Chris Sullivan

Interesting synthesis of older structures and AlphaFold3 to help explain, in part, how the amazing Large T Antigen is so “multi- multi-“ functional. www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/18...

Congrats to UT Austin colleague Ian Molineux on his International Society for Viruses and Microorganisms Lifetime Achievement Award. molecularbiosci.utexas.edu/news/accolad...

I wrote up my thoughts about the COVID origin. I don't plan to weigh in on the topic beyond this one post for the next five years or so. Looking into what the evidence says once or twice every decade feels like a good cadence. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/it-still-w...

If you want to worry about the dangers of AI, something like this is a much better place to start than an engineered bioweapon. t.me/MaxOsintInte...

My department at UT Austin is looking to hire an Asst. prof immunologist - including those who work on host-pathogen interaction, inflammation and cancer. Please amplify this and share widely.

I'm really frustrated by the constant fear-mongering about AI-designed superviruses. Can we focus on the things that should actually worry us, such as measles? blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/im-sorry-y...

'There are deadly viruses all around us, and viruses routinely jump from animals to humans and cause severe outbreaks. This is a real, documented risk. This is the risk we should worry about. This is the risk we should prepare for. But instead, we worry about fictitious AI-designed viruses'

Can we use human language to predict novel bioactive molecules that work in vivo? In our new paper, we trained a deep learning model on a dataset derived from PubMed text and used it to discover novel antibiotic co-inhibitors that reduced infection burden, even in mouse models!

Learning from human and chemical languages to predict biological function Novel LLM AI approach trained on the literature Effective compounds in vivo for antimicrobial resistance Congrats UT Austin researchers Mavridou, Ellington, Wilke, Marcotte & colleagues www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

COVID awakens persistent viruses especially in the herpes and anello virus families. Cool example of RNA virus/DNA virus crosstalk. Maybe this adds to the inflammatory burden and misery. Congrats to UT Austin researcher Ester Melamed and co authors on this work. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Timely podcast describing several stories of the real-world clinical impact derived from basic science starting with non-medical questions. Spot-on take from a wellness influencer who is not a practicing scientist. peterattiamd.com/medicalbreak...

If at #ASV2026, stop by our presentations: - A. Mojumder: on the provocative possibility of Polyomavirus latency - K. Szymanik: on multiple pirating events of a RNA phosphatase & implications for pan-eukaryotic evolution of virus detection - R. Lattupally: on a new relevant cell model for muPyV

Anik made a most excellent video explaining his work on viral persistence and reactivation…

Yet another beautiful example of host-pathogen RNA communication. Fantastic work! Reminder to myself: READ MORE PLANT PAPERS! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

5’PPP-RNAs starting with G recruit GTP binding proteins reducing RIG-I activation - a mechanism explaining how different start nucleotides can affect RNA PAMPogenicity / IFN induction. #triphosphateRNAbalance www.technologynetworks.com/tn/news/cell... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

PKR condensation at viral replication complexes initiates its activation www.cell.com/cell-reports...

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Chemotherapy that makes cancer cells look like they’re infected with a virus: ROS>ER stress>UPR>increased MAVS>Type I IFN/CXCL10

#WeekendRead #MysterySolved! MYC is one of the most famous #oncogenes & a potential therapeutic target but how does it work? Uhl, Eilers &co show @cp-cell.bsky.social that MYC binds introns during RNA stalling preventing export of dsRNA & DNA/RNA hybrids & anti-tumoral TLR3 activation!

#PostdocRecruiting: My group at the University of Texas at Austin is recruiting a Postdoc in virology and structural biology. Please see more details here: utaustin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UTstaff/job/... Informal inquiries are encouraged, and see more lab info here: zunlongke-lab.org

Some of our earliest microbial ancestors, the Asgard archaea, were able to use oxygen, says new study in @nature.com. It may solve a mystery about how complex life first arose. #AsgardArchaea #MicrobialEcology #Eukaryogenesis #TexasScience @utmsi.bsky.social @archaeal.bsky.social

3 papers in Cell @cellpress.bsky.social today exploring the mechanistic connection between Epstein-Barr virus and multiple sclerosis #MultipleSclerosis cell.com/cell/fulltex... cell.com/cell/fulltex... www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

I chatted with @philiprlang.bsky.social on his podcast about how a virus might be involved in bladder cancer. Since "Phil Lang is Not a Scientist", we made this really accessible. If you're interested in how small sneaky DNA viruses might contribute to the origins of cancers, give it a listen.

Check out @lizthayer.bsky.social's new preprint exploring factors that influence cell-to-cell heterogeneity in interferon (IFN) induction potential!

Vesicle and non-vesicle-mediated inter-kingdom delivery of an Argonaute from nematode to mouse link.springer.com/article/10.1...

How long-term persistent virus infection could cause inflammatory-associated cancer in uninfected cells: Polyomavirus BKPyV www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

BK Polyomavirus (BKPyV) linked to bladder cancer via APOBEC. “Common Childhood Virus Causes DNA Damage Driving Bladder Cancer” www.insideprecisionmedicine.com/topics/oncol...

🚨Preprint alert! Kind of a late notice, but here is our latest work on bat Dicer and viral infection. Work led by @leagaucherand.bsky.social and Hugo Marie in the lab. @cnrsbiologie.bsky.social @unistra.fr @frm-officiel.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

If anyone is at #RNA2025, please stop by my lab’s posters on triphosphate balance and virus infection and tracking persistent infection with precision to identify viral miRNA functions. Authors Szymanik and Mojumder are really great and are presenting in the second session this Friday from 8-10.

Small DNA viruses can concurrently shed via two different patterns: continuous low-level shedding of numerous reservoirs and punctuated rare high shedding from one or a few reservoirs. We hope tools presented here are useful to study other persistent pathogens. journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Stop for a second and try to imagine this: a heat shock protein relocalizes to the cell surface and mediates dsRNA binding and internalization! Intrigued? Read our newly minted paper in Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Congrats to all the authors and thanks to reviewers and editor!

Newest: Virologs mark #RNA metabolism as an evolutionary battleground during infection - Great collaboration w/@sullivanlab.bsky.social & Kayla Szymanik @plos.org journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

New Resource Article: Joseph Ziegelbauer @drjz.bsky.social and colleagues profile cis- and trans-acting elements of viral circRNAs and identify noncanonical mechanisms underlying back-splicing - utilizing their custom-built “CHARLIE” pipeline www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Another nice example of a host-acquired gene in poxviruses, which modulates the host immune response. dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Previously, KO and overexpression showed host RNA 5’ triphosphatase DUSP11 can reduce RIG-I sensitivity. Here, we show poxviruses code for viral DUSP11 that can regulate host RNP III transcripts and RIG-I, providing evolutionary support DUSP11 can be pro-viral. journals.plos.org/plospathogen...