Robert Gifford Profile picture
Senior Research Fellow @StellenboschUni Centre for Epidemic Response & innovation (CERI). Evolutionary biologist. Virologist. Creator of GLUE software.
Apr 29 6 tweets 2 min read
I created a GLUE project for the #H5N1 strain of influenza A, and used it to build outgrouped phylogenies for all eight segments of cattle isolates.

A few observations about these, which I'm sure are glaringly obvious to many, but still might be worth highlighting. The chronograms - as viewable on NextStrain (left) - give the impression of structure but the phylograms (right) show very little genetic diversity within the cattle-associated clade. Image
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.

#Bioinformatics #Genomics #Evolution #Science #MolecularBiology #DNA #Research #DataScience #LifeSciences Image Genomes are absolutely loaded with complex information, most of which we still don’t understand.

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. Image
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. Image (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. Image
Feb 16, 2022 15 tweets 6 min read
Short #Jingmenvirus primer - medium thread.

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. Image Jingmenviruses (JMVs) contain two #flavivirus-related segments, as well as additional segments of unknown origin. It is thought that JMVs evolved from unsegmented flaviviruses.
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