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Dr. Rowan Durrant

@rowandurrant.bsky.social

1.8K followers 866 following 40 posts

Postdoc at the University of Glasgow | virus phylogenetics and evolutionary modelling | she/her

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Dr. Rowan Durrant @rowandurrant.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

And by simple, you only need three parameters: the mean branch length of a phylogeny in subs/site, the number of sequences in your tree, and an estimate of the per-generation evolutionary rate. The formula seems to work surprisingly well on simulated outbreak datasets given its simplicity!

Screenshot of a section of the manuscript with the following formula: the observed tree length multiplied by the square root of the proportion of cases sequenced, minus the per-generation substitution rate times the number of tips in the tree minus the proportion of cases sequenced, is equal to zero.

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Dr. Rowan Durrant @rowandurrant.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

The most interesting finding for me was the increase in CpG content and ZAP-optimal binding motifs in carnivore-associated clades compared to bat-associated clades. Are carnivore clades less exposed to ZAP? Does carnivore ZAP work differently to bat ZAP?

CpG content is higher in carnivore-associated rabies clades than in bat-associated clades. (A) Ratio of observed-to-expected CpG content, where a value of 1 indicates no bias, >1 indicates overrepresentation of CpG, and <1 indicates underrepresentation. (B) Ratio of observed-to-expected UpA content. (C) Number of CpG dinucleotides by clade. (D) Number of UpA dinucleotides by clade.

N gene sequences from all bat-associated clades except Bat LC on average contain more ZAP suboptimal binding motifs than optimal motifs, whereas some carnivore clades contain more optimal binding motifs. (A) Ratio between the number of optimal and suboptimal ZAP binding motifs by species-specific RABV clade. Note that the y-axis is log scaled. (B) Locations of CpG dinucleotides (grey), ZAP optimal motifs (pink) and ZAP suboptimal motifs (blue) on the N gene show that the acquired CpG dinucleotides in carnivore-associated clades occur both within and outside of ZAP-optimal motifs. Point size represents the proportion of sequences within each clade where each motif is present at each locus.

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Dr. Rowan Durrant @rowandurrant.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

One of our findings was that the differences in codon usage between these clades appears to be associated with UpA dinucleotide content, which together with CpG are targeted by the host immune protein ZAP, and purine content, which could be involved in modulating transcription

Codon usage between species-specific clades is different, and shaped by purine and UpA content. (A) Principal component analysis of raw codon usage values. (B) Purine content at the third position is correlated with PC1. (C) Obs/exp UpA content is negatively correlated with PC2. The point colour represents the RABV clade. Point shape represents whether the host species is a bat (round) or a carnivore (triangle). CFB = Chinese ferret badger.

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Dr. Rowan Durrant @rowandurrant.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

is nothing safe from AI

screenshot of google scholar's new "scholar labs" page. "An AI-powered Scholar search; understands detailed questions, finds papers, and explains their relevance, all within a conversational search session"

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Dr. Rowan Durrant @rowandurrant.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Today’s my first day as a postdoc at McMaster University! Excited to be working here for the next year 🇨🇦

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Dr. Rowan Durrant @rowandurrant.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

Looks like I've been added to a couple of starter packs over the weekend, so to (re)introduce myself: hi, I'm Rowan, and I'm in the end stages of my PhD in infectious diseases studying rabies 🧪 Outside of academia I enjoy climbing/mountaineering, chess and knitting!

Rowan sitting on a thin snow ridge approaching the Aiguille du Midi lift station in Chamonix, France. She is wearing a helmet, harness and crampons.

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