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Will Harvey

@willharv.bsky.social
253 followers 101 following 17 posts

Virus evolution and epidemiology 🦠🧬💻

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Reposted by Will Harvey
Tom Peacock @peacockflu.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Excited to advertise a fully funded PhD with @socialinfluenza.bsky.social investigating how influenza virus evolution differs between different avian hosts (and how this impacts pandemic potential). Joint between @pirbrightinst.bsky.social + @cvrinfo.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
findaphd.com
FULLY FUNDED PhD - Visualising avian influenza virus tropism and co-infection in avian hosts at University of Glasgow on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - FULLY FUNDED PhD - Visualising avian influenza virus tropism and co-infection in avian hosts at University of Glasgow, listed on FindAPhD.com
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Peer-reviewed version of Hui Min's paper on NA-mediated PLG recruitment as a virulence mechanism for LPAIVs is out in @mbio.bsky.social journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
journals.asm.org
Synergy between HA cleavage site sequence and NA-mediated plasminogen recruitment as a virulence mechanism for low-pathogenic avian influenza | mBio
Avian influenza viruses are divided into high or low pathogenicity based on the sequence of their hemagglutinin (HA) and their lethality in chickens. The majority of AIV strains circulating in the wil...
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Several independent occurrence of motifs assoc. plasminogen-recruitment across the N1 NA phylogeny including 2 severe H6N1 outbreaks - conclude PLG-recruitment by NA is a general virulence mechanism of N1 LPAIVs
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Colleagues have recently shown NA 122S and HA 345K are both assoc. plasminogen-mediated HA cleavage in a variety of avian cell lines and chicken organoids
biorxiv.org
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
supports proposal of Schön et al. that loss of the NA glycosylation site enables plasminogen-associated, trypsin-independent, HA cleavage allowing systemic viral spread across organs/tissues resulting in higher pathogenicity
journals.plos.org
Neuraminidase-associated plasminogen recruitment enables systemic spread of natural avian Influenza viruses H3N1
Author summary Avian influenza viruses (AIV) of subtype H3N1 caused outbreaks among gallinaceous poultry associated with an unusual high mortality in Belgium in 2019. Although those strains shared pro...
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
High virulence assoc. loss of a glycosylation site at NA position 122 in wt field strains, with pathogenicity reversed in mutant with NA S122N
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
High pathogenicity avian influenza viruses (of subtypes H5 or H7) typically have a modified polybasic cleavage site in HA (haemagglutinin). Growing evidence for other determinants of high pathogenicity such as a change in NA (neuraminidase) observed in field strains of H3N1
tandfonline.com
Comparative pathogenicity of a virulent field isolate and an NA S122N genetically modified H3N1 avian influenza virus in chickens
Low pathogenic avian influenza viruses (LPAIVs) are typically associated with subclinical or mild disease in poultry. However, recent outbreaks involving atypical LPAIV strains, including H3N1 stra...
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Lovely new work shows how mutations adapted a lineage of bird flu to a vastly different host: dairy cattle! This enabled cow-to-cow transmission across the USA www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Polymerase mutations underlie early adaptation of H5N1 influenza virus to dairy cattle and other mammals - Nature Communications
Avian influenza jumped from wild birds into dairy cattle. Here, the authors report that two mutations in the viral polymerase helped the virus to quickly adapt to cattle. Mutations increased the polym...
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Reposted by Will Harvey
Ryan Hisner @ryanhisner.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Do you remember BA.3—the weakling cousin of BA.1 & BA.2 that seemed to take the worst from each & had weaker ACE2 binding than even the ancestral Wuhan Virus? After three years, BA.3 is back. And it is transmitting. Who saw this coming? 1/13
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Reposted by Will Harvey
Tanja Stadler @tanjastadler.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
I first read the famous 1925 Yule paper at its 80th birthday - during my Master thesis work, and it shaped my research profoundly. It was a pleasure and honour to lead this special 100 anniversary issue celebrating Yule's legacy and phylogenetic models with @noahrosenberg.bsky.social and Mike Steel!
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Reposted by Will Harvey
sarah-c-hill.bsky.social @sarah-c-hill.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
🦠 We are recruiting two 2-year postdocs to work at the intersection of virus genomics and infectious disease. jobs.rvc.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... Please share widely!
An image with text describing the jobs, and the logo of the Royal Veterinary College. The text says:

Title: Hiring two postdoctoral researchers. 

What? Improve identification and response to emerging and endemic virus threats.
Where? Royal Veterinary College.
How? Genomics, metagenomics, phylogenetics.
Who: Working with Prof Oliver Pybus, Dr Sarah Hill, Dr Jayna Rahgwani, and GAP DC. 
When? Apply by 27th January 2025. 

Underneath this, there are two boxes describing the two roles:
Role 1: Phylodynamics: Introduction, emergence and spread of viruses in farmed and wild animals. 
Role 2: Detect and understand threats to/from wildlife and their environments.
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Crick in January perhaps. Artwork is great by the way!
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Hope it goes well Ed! Went to sign up a couple of weeks ago but sold out… tickets hotter than Oasis this year!
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Hi Simon, would love to be added if there’s space. Thanks
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
If there’s space, I’d love to be added. Thanks Pedro
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Reposted by Will Harvey
Jon Mifsud @jonathonmifsud.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Chu-like viruses are weird and wonderful and now infect Tasmanian devils! Definitely worth adding to the reading list 📚 Awesome work by @julienmelade.bsky.social @erinharvey.bsky.social @eddieholmes.bsky.social 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Isolation of an infectious mammalian chu-like virus from tumor cells of the endangered Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii)
Jingchuvirales (negative-sense RNA viruses) were initially discovered in invertebrates, with both exogenous and endogenous jingchuviruses subsequently identified in fish, reptiles and mammals. To date...
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Very well deserved. Congrats 😄
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Hey @sjurdur.bsky.social I see you’re ahead of the curve over here. How’s things with you? How were the bonxies in the Faroes this summer?
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Reposted by Will Harvey
Tom Peacock @peacockflu.bsky.social · 28/10/2024
Wendy Barclay and I will soon be recruiting a postdoc to work on a virology project investigating the evolution of swine influenza viruses and how this impacts future pandemic potential. Job will be based at Imperial's South Kensington campus. Drop me a DM/email for more details.
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
165 years later and some of us are still using trees to think about fitness and competition between types.
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
"we may, I think, assume that the modified descendants of any one species will succeed by so much the better as they become more diversified in structure, and are thus enabled to encroach on places occupied by other beings"
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
It included this developed version of a tree illustrating the evolutionary success of the fittest types (A and I), their diversification and survival into future generations and while others become extinct.
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Will Harvey @willharv.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
On this day in 1859, Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' was published, around 22 years after he sketched perhaps the first phylogenetic tree... "The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth."
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