Brian Ferguson

Virology friends: come work with me at UVA! Now hiring a professor of virology (open rank): apply.interfolio.com/191946

One of the main issues (of many) with this is that LLMs are biased against multiple demographics. Just for that there is likely scope for litigation against this sort of approach. www.nature.com/articles/s41... arxiv.org/html/2512.15... aclanthology.org/2025.finding... direct.mit.edu/coli/article...

Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky

In-cell structures visualize human pre-ribosome assembly in the nucleolus | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New review article Exceeding expectations: factors contributing to the potency of human papillomavirus vaccines www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... #IDSky #ClinMicro #ViroSky #HPV #OpenAccess #OA

01-Jul: On this day in 1858, Charles Darwin finally went public with his theory of evolution by means of natural selection, with the publication of back-to-back papers by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, who had independently arrived at the same idea… friendsofdarwin.com/articles/dar... #HistSci

Big congratulations to the authors! 🎉🦠 Using RNA-seq, this study uncovers overlooked viral RNA species and supports a premature termination model for astrovirus subgenomic RNA synthesis, resolving a long-standing replication mystery. 🔬✨ #NARMolecularMedicine #Virology @universitypress.cambridge.org

🔬 Lund University (@lund-university.bsky.social) is hiring 3 Assistant Professors in cancer immunotherapy, immunotechnology & immune cell engineering! ✅ Start-up package | tenure track | world-class infrastructure 📅 Deadlines: 26 May & 10 June 2026 🎥 youtu.be/z-PQU9qknZc Apply links 👇

Heart-nosed bat alphacoronaviruses use human CEACAM6 to enter cells @nature.com @pirbrightinst.bsky.social @morbillivirus.bsky.social @atomicvirology.bsky.social @universitypress.cambridge.org www.nature.com/articles/d41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The FDA has asked Raw Farm to recall the cheddar cheese linked to the outbreak and "it has declined." But E.coli 0157 H7 is a very pathogenic bacteria. So buyer be aware and beware here. 1/3

This recently happened to us, with similar tells… infuriating.. you can see how it unfolded in the public peer review file: static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10...

Nice to be a part of this excellent study from the Walczak lab where K11 ubiquitin chains added by ANKIB1 are identified as being essential for TBK1-IRF3-driven interferon production downstream of pattern recognition receptors including TLR3 and cGAS. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Critical role for ANKIB1-generated K11-linked ubiquitination in the immune response activated by cGAS–STING, TLR3 and TLR4 www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natcellbio.nature.com @walczaklab.bsky.social

Phylogenetic-based selection analysis of viral evolution before+after spillover reveals that viral adaptation in host reservoirs is not a necessary precursor of novel zoonotic virus epidemics, including SARS-CoV-2 @cellcellpress.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

We are hiring a computational biology postdoc for a new project on zoonotic diseases, host pathogen interactions and pandemic risk. Please take a look and get in touch for more details www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/postdoc...

Avian flu has decimated world's largest breeding colony of southern elephant seals www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influe...

Anti-vax in the tweets, fully-vaxed between the sheets

New online: Computational design of sequence-specific DNA-binding proteins

Our first post on here and it's a doozy 😍🤩. Our epic piece on #sarbecovirus host range. #virology #sars2 #covid #vaccines. Enjoy and please repost. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hi everybody! I am super excited to share the work done during my PhD published in @nature today! We describe a new mechanism of self- vs. non-self RNA discrimination by showing how N-glycans shield glycoRNAs from stimulating endosomal RNA sensors www.nature.com/articles/s41...

‘The doses of rAAV used in clinical trials for DMD have ranged from 5×10^13 to 2×10^14 vector genomes (vg) per kilogram of body weight. After treatment with doses within this range, a number of toxic syndromes have been observed’ www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Research Associate in Viral #Immunology ✨ University of Bristol -School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine #Applynow www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de... * #Hiring* ! Research Jobs: Golden Opportunity! #PhD & #Postdoc Latest Updates: jobnewstimes.com/phd-postdoc/ #UKJOBS #BiologicalSciences

**JOBS ALERT** The Virology Unit at @PasteurCambodia hiring 1 Scientist and 2 Postdocs to join our fast-moving, field-connected, research-driven team on emerging viruses and zoonoses. 🧪🧬🥼🦠🔬🐓💉🦇😷 Limited time to apply — and we need people to start ASAP.**👇

***JOB OFFER*** The Protein Design and Modeling lab at IBMB offers a postdoc position at the intersection of computational protein design, biophysics and structural biology. Please share with colleagues and anyone you know that might be interested. ibmb.csic.es/en/jobs/post...

The "reproducibility crisis" in science constantly makes headlines. Repro efforts are often limited. What if you could assess reproducibility of an entire field? That's what @brunolemaitre.bsky.social et al. have done. Fly immunity is highly replicable & offers lessons for #metascience A 🧵 1/n

Microglial cGAS-STING-TBK1 activation in paraventricular thalamus mediates sleep and emotional disturbances in lupus mice www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

ICYMI: Junior PI positions in Kyoto at @ccii-kyoto.bsky.social, a new center led by Tasuku Honjo (DIrector) & Sidonia Fagarasan (Vice Director) #Immunology #Immunotherapy #ScienceJobs

Super cool long lasting ADC-based anti-flu drug with great new trial data: 'CD388 is an antibody that targets neuraminidase (NA). Zanamivir, a neuraminidase inhibitor, is conjugated to the Fc fragment to create CD388' biz.chosun.com/en/en-scienc...

Honoured to receive this prize alongside an inspiring group of scientists. This will support our work to improve mRNA therapies for precision medicine. #mRNA #immunoSky #Science

Weizmann Institute rn

#drosophila @flybase.bsky.social request emergency funding: "As it stands, by the end of July, 2025, there will be no future updates to FlyBase, and in the worst case scenario access to the website will also be lost" => please donate! www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/give-to-camb...

Good fun to contribute to this super paper from Yorgo Modis' lab where we looked at the impact of disease-associated MDA5 mutations on its structure, biochemistry and antiviral functions #immunosky www.cell.com/cell-reports...

I've been yelling for a while about how imprinting is not the problem with our immune responses to Omicron, and the issue is much more about the intrinsic immunogenicity of Omicron's spike protein (which is poor). This freshly published study provides pretty definitive proof of that 🧵

The final piece in a 27-year fly immunity puzzle. Yao describes "Paillotin" (Pai), the name given to #Drosophila "IM18." With this paper, all 24 Immune-induced Molecules (IMs) from Uttenweiler-Joseph et al. (1998) have been named & characterized. 🎊 Pai is an HDP conserved across fly 🪰 species 1/n

‘The results from this study suggest that many, if not all, of the reported associations between HLA alleles and SARS-CoV-2 infection may be spurious, owing to confounding factors.’

"Immune signaling through nucleotide-based second messengers is a widespread defense mechanism observed across organisms, from bacteria to animals. Zeng et al. discovered a base-modified nucleotide, deoxyinosine 5′-triphosphate (dITP), that acts as an antiviral immune signal in bacteria" #Immunology

👶🏼 Many #vaccines are not effective in newborns. So how do we protect them from infectious disease? 🤰🏽 By vaccination in #pregnancy! Here we review… 💉 Established campaigns vs whooping cough, flu, COVID 💡 New approaches to RSV, GBS 🌈 Future challenges, opportunities #ReproSky #ImmunoSky #IDSky

What do cells undergoing #ferroptosis #celldeath release? Read all about it in our atlas on ferroptosis #secretomes out now in Cell Death and Differentiation #CDDpress Great collaboration with @cecad.bsky.social @frezzalab.bsky.social @kreuzaler.bsky.social @almutschulze.bsky.social rdcu.be/ejp9C

Inflammation of the skin can prime humoral IgE responses via to bystander antigens in the gut of mice via IL-33 axis - is this how we become sensitized? www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #immunosky #immunology #allergy

RFK Jr refreshingly publicly states the truth about MMR vaccination after a second child dies of measles in Texas:

🔬 New from the Farnung Lab: We established a fully in vitro reconstituted chromatin replication system and report the first cryo-EM snapshots of the human replisome engaging nucleosomes. Brilliant work by @felixsteinruecke.bsky.social with support from @jonmarkert.bsky.social! tinyurl.com/replisome

Guess the cat is out of the bag. Today marks the beginning of the end of the false lab leak narrative. Read what I have been working on over the last years: www.protagonist-science.com/p/exclusive-...

'(...) IFN-I production, and immune-mediated tumor control, STING signaling appears to play an ambiguous role in the TME. For example, intratumoral administration of a high amount of STING agonist resulted in the death of CD8+ T cells and consequently compromised immune-mediated tumor control'

Delighted our study (7+ years in the making) is out today in Nature. In a nutshell, 48 hours of antibiotics in week 1 led to impaired vaccine responses up to 15 months later in infants. We show (in-vivo) a probiotic can fix it #microbiome #science #immunology www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The vaccine against Shingles helps protect against dementia, results of a natural experiment, adding to prior evidence "implications are profound" New @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41... nature.com/articles/s41...

WORLD-FIRST: Ground-breaking research published today in the Ornithologist Journal has, for the first time, translated common UK bird vocalisations into equivalent phrases in the human language. The results tell us a lot! Extracts below... 🧵