Senior Research Fellow @StellenboschUni Centre for Epidemic Response & innovation (CERI). Evolutionary biologist. Virologist. Creator of GLUE software.
Sep 19, 2022 • 21 tweets • 10 min read
This is a thread about how anyone can use publicly accessible sequence databases and free software to discover new things about #genomes, #biology, and life on earth.
Complete and near complete genome sequences are now available for many organisms.
However, decoding the information in these genomes remains a slow and difficult process.
Mar 1, 2022 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
*Tamanaviruses* - a primer (medium thread) (1) Tamana bat virus (TABV) is a highly divergent #flavivirus that was isolated in 1974, from a bat trapped at the exit of Tamana cave, on the North slope of Trinidad's Mount Tamana. (2) TABV was identified at the Trinidad Regional #Virus Laboratory (TRVL) as part of a post-war virus discovery effort lead by the Rockefeller Foundation.
The #Tamana cave system comprises several large limestone caverns and is a roost for several species of bat.
Jingmenvirus is a recently identified group of segmented RNA viruses that are phylogenetically linked to unsegmented flaviviruses. They appear to infect a wide range of animal hosts, including humans.
Jingmenviruses (JMVs) contain two #flavivirus-related segments, as well as additional segments of unknown origin. It is thought that JMVs evolved from unsegmented flaviviruses. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1…