Hello prospective #students! Applying to a laboratory for graduate studies? Don’t make these common mistakes. I often notice these in emails and they instantly dampen my enthusiasm. A 🧵 on tips for your first contact email with potential thesis supervisors. #AcademicTwitter Don’t get the PI’s name wrong. I know this seems like a no brainer, but it is more common than you think. If you are unsure of the person’s gender/pronouns, refrain from using them. I get called Ma’am so many times! 🤦🏽‍♂️

🚨New study: We tested if antibodies from previously infected and vaccinated individuals can neutralize ancestral #SARSCoV2, #beta, #delta, and #omicron variants.

(1/7) Short thread on what we found.
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

#COVID19 @VIDO #LZCI (2/7) We isolated variants of concern (VOCs) from clinical specimen and sequenced them to confirm their whole genome sequences. We used these viruses to test antibody levels in serum from infected and vaccinated individuals.

Our latest study to understand the dynamic regulation of #interferon (#IFN) and #SARSCoV2 infection.

🧵summarizing what we found and what needs to be done to understand the dynamic interplay of infection and #IFN regulation. @iScience_CP #COVID19

cell.com/iscience/fullt… We infected human airway cells (Calu3) with #SARSCoV2, and performed a time-series #RNAseq analysis to discover global transcriptional responses. We saw expression of #IFN (beta and lambda) and IFN stimulated genes in these cells.

I remember the mass graves in #NewYork last year where #COVID went through the population devastating families and friends. Mass cremation is ongoing in India. We need to understand the situation and empathize.
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/… They are not numbers. They are uncles, aunts, mothers, brothers, sisters, fathers, best friends... #CovidIndia

For most, they have nowhere to go, no funds to lobby. Simple people facing extraordinary choices between working and putting food on the table OR dying of #COVID19.

Do you wonder if #SARSCoV2 came from an animal or a lab?

I finally had the time to read this paper. I shall discuss in this thread observations relevant for virus emergence and why this work further discredits the lab origin theory. #COVID

nature.com/articles/s4146… 1. Bats were collected from an irrigation pipe in Thailand. So, if you think that bats with SARS-related #coronaviruses only exist in remote caves, then you are wrong. Like most wildlife, bats can also cover long distances.

When were the first human #coronaviruses (CoVs) discovered and studied?

How were these viruses associated with human #disease?

It's time to learn our history about human CoVs, and the scientists and volunteers that allowed us to identify this new group of viruses.

A THREAD. Mid-sixties: HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43 were identified.
1. Hamre et al. (1966)
2. McIntosh et al. (1967)
3. Tyrrell et al. (1965).

Image: Tyrrell et al. (1965).

I have received questions about how #viruses (eg. #SARSCoV2) jump species to move from animals (eg. bats) into humans. While it may seem like a simple process, a multitude of factors have to align to allow a #virus to successfully cross the species barrier.
A THREAD... . @rainamontana's review from 2017 is a great explainer of the complexity of this process: nature.com/articles/nrmic…
Several factors (represented in this figure by holes) have to align to enable a virus to jump species.

The mutation in the spike protein of circulating #SARSCoV2 has been the focus of many stories over the last couple of days. We and others have shown that coronaviruses exist as mixed populations (quasispecies) in a host.. here’s what we know.
A THREAD..
#mutantcovid We showed that MERSCoV can select for different variants in cells from an alternate host (I.e. bats): nature.com/articles/s4159…