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Mahan Ghafari

@mghafari.bsky.social
1K followers 364 following 110 posts

Molecular evolution of pathogens | Wellcome Trust Fellow @biology.ox.ac.uk | Independent Investigator Data Analytics & Epi Group @psioxford.bsky.social | MedSci Fellow @lincoln.ox.ac.uk‬ | Oxford DTP & Zoology alum | users.ox.ac.uk/~univ4613

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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
congrats chadi and team!
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
To me, this highlights why having reliable, pathogen-specific evolutionary rate estimates available before an outbreak matters because even with sparse early genomic data, they can provide valuable first estimates of outbreak timing and dynamics while richer data are being generated.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
There was useful debate at the time about which historical rate was most appropriate, particularly the BDBV-specific estimate from Hulseberg et al. Encouragingly, the much larger dataset now gives estimates broadly consistent with that range we initially found.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Early in the outbreak, with only 10 genomes available, we explored how published substitution rate estimates affected inferred tMRCA and epidemic growth. virological.org/t/molecular-...
virological.org
Molecular evolutionary analysis of the current Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in DRC and Uganda
Authors: Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg and Mahan Ghafari Note on data use This is an informal analysis and is not intended as a formal preprint or manuscript in its current form. The aim of this post is to p...
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Great to see this new preprint on the 2026 BDBV outbreak. Congratulations to the DRC team and everyone involved in generating and analysing a much richer set of genomic data. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
medrxiv.org
Temporal and Phylodynamic analyses of the 2026 Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is experiencing a major outbreak of Ebola disease caused by Orthoebolavirus bundibugyoense (Bundibugyo virus), which was declared on May 15, 2026. To investigate t...
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Annual Reviews @annualreviews.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
The 2026 volume of the Annual Review of Virology is now online. The most read article is "Studying the Deep Evolution of Viruses in the Era of Artificial Intelligence Structure Prediction" by @spyroslytras.bsky.social @mghafari.bsky.social and @grovearmada.bsky.social 👉 arevie.ws/3TnyXnd
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
🦠 New Oxford DPhil project with Miles Carroll: Unravelling the true incidence of Lassa fever virus in West Africa. Combining serology+virology+virus evolution to ask whether cross-reactive arenaviruses could explain unexpectedly high Lassa seropositivity in Guinea. www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/study/dphil-...
ndm.ox.ac.uk
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Most discussions of SARS-CoV-2 immune escape focus on antibodies. But the virus also encounters a diverse and geographically structured landscape of HLA molecules through which T cells recognise infection. I wrote a short piece on this other immune landscape: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
The other immune landscape of SARS-CoV-2 evolution | PNAS
The other immune landscape of SARS-CoV-2 evolution
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Aris Katzourakis @ariskatzourakis.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
HIV's hidden history: New study reveals much deeper roots stretching back millions of years sciencex.com/news/2026-07...
sciencex.com
HIV's hidden history: New study reveals much deeper roots stretching back millions of years
Researchers used to think that HIV and its relatives were pretty recent things, maybe only a few hundred years old. But a growing body of evidence now suggests their history is far more ancient, with ...
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Science X / Phys.org @sciencex.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
A recalibrated viral clock places the common ancestor of known African SIV strains at about 1 million years ago, far older than earlier estimates. These dates are model-based, not precise timestamps. doi.org/hcdrbx
sciencex.com
HIV's hidden history: New study reveals much deeper roots stretching back millions of years
Researchers used to think that HIV and its relatives were pretty recent things, maybe only a few hundred years old. But a growing body of evidence now suggests their history is far more ancient, with viruses closely related to HIV circulating in primates for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, and the very roots of their family tree perhaps stretching back millions of years.
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Oxford Biology @biology.ox.ac.uk · 17/07/2026
How can we move beyond reading virus genomes as strings of letters on a phylogenetic tree, and instead place those genetic changes in their biological context? 🧬 A blog by @mghafari.bsky.social discusses new ways of thinking about old problems 🦠👇
bit.ly
From viral histories to protein structures: new directions for understanding virus evolution
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Thank you!
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
11/ This is not a universal model for all viruses. It is most useful for viruses where antigenic evolution is measurable and epidemiologically important, such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2, which were the main focus of our review article journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/....
journals.asm.org
From sites to structure to serology: a roadmap for structure-aware molecular evolution of antigenically evolving viruses | Journal of Virology
Advances in virus genomics have made it increasingly possible to track evolutionary changes at the population level over the timescales of outbreaks and epidemics (1). Before the current era of large-...
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
10/ But the “prison” is not fixed. As population immunity changes through infection, vaccination, waning, and imprinting, the accessible antigenic landscape can shift too. Viral evolution is constrained, but the constraints themselves move.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
9/ We connect this to Prisoner of War like dynamics (www.cell.com/current-biol.... The virus explores a constrained antigenic space: it can move, escape, and adapt, but the viable phenotypic space is bounded by receptor binding, stability, glycan shielding, immune history, and epitope geometry.
cell.com
A mechanistic evolutionary model explains the time-dependent pattern of substitution rates in viruses
Ghafari et al. develop a predictive mechanistic model that explains the evolutionary process behind the time-dependent rate phenomenon across timescales in viruses. The diversification of hepatitis C ...
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
8/ This looping can happen because back mutations at key epitope sites can make later viruses antigenically resemble older ones, even as overall genetic distance keeps increasing. So the genetic clock and antigenic clock can diverge.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
5/ Figure 3 looks at influenza A(H3N2) over longer timescales, using the PLANT method (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...) Genetic change keeps accumulating, but antigenic evolution does not simply move in a straight line away from the past. Instead, the antigenic trajectory can loop back.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
4/ In other words, regions where mutations are more tolerated or beneficial are also the regions where we see faster amino-acid turnover through time. And the relationship was clearest within spike subdomains, linking molecular clocks, fitness, and structure.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
3/ Across SARS-CoV-2 genomic regions, we highlighted regions with higher inferred mutational fitness, using the Bloom and Neher framework, which also tend to show faster nonsynonymous molecular clock like change measured by Hamming distance.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
2/ The core idea is simple: viral genomes tell us what changed, but not always what those changes do. We propose a conceptual roadmap linking sequence variation, phylogenies, protein structure, serology, ML-based prediction, and epidemiological dynamics to understand antigenic evolution.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
1/ Excited to share our JVI review article with Sanni Översti, @shusukekawakubo.bsky.social, Jumpei Ito, and @antigenevo.bsky.social! From sites to structure to serology: a roadmap for structure-aware molecular evolution of antigenically evolving viruses journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
journals.asm.org
From sites to structure to serology: a roadmap for structure-aware molecular evolution of antigenically evolving viruses | Journal of Virology
Advances in virus genomics have made it increasingly possible to track evolutionary changes at the population level over the timescales of outbreaks and epidemics (1). Before the current era of large-...
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
A long time in the making, and exciting to finally see this work published. We show how the PoW model resolves evolutionary events across vastly different timescales, from the origins of HIV-1 and HIV-2 lineages, through the deeper history of SIVs, to the ancient split between SIV and pSIV and more.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Very happy to have been part of this work w/ Spyros Lytras and Joe Grove! New structural prediction tools are opening up exciting possibilities for virus discovery and for reconstructing their deep evolutionary histories, as we explore in our new review article www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
annualreviews.org
Studying the Deep Evolution of Viruses in the Era of Artificial Intelligence Structure Prediction
High mutation rates erode viral sequence similarity, obscuring deep evolutionary history. While protein structure is far more conserved than sequence, its use in evolutionary studies has historically ...
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Antigen Evolution & Design Lab @antigenevo.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
First paper with the lab's affiliation!! ✨✨ summarising some of the cool concepts that the Antigen Evolution & Design Lab will be working on! Together with amazing collaborators @mghafari.bsky.social and @grovearmada.bsky.social www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
annualreviews.org
Studying the Deep Evolution of Viruses in the Era of Artificial Intelligence Structure Prediction
High mutation rates erode viral sequence similarity, obscuring deep evolutionary history. While protein structure is far more conserved than sequence, its use in evolutionary studies has historically ...
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Aris Katzourakis @ariskatzourakis.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Completed our work on reconstructing the viral histories of human, simian and prosimian immunodeficiency viruses across multiple evolutionary timescales, with @mghafari.bsky.social & @psimmond.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Reconstructing the viral histories of human, simian and prosimian immunodeficiency viruses across multiple evolutionary timescales
Abstract. The evolutionary history of simian and prosimian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs and pSIVs) remains difficult to resolve, because divergence-time
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Antigen Evolution & Design Lab @antigenevo.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Inaugural post! We are a brand new lab @pasteur.fr studying how pathogen antigens evolve and how we can exploit these proteins' evolution to make better vaccines! Read a few words from the currently sole member of the lab @spyroslytras.bsky.social below! 😁 www.pasteur.fr/en/research-...
pasteur.fr
Predicting viral evolution with AI
Spyros Lytras is one of four young scientists selected in 2025 to lead new research groups at the Institut Pasteur. He has headed the “Antigen Evolution & Design laboratory” 5-year Group (G5) since Ju...
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
We’ve posted a preliminary molecular evolutionary analysis of the current Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in DRC and Uganda, using 10 available BDBV genomes to reconstruct outbreak mutations and explore rate-conditioned tMRCA/growth estimates. virological.org/t/molecular-...
virological.org
Molecular evolutionary analysis of the current Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in DRC and Uganda
Authors: Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg and Mahan Ghafari Note on data use This is an informal analysis and is not intended as a formal preprint or manuscript in its current form. The aim of this post is to p...
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Incredibly valuable and timely work by Lissette, Edyth, and colleagues!
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Aris Katzourakis @ariskatzourakis.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Trying to make sense of the unfolding Hantavirus outbreak from molecular sequence data. Many caveats apply; this is just a post on a blog, not a peer reviewed research paper, but is our attempt to make sense of the data so far and help out. All subject to revision etc.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Part 2: molecular clock analysis of lineages leading to the outbreak virological.org/t/molecular-... Huge thanks to everyone generating, sharing, and curating data so rapidly!
virological.org
Molecular evolutionary analysis of the lineages leading to the current MV Hondius Andes virus outbreak
Note on data use This is an informal analysis and is not intended as a formal preprint or manuscript in its current form. This post focuses on the deeper evolutionary history of the lineage leading to...
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Our two-part analysis of the current MV Hondius Andes virus outbreak is now live, including reconstruction of the outbreak molecular clock dating of the closest known ancestors of the outbreak lineage. Part 1: outbreak sequence reconstruction and rooting virological.org/t/molecular-...
virological.org
Molecular evolutionary analysis of the current MV Hondius Andes virus outbreak
Preliminary reconstruction of the current MV Hondius Andes virus outbreak sequences Note on data use This is an informal analysis of currently available consensus sequences and is not intended as a fo...
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Asher Leeks @asherleeks.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
We're recruiting! We're looking for two graduate students to join us at UBC in Vancouver. Fully funded and open to global applicants, with flexible start-date. Topics include theory, bioinformatics, and microbiology. More details: asherleeks.com/apply #socialviruses #evosky #virosky 🧪
Leeks Lab is recruiting. We study social evolution in viruses. We're recruiting for two fully funded PhD or MSc positions, starting from September 2026. Evolutionary theory / experimental microbiology / viral bioinformatics. Experience optional / enthusiasm essential. asherleeks.com/apply
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Asher Leeks @asherleeks.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
The Social Lives of Viruses is coming to Vancouver, Canada, from 4th-8th August 2026! This is a free meeting dedicated to all aspects of virus-virus interactions & evolution. To apply: socialviruses.zoology.ubc.ca @sociovirology.bsky.social #socialviruses #evosky #lovevirology #virosky
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
It was a pleasure to host @systemsvirology.bsky.social at @biology.ox.ac.uk today for a fascinating talk on the origins and phenotypic characteristics of SARS-CoV-2!
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
congratulations!
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Emma Harding @emma-harding.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
I'm excited to introduce our new workflow for detecting endogenous viral elements - HI-FEVER. 🖥️🧬 academic.oup.com/bioinformati... 🧵 Big thanks to @ariskatzourakis.bsky.social, @humanceae.bsky.social, José Gabriel and Cormac for bringing this from conception to fruition!
academic.oup.com
HI-FEVER: a Nextflow pipeline for the high-throughput discovery and annotation of endogenous viral elements
AbstractSummary. Endogenous viral elements (EVEs) offer valuable insights into virus and host evolution, but their detection remains computationally and bi
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Oxford Biology @biology.ox.ac.uk · 09/12/2025
Congratulations to @mghafari.bsky.social who has been selected as one of the New Voices in Virology! Mahan's research focuses on the evolution of pathogens, particularly those with epidemic or pandemic potential and with implications for human, animal, and plant health 🦠
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Ed Hutchinson @socialinfluenza.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Feeling festive? Why not deck the halls with @cvrinfo.bsky.social's papercraft #VirusSnowflakes and celebrate the science of viruses and the fight against viral diseases. Download for free: cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl... #scicomm #sciart #decorations
A poster with branding for the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre fo Virus Research, labelled 'Virus Snowflakes.' The poster shows snowflake-like virus designs and song lyrics reading:
On the twelfth day of Christmas, a virus gave to me,
Twelve fights worth winning,
Eleven Christmas dinners,
Ten lunar landers,
Nine childhood vaccines,
Eight tools for teaching,
Seven dogs a-barking,
Six wasps a-laying,
FIIIIVE TIIINY RIIIIIIINGS,
Four vaccine platforms,
Three genome segments,
Two twinned capsids, and
A world that is too small to see
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
James Hay @jameshay.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
H3N2 preprint: there are concerns of a severe incoming influenza season due to the drifted H3N2 K clade. We at @psioxford.bsky.social analysed epi data and ran scenario models to see what we could discern about K clade transmission dynamics: zenodo.org/records/1770.... (1/18)
zenodo.org
Evaluation of the epidemiological outlook of the influenza A/H3N2 clade K in England during the 2025-26 season
Key findings England is currently experiencing a high growth rate of infections caused by the influenza A/H3N2 K clade. Antigenic change from the previously dominant clade, a rapid selective sweep evi...
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Excited to be part of this amazing group of virologists! @asm.org journals.asm.org/journal/jvi/...
journals.asm.org
New Voices in Virology
Annual competition for early-career virologists to publish a minireview in JVI. Their minireviews will be peer reviewed & published in a collection.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Huge congrats, Spyros! Pasteur is very lucky to have you.
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Spyros Lytras @spyroslytras.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Guess the news is officially out! Extremely excited to announce that I will be starting my own laboratory at Institut Pasteur @pasteur.fr this coming spring! Slight change to my office window view from Tokyo Tower🗼 to the Tour Eiffel. 🇫🇷
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Yes, exciting times ahead! :)
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Asher Leeks @asherleeks.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
I gave a talk last year at TEDxNewEngland aimed at introducing the idea of viral sociality to a general audience, including implications for evolution & virology. Video now available online below. #socialviruses #evosky #virosky 🧪
youtube.com
The social lives of viruses | Asher Leeks | TEDxNewEngland
YouTube video by TEDx Talks
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
Had an absolutely wonderful few days at #JSV72 in Hamamatsu & IMSUT in Tokyo. Huge thanks to @shusukekawakubo.bsky.social, @shigeru0701.bsky.social, @spyroslytras.bsky.social & everyone in the @systemsvirology.bsky.social lab for being such brilliant hosts. Japan has been an amazing experience 🇯🇵✨
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
🚨 DPhil opportunity at Pandemic Sciences Institute🚨 Excited to be co-supervising a new DPhil theme with Christophe Fraser and Yvonne Jones on Developing methods for accurate reconstruction of viral histories to guide pandemic preparedness & targeted interventions. Read more here: lnkd.in/eJXSXkia
lnkd.in
LinkedIn
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
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Royal Society Publishing @royalsocietypublishing.org · 14/10/2025
We are thrilled to welcome the members of our new Early Career Researcher Advisory Panel! Discover more about the researchers who are helping shape the future of scientific communication: buff.ly/5abtNWQ #ECR 🧪
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Thanks @tah-sci.com!
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Reposted by Mahan Ghafari
Contagion® @contagionlive.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
“Fast change, little spread” The University of Oxford’s Prof Katrina Lythgoe and Dr. Mahan Ghafari unpack ONS-CIS data on 576 persistent infections, rapid within-host evolution, and rare transmission after 1 month. #IDsky #MEDsky Read our Q&A: www.contagionlive.com/view/persist...
contagionlive.com
Persistent SARS-CoV-2 Infections in the Community Show Fast Within-Host Change but Little Late Transmission
Oxford’s Prof Katrina Lythgoe and Mahan Ghafari, DPhil, report ONS-CIS data on 576 persistent UK infections with rapid within-host evolution and rare transmission after one month.
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Mahan Ghafari @mghafari.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
how is the syn vs nonsyn MOV context score/likelihood calculated in these cases?
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