Gytis Dudas

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🧵

PhD being advertised soon @uniexecec.bsky.social to work on viruses and bacteria in >300 species of UK moths, to understand the relative importance of ecology, evolution and environment in determining sharing of the microbiome between host species. @xavh.bsky.social @darrenobbard.bsky.social

What’s in a name? Quite a lot, when it comes to viruses and diseases. Our latest AAMCNews article explores how virologists name their discoveries — and why science and communication go hand in hand.

I would also add that if the Kenyan national lab hadn't sequenced the cases and made the genomes available publicly, this connection could not have been made in time to actually act on the information and potentially save other lives. The Nigerian labs have also shared their genome within hours.

Wild birds have played a key role in the global spread of HPAI, and yet, movement data is infrequently incorperated into analysis. Here is a call for integrating available movement data into epidemiological management 👉 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Ugandan health authorities note the person transited through Uganda from the DRC.

I've complained on here a few times about synteny plots that are harder to read than they need to be. I decided it was time to actaully do something about it: introducing SynTangle, a tool for untangling whole-genome synteny plots github.com/Hanliconius/... 1/

Really excited to be co-supervising this PhD project with Spyros Lytras through Institut Pasteur’s PPU programme! Virus evolution × comparative genomics × structural biology Applications are now open (rolling basis), deadline 14 November. Apply: ppu.pasteur.fr

Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis after Measles Outbreaks, the Philippines, 2007–2022 wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/...

Kenya has announced a second Ebola case, a family member of the first case, who was already under quarantine.

Version 1.3.2 of PearTree released: github.com/artic-networ... Fixes many of the remaining niggling bugs. WebApp updated at peartree.live

We are going to miss you very much, Helen. https://www.statnews.com/2026/10/13/helen-branswell-stat-reporter-obituary/

Uh oh, did someone’s website and personal account experience a big drop in activity after Ukraine hit a Russian data center?

Postdoc opening: My lab at NYU Langone Health is looking for a new postdoctoral fellow with wet-lab experience for an exciting project.

Most animal species pack sperm DNA with protamines instead of histones. Protamines are essential for male fertility. They are among the fastest-evolving genes in animals. That makes little sense. We think we know why, in a new paper led by @ching-hochang.bsky.social. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

"Temporal and Phylodynamic analyses of the 2026 Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo" - www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

I have put this program online. I use it mostly for teaching about alignments, though it is a genuine aligner wrapper, as well as having a ProbCons-like aligner itself. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zljs...

'The announcement of OpenAI's solution sparked controversy after Buckmaster issued a public statement describing how the company had approached him. According to Buckmaster, they said they would put him on their paper if he dropped Alpöge, his collaborator at rival company Anthropic.'

How much of the tree of life did you eat? Phylodiet scores a meal by phylogenetic diversity: type what you ate and it builds the dated tree of the organisms in it, from ~3,300 edible eukaryotes, back 2 billion years. Last night's dinner, below. 🧵 mjhickerson.github.io/phylodiet/app/phylodiet.html

Out Now! A generalized lineage nomenclature for viral genomic epidemiology #MicroSky

Thrilled to see this published today! Truly special because we made the initial discovery >15 yrs ago! We found two copies of a human gene called BC200 embedded in a human poxvirus. BC200 blurs the line between gene & transposon—both functional & mutagenic! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵1/n

Our lab just put out a new preprint! Led by Maria Maltepes, we've been working with @tavisanderson.bsky.social and @alexey-markin.bsky.social to understand how host species impacts the fundamentals of how influenza viruses evolve. TLDR, reassortment and selection rates vary widely across species.

Then and Now: The Rapid Evolution of Harmit Malik www.the-scientist.com/then-and-now...

And here is the preprint, available online on Baltic Unity Day (Sep 22). Happy citing! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Thanks again to @barney-potter.bsky.social, @gkarthik.com, @sidneymbell.bsky.social, and @mftorresj.bsky.social

Infectious transgenesis in arthropods https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.14.751565v1

Happy to share the final version of our latest study on the 2024-2025 chikungunya virus epidemic on Réunion island published today in @pnas.org 🎉 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Barney Potter & I are putting the finishing touches to the latest release of baltic set for Sep 22. If you're a current baltic user the refactored API will break things. The docs will help you navigate the new API: baltic.readthedocs.io/en/latest/in.... Preprint to follow soon. #ViroSky #EvoSky

Very happy to see our Nature Reviews Genetics article on programmed DNA elimination across eukaryotes out! A fantastic collective effort with an amazing group of colleagues, born from inspiring discussions at the Fondation des Treilles. rdcu.be/tmvKgsPZNhBa @laurarossevo.bsky.social

Please share: Only 10 days left to apply for a PhD position on comparative and population genomics in our lab 🦋

Might be useful if you're teaching antigenic drift this semester! Using @trvrb.bsky.social's modified Antigen simulator (github.com/evogytis/ant...) I made an animation showing how host immunity selects for virus antigenic escape. Available on Youtube too: youtu.be/hKE5us9nayI?... #ViroSky #EvoSky

We've been so busy with the fast approaching teaching season that I forgot to post about this (thank you, @ingrida.bsky.social!). We recently had our yearly lab retreat & we've been very lucky to have amazing guests with us so far (this year Serafin & Ingrida). Thank you for such a lovely time, lab!

Just a boost for this!

We're having fun developing post-cloud bioinformatics tools: reimagining some of the bioinformatics canon as local, browser-native applications so your data never has to leave your laptop. Here's the first set: edwards.flinders.edu.au/viz/ Let us know if you want other tools local to your laptop

Please share: Full-time PhD position on Butterfly Evolution at High Elevations 🦋⛰️ The project aims to understand the evolution and adaptation of Andean white butterflies using genomics. DEADLINE: September 11, 2026 More info: pavelmatos.wordpress.com/join-us/

This is today's America on display. Ignorant, anti-science, anti-education, misinformed, disinforming, weak, bullying, without a functioning opposition, and divided beyond visible repair.

Flu B viruses: why not H-something-N-something? [more flu, this time from 2019] virologydownunder.com/flu-b-viruse...

Get excited :) PhyloSpec is coming! A shared standard + modelling language for phylogenetic models. Write a model once, run it across engines like BEAST X, BEAST 2.8 & RevBayes. Easy and reproducible. Built by @tochsner.bsky.social & collaborators (ETH Zürich, Auckland, LMU). phylospec.com

Klawitter & @alexeidrummond.bsky.social introduce novel and efficient methods for estimating the credible level of individual tree topologies using tractable tree distributions, specifically conditional clade distribution (CCD). 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag141 #societyjournal #compbio

Come work on exciting AI for biology projects in Paris!! 🇫🇷 Details and application below, deadline sept 1st!

We’re hiring!! Interesting in fieldwork and working with cute mice? See below for further information

In new study led by @bdadonaite.bsky.social, we show many influenza HAs (H5, H7, H9, H1, H2, H3) can use avian or human MHC-II to enter cells. We then use novel combo of deep mutational scanning & cryoEM to define how H5 HA binds to avian MHC-II. Preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...

'Whole-genome sequencing of tumour and matched non-tumour host tissues revealed that tumour mitochondrial and nuclear genomes are more closely related to each other than to their hosts or unaffected fish.' www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In collaboration with the Munk School, I am sharing a ten-lecture course I taught at @utoronto.ca this past year. The course is called “Hitler and Stalin Today.” Watch the first lecture here: snyder.substack.com/p/new-lectur...

New review out! At @annualreviews.bsky.social for Virology! Check out the summary thread below 👇👇👇