With the help of an amazing student I met at the GSU Arctic Scientific Computing Day, Virus Hunters appears to be expanding. For now, I am using my blog to communicate with the students who are interested in being involved, but clearly we need to have our own website.
My general plan for Virus Hunters in Spring 23 is to have two types of meetings each month: “general meetings” (twice a month, one to listen to a talk from various experts in virology and one to prepare to learn from those talks) and “working meetings” (in which those who know the basics about bioinformatics can come work together, see below for an explanation)
About those experts, the schedule is currently under developpment. I got gutsy and cold-emailed 2 pretty famous scientists and one of them, Arvind Varsani (Arizona State University, here), emailed me on his way back from his Summer field season in **Antarctica** to say yes he would be glad to. Then I got really gutsy yesterday and emailed Dr Edward Holmes at the University of Sydney (details here) and HE said yes too! Then I called in a personal favor and secured Dr Drew Skidmore, a researcher at University of New Mexico (details here). This morning I realized that this list is heavy on the RNA viruses, so I have some emails out to experts on some DNA viruses to get some representation for them.
Schedule to follow later, but the experts we have so far:
Dr. Arvind Varsani (Arizona Sate University)- prolific discoverer of viruses using genomic data (e.g.: from scorpions, and penguins, and parsley… oh my!) , studying viral dynamics in the Ross Sea (Antarctica) and effects of climate change.
Dr. Edward Holmes (University of Sydney) – author on the very first publication reporting the genomic sequence of SARSCoV2 in Jan 2020, applies genomics and phylogenetics to study the origin & evolution of viruses including HIV, Hepatitis C, Influenza, Dengue & SARSCoV2. He has played a particularly valuable role in shedding light in the dark corners of the “lab origins” nonsense (see here and here)
Dr Drew Skidmore (University of New Mexico) – worked on characterizing RNA replication of alpha viruses (Chikungunya virus, the various equine encephalitis viruses, here), currently a postdoctoral researcher studying the genomics of hantaviruses (Sin Nombre Virus) in wild rodent populations.
Coming soon: DNA virus expert
What about those working meetings?
We will have at least 2 “working meetings” per month (probably more) in which anyone who has progressed through the tutorials (that will be out in January) can show up and do some bioinformatics – I specifically want to make sure that these working meetings are NOT tutorials on how to do basic bioinformatics. I will have stand alone tutorials for that and will offer other one-on-one and small group meetings as needed to help anyone with the basics. I do this because I spent most of Fall of 2021 not making any progress on bioinformatics because someone would always show up to a meeting with no experience… I love showing them the basics but it meant I never got to do what *I* wanted to. Stay tuned: more information in early January.
If you are a GSU or Perimeter College student reading this, welcome! I think we will have a variety of activities this Spring to satisfy you no matter your level of interest, skill and free-time. Congratulations on being done with the Fall semester and have a wonderful holiday season. Although there are many wonderful holiday traditions this time of year, I wish you the one thing that they all seem to have in common: peace. I wish you a peaceful holiday season, whether that’s peace enjoyed with family and friends or just a peaceful state of mind that helps you navigate problematic situations.
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