Alexander Robertson
@alexrob.bsky.social
PhD candidate at UW Seattle. I study how interactions between viruses shapes their evolution. Also 📷, 🎹, 📽️, 🐦
Very excited that @alexrob.bsky.social will have an opportunity to share some of his cool work on measles brain adaptation (joint with Ben Kerr) in this session!
Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution@official-smbe.bsky.social · 2mo ago#SMBE2026 S16: The genetic basis of evolutionary rescue 🗓️ Mon Jun 29, 3:50pm 🔗 smbe2026.org/programme
1/23 New preprint! Been thinking about the origin of cellular life. Specifically, how protocells (or *any* compartments) just aren't enough to support the evolution of increasingly complex cells. You gotta de-Darwinize the parts! The ribosome/genome do this. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Looking for something new to integrate into an #evolution or #microbiology course? Useful for lectures, labs, homework? Have a look at our STEPS program, which simulates bacterial evolution, including the #LTEE. Easy web-based interface & lab manual w/ exercises to help develop students' intuition.
Richard Lenski@relenski.bsky.social · 12mo agoExcited to share new #program, STEPS, which can simulate #dynamics of the E. coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment (#LTEE) or other microbes in serial transfer regime. telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/s... STEPS developed by @devinmlake.bsky.social, Zachary Matson, Minako Izutsu, and me.
Check out our new print that combines dense sequencing and phylodynamics to uncover a bunch of 😎 things about an understudied virus. - Doesn't evolve for 10 months a year ✅ - Uses some mossies for maintenance, others for spread ✅ - Established in Northeast for ~300 years ✅
Ellie Bourgikos@ebourgikos.bsky.social · 7mo ago🦟📄 New preprint! Our first large-scale phylodynamic study of Jamestown Canyon virus (JCV) reveals how mosquito ecology shapes the evolution, persistence, and spread of this understudied arbovirus in North America. Read it here! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Thrilled to see our review article "The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins" highlighted on the cover of Nature Reviews Neuroscience 🤩. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @msarscentre.bsky.social 🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽
Pawel Burkhardt@pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 9mo agoFirst neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E @jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social
My first lead author paper is out with Ben Kerr and @alisonfeder.bsky.social! We found that making an antiviral too strong can sometimes make resistance easier to evolve. This has implications for how we design drugs, choose doses, and think about viral evolution in the face of treatment. (1/n)
Intracellular interactions shape antiviral resistance outcomes in poliovirus via eco-evolutionary feedback - Nature Ecology & Evolution
A model of intrahost poliovirus replication shows that, after several rounds of replication, pocapavir, a poliovirus capsid inhibitor, collapses viral density, preventing intracellular interactions th...
nature.com