Next virtual seminar is with Dr María Mora González López Ledesma, Fundación Instituto Leloir, Argentina. She’ll discuss: “Dissecting NS5-mediated immune evasion across the four dengue virus serotypes”, exploring how dengue NS5 shapes antiviral immunity. All welcome! Message us for the ZOOM link.

Happy to share new preprint is now on bioRxiv: "Ultraviolet exposure conditions skin to enhance arbovirus infection and mosquito probing" Led by our then PhD student now Dr. @ailishmccafferty.bsky.social this work asks how UV-exposed skin shapes mosquito-borne virus infection. (1/4)

The ISG Atlas: a loss-of-function analysis characterizes antiviral properties of interferon stimulated genes www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natcomms.nature.com

New News & Views out today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com with @mariekedoesscience.bsky.social — "When viral RNA lingers in joints" — on a new study by Zarrella et al. asking why chikungunya virus causes chronic arthralgia/arthritis. (1/3)

At #Microbio26 see our PhD student Amani Alhazmi poster 232, Tuesday. She has interesting data showing how vitamin D regulates responsiveness and susceptibility of skin to mosquito borne virus infection. I know she would value any input and/or interest!

🧫 The Microbiology Society AC26 has a session called "Out of Body Experience"; and it's not what you think! It's about cutting-edge infection models: organoids, tissue-on-chip, complex co-cultures that actually mimic how infections happen in real tissues. Engineering meets microbiology! #Microbio26

🦟 Really excited for our next seminar! @chantalvogels.bsky.social (Yale) on how mosquito & virus factors shape Wolbachia-mediated inhibition of dengue; a key question for biocontrol. Thurs 16 April, 4pm UK / 11am ET 📍 Zoom — DM or email us for the link, all welcome!

A thoughtful overview in Nature Medicine on the growing global importance of arboviruses and emerging strategies to counter them. It discusses our recent work on mosquito–host interactions. Encouraging to see this area receiving broader attention. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Mosquito-borne viruses, vaccine-borne hope

From chikungunya and dengue to yellow fever and Zika, mosquito‑transmitted diseases are spreading with urbanization, travel and climate change. A new generation of vaccines, trials and public‑health t...

nature.com

Join Prof Gong Cheng (Tsinghua University) for our International Arbovirus Biology Seminar, exploring the molecular basis of flavivirus infection in mosquitoes and determinants of vector competence. All welcome! Please help with a repost. #Arbovirus #Flavivirus #VectorBiology

Looks set to be a very useful and collaborative meeting on arboviruses and their vectors, later this year. 👇

Microbiology Society@microbiologysociety.org · 6mo ago

Abstract submissions are now open for the 4th International Meeting on Arboviruses and their Vectors! Share your work on hosts & vectors, control/prevention, ecology & evolution. Talks & posters selected from abstracts. Submit now: https://microb.io/IMAV26abstracts

New modelling suggests chikungunya transmission in Europe may be possible at lower temperatures than previously thought—expanding the seasonal and geographic risk as the Asian tiger mosquito spreads north with warming climate. : royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article...

Prof. Claudia Nunes Duarte dos Santos (Fiocruz, Brazil) will present the discovery of Pirahy virus—a newly identified alphavirus from Brazilian mosquitoes with features suggesting emergence potential. Thursday 19th Feb by Zoom. All welcome! Just DM your email for the link.

Great visit to @roslininstitute.bsky.social yesterday to give a seminar on how skin inflammation and environmental stress shape antiviral susceptibility. Many thanks to Rute Pinto for the warm welcome and excellent hosting. Lots of scope for future conversations and collabs.

Zoom seminar: Drawing on recent mechanistic and genetic studies, Prof Andres Merits' talk will highlight how #alphavirus #replication complex function intersects with innate #immune sensing and restriction, offering fresh perspectives on virus–host co-evolution and antiviral targeting. All welcome!

Oddly positive

Merriam-Webster@merriam-webster.com · 7mo ago

Take a screenshot of this GIF, and whichever new word you land on is YOUR word for 2026. Let's. Go.

Looking forward to this seminar, all welcome to attend by Zoom.

Arbovirus seminars@arbovirus.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Henrik Salje (Cambridge) joins us to discuss how dengue risk shifts across the lifespan. His team uses multigenerational cohorts and antigenic cartography to reveal how population immunity is reshaping its ecology, and what this means for disease risk/vaccines. All welcome! Message us for Zoom link.

Fantastic start to #BSI25 with @profjudiallen.bsky.social ; a masterclass in scientific storytelling. Her career journey was engaging and full of long-view perspectives. Loved her celebration of mentees, and the message to chase those exciting “distractions” in science. #macrophage #Th2 #infections

Psyched to say that Mike Diamond is talking at our next seminar. THURSDAY 20th Nov. All welcome! World leading #virology not to be missed - just email us for a Zoom link. Please help us with a re-post to get the word out 👍

New paper out in iScience @cellpress.bsky.social We show that #sand_fly biting reprograms skin fibroblasts, making them more permissive to virus infection => #fibroblasts aren’t bystanders, they help define severity/clinical outcome to infection AND #vector biting is key 👉 doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

New PhD opportunity! Can skin inflammation protect us from mosquito-borne viruses like Zika? Join our MRC PhD project at York exploring how psoriasis and eczema change skin immunity to virus. Our grads thrive in academia, biotech & beyond. Apply now 👉 tinyurl.com/bfmd2rf4

NEW SEMINAR - Thursday 16th October, all welcome! 🦟 How do mosquitoes fight infection at the gene level? Using precision nuclear run-on sequencing (PRO-seq), Pascal and team captured transcription as it happens in Ae aegypti, offering new insights into vector biology and host–pathogen interactions.

We all know vaccines target the pathogen, but can you also target the vector? 📢 in a new paper out today in Vaccines, we show that a vaccine targeting mosquito salivary peptides, AGSv-PLUS, enhances human skin immune response to biting. Open access: www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/13... 1/6

Farewell, Zahra! Celebrating the end of a successful PhD journey with some well-deserved fun.

Super happy to announce Zahra Alfaheeda has passed her PhD viva. 🥳 She worked hard to combine diverse resources from cancer biology, virology and vector biology for a really unique project. Looking forward to sharing her story soon. Thanks to @maringerlab.bsky.social and Gina Doody for examining.

See you Thursday 18th for our first seminar of the series with the inspiring @priyashah.bsky.social from @ucdavis.bsky.social with her talk “Harder, better, faster, stronger: integrating virology and engineering to drive discovery”. All welcome! email us for the zoom link.

Psyched to be co-chairing this great line up of diverse speakers who represent the best in arbovirus research. See you there! Send us your email for a Zoom login. Please help with a re-post :-)

Arbovirus seminars@arbovirus.bsky.social · 11mo ago

We’re back with another season of monthly seminars bringing together diverse and leading investigators worldwide to share cutting-edge arbovirus science. 🧬 Topics span molecular virology, virus–vector interactions, epidemiology, pathogenesis, and more. 📅 3rd Thursday each month 🕚 11 AM US ET Zoom

Not just wild fires that follow hot weather, clusters of locally acquired mosquito-borne virus infection in south France, an update on numbers.

Outbreak News Today@outbreaknews.bsky.social · 11mo ago

France: Chikungunya, dengue and West Nile virus update open.substack.com/pub/outbreak...

Was sad to say farewell to @yoncakeskekturk.bsky.social today. She transformed our understanding of the sandfly-skin interface during virus infection for her PhD, and just finished testing a new Zikv vaccine. She returns home to 🤞start her career as lecturer/PI. Take care Yonca! You will be missed.

We knew this deeply misguided man was bad news, but now his actions threaten us all. RNA-based vaccines are safe, effective at preventing disease, and can be rapidly manufactured at scale. Just as the threat of infectious disease increases, we remove our best defence. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

RFK Jr cancels $500m in mRNA vaccine development in the US

Since taking office, the vaccine sceptic has made a number of changes to how vaccines are regulated.

bbc.co.uk

I thought it might be helpful to do a more general immunology explainer which I can then build on for example when I discuss specific papers or political actions. Do let me know if its useful and other topics if so. This first one is a general one about how we tackle infections... 🧪 #ImmunoSky

Fundamental immunology 101: the basics of an immune response

Tackling infections

open.substack.com