New preprint from @courtneyrsantos.bsky.social and @kvnforsberg.bsky.social discovering human ISGs are sufficient to block phage replication in bacteria! Amazing to see such strong phenotypes especially against RNA phages: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Faculty search announcement 2026: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Microbiology at UT Southwestern in Dallas. We seek candidates working in microbial pathogenesis (broadly defined). Come join our community! (1/5) www.utsouthwestern.edu/departments/...

Congrats to Dr. Robert Maples (@robertmaples.bsky.social) on a successful PhD thesis defense! You can read about his thesis work here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6..., www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Anna Whitfield, Terry Dermody & I (but let's be honest, mostly Anna) wrote about how plant viruses threaten coffee, chocolate, wine & more. Read about coffee ringspot, cacao swollen shoot, & grapevine leafroll/red blotch. Longer piece coming in Annual Review of Virology. thehill.com/opinion/ener...

Plant viruses could threaten your coffee, chocolate and wine

What looks like a danger to the things we enjoy signals deeper vulnerabilities in the food system we depend on.

thehill.com

Beyond excited to be selected for the 2026 BWF Path Award. Thanks to my mentors for their support. A special thanks to the trainees in my group who help make this possible. Just overjoyed by the news!!!

Burroughs Wellcome Fund@bwfund.bsky.social · 3mo ago

BWF Announces the 2026 Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease www.bwfund.org/news/bwf-ann... #bwfpath

New preprint from our collaboration with John Brooks’ lab: Viral loads can vary by more than 100-fold depending on the time of day mice are infected. And we figured out why. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New preprint/Hooper collab: Ever know a student so passionate about a topic that they dragged you in kicking & screaming but then you were fascinated? Here's how @robertmaples.bsky.social & Gabby Quinn got me to like cellular immunology. (Like, not love. I’m human.) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Faculty search announcement 2025: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Microbiology at UT Southwestern. We seek candidates working in microbial pathogenesis (some preference may be given to bacterial pathogens). Come join our community! (1/5) www.utsouthwestern.edu/departments/...

Very proud to have our lab’s first work published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social! In this work, we use functional metagenomics to find phage defenses from human and soil microbiomes! Congrats to first author @luis840alberto.bsky.social ! www.cell.com/cell-host-mi... (1/3)

Metagenomic selections reveal diverse antiphage defenses in human and environmental microbiomes

Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al. use functional metagenomics to identify hundreds of sequences from diverse environmental bacteria that block phage infection when expressed in E. coli. Their discoveries inc...

cell.com

Kevin Forsberg@kvnforsberg.bsky.social · last yr.

My lab’s first preprint! We used functional metagenomics to identify phage defenses in human and soil microbiomes. We scaled these selections while maintaining accuracy, enabling us to examine 9 habitats for defense elements against 7 phages. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/10

Exciting news: Carla Saleh is now Chair of Virology at Pasteur! Congrats to Carla and all who will benefit from her exceptional leadership!

SalehLab@salehlabparis.bsky.social · last yr.

Thrilled (and humbled!) to share that since today I am the Chair of the Virology Department at @pasteur.fr. Grateful to my colleagues for their trust. Now let’s push the frontiers of virus research together. The sky is the limit! 🦠🔬 #Virology #Science #TeamPasteur

Valerie Rodriguez Irizarry’s tour de force paper on murine norovirus adaptation/egress is now out in peer-reviewed form ‪@plosbiology.org‬. It highlights the power of forward genetics in virology research. 🧵 1/10 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Terry Dermody and I wrote an op-ed about chronic diseases ("Make America Healthy Again"), the role of viral infections, and how virologists can help. www.post-gazette.com/opinion/gues...

Terrence S. Dermody and Julie K. Pfeiffer: To tackle chronic disease, turn to the virologists

Despite the United States being a global leader in many areas, Americans are not healthy. Life expectancy is lower than in other industrialized nations,...

post-gazette.com

🚨 New paper out! "A single mutation in an enteric virus alters tropism and sensitivity to microbiota" One tiny change, big consequences. A great collab with the Julie Pfeiffer lab! @jkpfeiff.bsky.social Read here: bit.ly/42sD2rX #Virology #Microbiome #Science

My lab’s first preprint! We used functional metagenomics to identify phage defenses in human and soil microbiomes. We scaled these selections while maintaining accuracy, enabling us to examine 9 habitats for defense elements against 7 phages. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/10

New preprint from Valerie Rodriguez-Irizarry in our group-- her tour de force thesis work used forward genetics to discover new insights into non-enveloped viral egress. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Wow - bluesky! 📈 🦠 Please help me amplify a special faculty search. We're looking for someone in "Microbial Systems Biology" to join me and @kreynoldslab.bsky.social at UTSW Sys Bio / Bioinformatics. There is an empty lab space right next to us waiting for you! apply.interfolio.com/154339 1/4

Microbiology Department potluck lunch ✨

Happy halloween.

This Saturday on the Yale campus Nobel laureate Charlie Rice will lecture in honor of Dr. Brett Lindenbach. A link for seeing the event remotely is below. A chance to celebrate all the wonderful professional and personal connections many of us have with Brett. yale.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Page...

Wonderful to celebrate the legacy of Beth Levine yesterday. Dr. Noboru Mizushima, first winner of the Beth Levine M.D. Prize in Autophagy Research, gave a fantastic seminar including amazing drawings of his history with Beth. www.utsouthwestern.edu/research/bet....

Wow, it's so much nicer over here.