After months of organising paperwork and making shipment arrangements the Oropouche virus has finally arrived from Brazil. With access to state of the art facilities and equipment at @qimrb.bsky.social we are now ready to dissect the mechanisms of its neuropathogenesis.

I'm excited that our review paper on superinfection exclusion in insect-specific flaviviruses is now published. This comprehensive review summarizes the experimental data on the ability of different ISFs to cause SIE and suggests future pathways in SIE research: www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/18...

Festive season at Systems Virology Lab @qimrb.bsky.social 🎄🍷 Thank you York and @michaelleitner.bsky.social for organising this on my last day at work this year.

Last scRNA-Seq run of the year at Systems Virology lab feels special 🎄🧬🦠 Featuring @michaelleitner.bsky.social and @10xgenomics.bsky.social Chromium X

Celebrating an epic year with an even more epic team. Grateful to my team for the science through the year and the laughs at the lab Christmas party and to Ukrainian Club Brisbane for fantastic food and flavoured vodkas 🎄🧬🥂

Congratulations to @rhyshparry.bsky.social on award of DECRA by ARC

Had fantastic time enjoying two days of #organoid talks and engagement with research and industry leaders in the field. Also congratulations to @leitnerm.bsky.social for successful presentation of his first results in our new lab at @qimrb.bsky.social

Was my pleasure to present our brain organoid model of flavivirus infection at Organoid Nexus symposium in sunny Melbourne.

New preprint from the Khromykh/ @slonchak.bsky.social /Short lab 👇 In primary human nasal epithelia, #Omicron BA.5 & XBB show enhanced ciliated-cell tropism and a striking cilia-gene shutdown plus apoptosis/inflammation, unlike ancestral virus or BA.1. Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to learn about the most recent advances in organoid technologies at #MonashOrganoidSymposium

Amazing night celebrating 80 years of @qimrb.bsky.social at gala dinner with a fantastic cohort of distinguished guests!

The IFIT2–IFIT3 antiviral complex targets short 5’ untranslated regions on viral mRNAs for translation inhibition By Dustin Glasner, Matthew Daugherty & colleagues. #microsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The IFIT2–IFIT3 antiviral complex targets short 5’ untranslated regions on viral mRNAs for translation inhibition - Nature Microbiology

Viruses generally have compact genomes, resulting in many viral mRNAs with short 5’ untranslated regions. An antiviral complex exploits this feature of viral mRNAs to selectively inhibit viral protein...

nature.com

Probes for multicoloured RNA FISH look so vibrant! Can’t wait to see the beautiful slide scans! Made by @carlaprvieira.bsky.social at Systems Virology Lab.

Team work makes dream work. Especially when setting up a new lab @qimrb.bsky.social

Systems virology team has arrived to our new amazing home at @qimrb.bsky.social It was an exciting first day unpacking and unboxing and thank you to my fantastic team for their effort in getting setup!

Today was my farewell party at Khromykh’s lab, which felt like an end of an era. I definitely had amazing time working alongside all the amazing people there and developing my leadership with Alex’s help. Thank you @rhyshparry.bsky.social for organising this.

@slonchak.bsky.social presenting his work on viral pathogenesis in human brain organoid models using single cell sequencing. Hisnlast presentation at #uqscmb before he heads to @qimrb.bsky.social to head his own lab

Today I’m learning about most recent innovations in single cell and spatial technologies from @10xgenomics.bsky.social experts and users at Brisbane’s Single Cell and Spatial Symposium. Very exciting how quickly this field is developing blinking new opportunities to researchers and clinicians.

It’s always a plus when the conference is being held in a place of stunning natural beauty. On the last day of #lorneiandi a got to get my drone up to capture the beauty of the location from the birds eye view. What an amazing place! @theviin.bsky.social

Feeling very grateful to receive an early career development and ECR oral presentation award at Lorne I&I @theviin.bsky.social An amazing few days in Lorne learning about all types of pathogens and host responses. Great science at a stunning location!

Host tRNAs as novel player in antiviral response. Presented by @lachdehayr.bsky.social at Lorne I&I conference @theviin.bsky.social

@slonchak.bsky.social's excellent presentation on his work studying WNV neuropathology using state of the art human brain organoids and single cell sequencing #UQSCMB

Victorian Infection and Immunity Network@theviin.bsky.social · last yr.

Exciting work by Dr Andrii Slonchak on using virus-inclusive scRNA-Seq to reveal the mechanism of flavivirus neuropathogenesis #lorneiandi

What was happening in my hotel room while I was attending the sessions at Lorne I&I conference @theviin.bsky.social Cheeky #cockatoos !

Our paper and the first from our PhD student talking about the current state of flavivirus vaccines. Are our current strategies failing, and are their other options? Maybe new targets are needed. Read it below.

The Flavivirus Non-Structural Protein 5 (NS5): Structure, Functions, and Targeting for Development of Vaccines and Therapeutics

Flaviviruses, including dengue (DENV), Zika (ZIKV), West Nile (WNV), Japanese encephalitis (JEV), yellow fever (YFV), and tick-borne encephalitis (TBEV) viruses, pose a significant global emerging threat. With their potential to cause widespread outbreaks and severe health complications, the development of effective vaccines and antiviral therapeutics is imperative. The flaviviral non-structural protein 5 (NS5) is a highly conserved and multifunctional protein that is crucial for viral replication, and the NS5 protein of many flaviviruses has been shown to be a potent inhibitor of interferon (IFN) signalling. In this review, we discuss the functions of NS5, diverse NS5-mediated strategies adopted by flaviviruses to evade the host antiviral response, and how NS5 can be a target for the development of vaccines and antiviral therapeutics.

mdpi.com

Very clever way of tricking the immune system into production of extremely specific neutralising antibody against Japanese encephalitis virs by presenting JEV proteins on the surface of an insect virus. Presented today by Connor Scott at Lorne I&I conference @theviin.bsky.social

Early but exciting morning today. 6am flight to Melbourne to attend my first Lorne Infection and Immunity Conference by @theviin.bsky.social Looking forward for meeting my colleagues from all fields of microbiology and immunology