. Sadly, that’s often too slow to save a critically ill child.
January 4, 2026 at 12:04 PM
Up to a quarter of children entering intensive care have undiagnosed genetic conditions. To be treated properly, they must first get diagnoses—which means having their genomes sequenced. This process typically takes up to seven weeks. Sadly, that’s often too slow to save a critically ill child.
Avian influenza: a unique storm in wildlife.
Crossing species barriers, the farm-borne H5N1 virus has spread throughout wildlife, decimating birds and marine mammals. The Spillover is expanding globally.
Best Tool Now ‼️ Ai-fueled Integrative prediction of influenza evolution doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Crossing species barriers, the farm-borne H5N1 virus has spread throughout wildlife, decimating birds and marine mammals. The Spillover is expanding globally.
Best Tool Now ‼️ Ai-fueled Integrative prediction of influenza evolution doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Integrative modeling of seasonal influenza evolution via AI-powered antigenic cartography
Seasonal influenza viruses evade host immunity through rapid antigenic evolution. Antigenicity is assessed by serological assays and typically visualized as antigenic maps, which represent antigenic d...
doi.org
January 3, 2026 at 4:32 PM
Avian influenza: a unique storm in wildlife.
Crossing species barriers, the farm-borne H5N1 virus has spread throughout wildlife, decimating birds and marine mammals. The Spillover is expanding globally.
Best Tool Now ‼️ Ai-fueled Integrative prediction of influenza evolution doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Crossing species barriers, the farm-borne H5N1 virus has spread throughout wildlife, decimating birds and marine mammals. The Spillover is expanding globally.
Best Tool Now ‼️ Ai-fueled Integrative prediction of influenza evolution doi.org/10.1101/2025...
It’s raining our “Bs” back
December 28, 2025 at 3:16 PM
It’s raining our “Bs” back
On the Uses and « abuses » of LLMs and implications of their biases … and forget about the rest for a while ☺️
doi.org/10.48550/arX...
doi.org/10.48550/arX...
Evaluating Large Language Models in Scientific Discovery
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly applied to scientific research, yet prevailing science benchmarks probe decontextualized knowledge and overlook the iterative reasoning, hypothesis genera...
doi.org
December 22, 2025 at 1:05 PM
On the Uses and « abuses » of LLMs and implications of their biases … and forget about the rest for a while ☺️
doi.org/10.48550/arX...
doi.org/10.48550/arX...
Old still interesting observations on Replicatons origins
febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
FEBS Press
A feasible scenario for the emergence of life requires the spontaneous materialization and sustainability of a proto-ribosome that could have catalysed the formation of the first peptides. Models of ...
febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
December 6, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Old still interesting observations on Replicatons origins
febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
A significant contribution to the dinoflagellate virology. Among the notable modular features of PelV-1 are unique micron-length tail proteins, phagocytosis-like entry mechanism and its varied auxiliary proteins including photosynthesis and energy-fuelling machine 🤯 🦠
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
A dinoflagellate-infecting giant virus with a micron-length tail
Viral infection is a ubiquitous source of marine plankton mortality, but relatively few viruses that infect phytoplankton have been characterized. Here we describe a virus, PelV-1, with unusual morpho...
doi.org
August 6, 2025 at 2:28 PM
A significant contribution to the dinoflagellate virology. Among the notable modular features of PelV-1 are unique micron-length tail proteins, phagocytosis-like entry mechanism and its varied auxiliary proteins including photosynthesis and energy-fuelling machine 🤯 🦠
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Sons of Carolus Von Linnaeus !🤭
Science remains an Anarchic Process
thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-fe...
Science remains an Anarchic Process
thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-fe...
Taxonomic trolling
26 May 2025
Darren Naish looks at how a small number of authors can cause chaos in biology’s system for naming species and what can be done about it
The term ‘taxonomy’ refers to the branch of sc...
thebiologist.rsb.org.uk
July 17, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Sons of Carolus Von Linnaeus !🤭
Science remains an Anarchic Process
thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-fe...
Science remains an Anarchic Process
thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-fe...
🤓 Wounderfull Research Article with a « Compendium » of new interesting domains in new viruses… very Similar and Complementary to our Modulome Biophysics Approach … Big Congrats🥇🖖🏼
doi.org/10.1128/mbio...
doi.org/10.1128/mbio...
The protein structurome of Orthornavirae and its dark matter | mBio
Advanced methods for protein structure prediction, such as AlphaFold2, greatly expand
our capability to identify protein domains and infer their likely functions and evolutionary
relationships. This i...
doi.org
July 16, 2025 at 4:30 PM
🤓 Wounderfull Research Article with a « Compendium » of new interesting domains in new viruses… very Similar and Complementary to our Modulome Biophysics Approach … Big Congrats🥇🖖🏼
doi.org/10.1128/mbio...
doi.org/10.1128/mbio...
Researchers discovered 20 new bat viruses, including closely related to deadly Nipah/Hendra viruses, in bats. henipaviruses were found in fruit bats near human-populated areas, raising concerns about potential spillover risks. Further lab studies needed. 🦠🦠🦠
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Infectome analysis of bat kidneys from Yunnan province, China, reveals novel henipaviruses related to Hendra and Nipah viruses and prevalent bacterial and eukaryotic microbes
Author summary Although extensive investigations have been conducted on the bat virome, most studies have focused on fecal samples, leaving other tissues, such as the kidney, largely unexplored. Howev...
doi.org
June 25, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Researchers discovered 20 new bat viruses, including closely related to deadly Nipah/Hendra viruses, in bats. henipaviruses were found in fruit bats near human-populated areas, raising concerns about potential spillover risks. Further lab studies needed. 🦠🦠🦠
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
RdRpzzz… at your marks 🤯🦠
“Microbe with bizarrely tiny genome may be evolving into a virus
With DNA focused almost entirely on replication, newly discovered organism blurs the line between cells and viruses”
doi:10.1126/science.z7ekqxv
“Microbe with bizarrely tiny genome may be evolving into a virus
With DNA focused almost entirely on replication, newly discovered organism blurs the line between cells and viruses”
doi:10.1126/science.z7ekqxv
www.biorxiv.org
June 18, 2025 at 9:49 AM
RdRpzzz… at your marks 🤯🦠
“Microbe with bizarrely tiny genome may be evolving into a virus
With DNA focused almost entirely on replication, newly discovered organism blurs the line between cells and viruses”
doi:10.1126/science.z7ekqxv
“Microbe with bizarrely tiny genome may be evolving into a virus
With DNA focused almost entirely on replication, newly discovered organism blurs the line between cells and viruses”
doi:10.1126/science.z7ekqxv
Reposted
Think coronavirus spikes have run out of surprises? Think again.
Our latest preprint dives into the highly unusual spikes of marine mammal coronaviruses.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
This #cryoEM study was led by @viralfusion.bsky.social, with key contributions from an amazing team.
Our latest preprint dives into the highly unusual spikes of marine mammal coronaviruses.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
This #cryoEM study was led by @viralfusion.bsky.social, with key contributions from an amazing team.
May 23, 2025 at 5:02 AM
Think coronavirus spikes have run out of surprises? Think again.
Our latest preprint dives into the highly unusual spikes of marine mammal coronaviruses.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
This #cryoEM study was led by @viralfusion.bsky.social, with key contributions from an amazing team.
Our latest preprint dives into the highly unusual spikes of marine mammal coronaviruses.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
This #cryoEM study was led by @viralfusion.bsky.social, with key contributions from an amazing team.
Reposted
Protein sequencing on desktop sequencer maybe possible soon ?! 🤯🤯
Multi-pass, single-molecule nanopore reading of long protein strands - Nature
A technique for threading long protein strands through a nanopore by electrophoresis and back using a protein unfoldase motor, ClpX, enables single protein molecules to be analyzed multiple times with...
www.nature.com
May 22, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Protein sequencing on desktop sequencer maybe possible soon ?! 🤯🤯
arxiv.org
May 23, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Reposted
Wellcome Genome campus started to feel like home :)
back for some bioinformatics talks, information, discussions... on microbes and public health. #ABPHM25
last week: info on RNA viruses, then: all viruses at ViBioM2025, today: microbes :)
🎊 90 countries >600 attendees!
Science is global! 🌏🌍🌎
back for some bioinformatics talks, information, discussions... on microbes and public health. #ABPHM25
last week: info on RNA viruses, then: all viruses at ViBioM2025, today: microbes :)
🎊 90 countries >600 attendees!
Science is global! 🌏🌍🌎
May 21, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Wellcome Genome campus started to feel like home :)
back for some bioinformatics talks, information, discussions... on microbes and public health. #ABPHM25
last week: info on RNA viruses, then: all viruses at ViBioM2025, today: microbes :)
🎊 90 countries >600 attendees!
Science is global! 🌏🌍🌎
back for some bioinformatics talks, information, discussions... on microbes and public health. #ABPHM25
last week: info on RNA viruses, then: all viruses at ViBioM2025, today: microbes :)
🎊 90 countries >600 attendees!
Science is global! 🌏🌍🌎
Reposted
Anatomy, Ecology and Virology of these Amazing 🦠 - Spyros You Rocked Those GPs - @spyroslytras.bsky.social 😉
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Mapping glycoprotein structure reveals Flaviviridae evolutionary history - Nature
Combined phylogenetic analyses and glycoprotein structure prediction across the Flaviviridae reveals divergent membrane fusion systems and provides insights into the complex evolutionary history withi...
www.nature.com
May 17, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Anatomy, Ecology and Virology of these Amazing 🦠 - Spyros You Rocked Those GPs - @spyroslytras.bsky.social 😉
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted
The CRISPR family’s most versatile member has made its medical debut: a cutting-edge gene-editing technique known as prime editing has been used to treat a person for the first time
https://go.nature.com/3YNta9V
https://go.nature.com/3YNta9V
World first: ultra-powerful CRISPR treatment trialled in a person
Immune-cell function improved in a teenager whose DNA was altered using prime editing.
go.nature.com
May 19, 2025 at 1:58 PM
The CRISPR family’s most versatile member has made its medical debut: a cutting-edge gene-editing technique known as prime editing has been used to treat a person for the first time
https://go.nature.com/3YNta9V
https://go.nature.com/3YNta9V
Reposted
Single cell transcriptomics correlate avian coronavirus prime vaccination efficacy with antigen-presenting cell preference
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Single cell transcriptomics correlate avian coronavirus prime vaccination efficacy with antigen-presenting cell preference - npj Vaccines
npj Vaccines - Single cell transcriptomics correlate avian coronavirus prime vaccination efficacy with antigen-presenting cell preference
www.nature.com
May 19, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Single cell transcriptomics correlate avian coronavirus prime vaccination efficacy with antigen-presenting cell preference
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted
Identification of naturally occurring drug-resistant mutations of SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Identification of naturally occurring drug-resistant mutations of SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease - Nature Communications
This study identifies E167, Y268, and Q269 as drug-resistant hotspots for SARS-CoV papain-like protease inhibitors that bind to the BL2 loop and groove region, which are valuable in informing the desi...
www.nature.com
May 19, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Identification of naturally occurring drug-resistant mutations of SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
