Katy Brown

@thekatybrown.bsky.social

Postdoc in computational genomics studying RNA viruses at Cambridge. She/Her https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8400-6922

Me, @emma-harding.bsky.social, @rtarlinton.bsky.social and @royalsociety.org are organising a meeting on endogenous viral elements! 8-9 Feb 2027, Birmingham UK. 2 whole days of EVEs! Many amazing researchers already agreed to speak. Invites: shorturl.at/jp9sh Provisional schedule: shorturl.at/8O5KV

Endogenous viral elements | Royal Society

Theo Murphy meeting organised by Dr Katy Brown, Dr Emma Harding and Professor Rachael Tarlinton

royalsociety.org

Me, @emma-harding.bsky.social, @rtarlinton.bsky.social and @royalsociety.org are organising a meeting on endogenous viral elements! 8-9 Feb 2027, Birmingham UK. 2 whole days of EVEs! Many amazing researchers already agreed to speak. Invites: shorturl.at/jp9sh Provisional schedule: shorturl.at/8O5KV

Endogenous viral elements | Royal Society

Theo Murphy meeting organised by Dr Katy Brown, Dr Emma Harding and Professor Rachael Tarlinton

royalsociety.org

I have a new preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... I found this endogenous retrovirus as a PhD student with @rtarlinton.bsky.social back in 2012 - a mere 14 years later we've written it up! This ERV is expressed in guinea pig lymphomas and might explain their high rate of lymphoma/leukemia. 💻🧪

Expression of Retroviruses in Guinea Pig Lymphomas

Retroviruses commonly cause neoplasia in many species but have not been described in guinea pigs. While historical evidence exists for the presence of an active retrovirus in domestic guinea pigs ( Cavia porcella), there has been no description of the sequence of these viruses or their role in disease in guinea pigs. This paper uses genome mining of the published domestic and wild ( Cavia aperea) guinea pig genomes for retroviral sequences to identify the gamma and beta-retroviral complement of the Cavia genome, describing eight groups of viruses with evidence of recombination between virus groups. The most intact group, gamma-like retroviruses related to HERV-T (integration estimates of 855,000 to 3.8 million years ago), has five near full length loci that are likely capable of active infection. RNA-Scope In-situ Hybridisation of archived formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded (FFPE) guinea pig lymphoma sections with a probe for one of these loci demonstrated viral RNA expression in lymphoma tissue, strengthening the case for a role of these viruses in the high incidence of leukaemia and lymphoma in this species. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. University of Nottingham, https://ror.org/01ee9ar58

biorxiv.org

I could do my job in half the time if we just picked a column delimiter and stuck with it and then no-one can use that symbol for anything else. Let's not use * to both delimit columns and represent a stop codon, or use a random number of spaces, or put "_" in our sequence IDs. 🖥️🧪

There should be a ban on broadcasters using footage of “anonymous” (heads cropped out) larger people - who could nevertheless recognise themselves based on knowing their own bodies and clothes - to illustrate stories about obesity, fat or weight loss