Connor G G Bamford
Scientist and educator interested in viruses, immunity and evolution. Currently group leader and lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast. Member of MicroSoc Virus Division, and Young Academy Ireland.
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- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordI’m excited to recruit a postdoc to join my lab at NIAID (Rocky Mountain Labs). We study mucosal immunity and vaccine responses to respiratory viruses in a collaborative, supportive environment. Details & apply: www.training.nih.gov/jobs/pdf-miv... #Postdoc #Immunology #Virology #NIHJobs
- Major problem with this review is that there is no such thing as “human parainfluenza virus” onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordA dairy cow in the Netherlands appears to have been infected with H5N1, the first report of this deadly avian influenza virus having spread to cattle outside of the United States 🧪🦠 www.science.org/content/arti...
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- One Week left to apply for this exciting PhD via the QUARTILES DLA w/ @micecoevo.bsky.social , @timskvortsov.bsky.social & Julianne Megaw) on understanding drivers of virus ecology in the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles, Lough Neagh! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordHappy Little Christmas! While Nollaig na mBan is a relatively new* thing, the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th, was known as Notlaic Becc ‘Little Christmas’ or Notlaic Stéille, ‘Christmas of the star’, in early Irish texts. It seems to have marked the end of the season, & 'back to work' time! 1/
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- 2000 yr old rotavirus!
- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordSometimes, viruses don't have to be the bad guys... Sometimes we can use one to treat another! Chuffed to present excellent work from Dr Samantha Garcia-Cardenas showing how the innate immune system can be "rewired" by a benign Reovirus to eliminate SARS2 infection. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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- A big thank you to Kevin Daly @gingerhowley.bsky.social who came to us last week and presented his lab’s exciting work on using aDNA to study livestock domestication and pathogen ecology!
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- Our umpteenth cold or the season this week but oddly the cat has also started sneezing! 🤔
- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordHow does fever work? Our new Science paper shows how elevated body temperature can protect against severe influenza and that avian-origin viruses escape this defence. This is likely one reason why bird flus and some pandemic influenzas can be so severe.🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordIf you'd like to celebrate the biology of viruses - or the fight against viral diseases - this winter, try out our free and updated #VirusSnowflake designs. Please share, and if you have any photos of Virus Snowflakes in your area it would be lovely to see them! cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl...
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- Reposted by Connor G G Bamford🚨New preprint🚨 In a multidisciplinary tour-de-force, @itingtu.bsky.social shows that, because #H5N1 flu is now routinely infecting seals and sealions in Peru, it's also spilling over into the vampire bats that feed from beaches... 🦭🦠🦇 (1/2)
- My 1st first-author paper is out as a preprint! Excited to share the fascinating story of marine-feeding vampire bats 🌊🦇 We found that marine-diet bats were exposed to #H5#AvianFlu 🦠 from marine wildlife and could potentially spread it to livestock via blood feed🩸 doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.09.686930
- felt good (and bad) submitting 6(!) abstracts for my group for the Microbiology Society conference annual meeting in Belfast next year, with only 30 minutes to spare... a new record
- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordI'll be presenting at @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social at the School of Biological Sciences, 2nd December, 1pm - please come along to hear about #aDNA, domestication, and disease!
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- Up a bit earlier than I’d like… but excited for me and my lab to present at the Irish Microbiology Society meeting in beautiful - and slightly isolated - Athlone!
- Reposted by Connor G G Bamford🔊 Applications for the tenure-track illuminate global challenge fellowships at Queen’s are now open! Comes with 5 years protected research time, a PhD studentship, & 60k start-up. I had one of these before getting my FLF, happy to chat to anyone interested! www.qub.ac.uk/Research/fel...
- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordA divergent betacoronavirus with a functional furin cleavage site in South American bats biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordI'm v excited to be recruiting a PhD student to work on badger behaviour and ecology! Starting date is March 2026; see the ad here, or message me for more details: www.gregalbery.me/s/March-2026...
- excellent article on Ancient RNA research www.science.org/content/arti...
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- Reposted by Connor G G Bamford🧵🚨 The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation - over the past 5 months I've been working with @martinmckee.bsky.social to map out their vulnerabilities and it's not good news. Today our report is published! www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n... 1/11
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- It was great to speak with the BBC’s State of Us podcast about the science behind vaccines in the wake of the pandemic, alongside a local politician Paul Frew www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
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- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordThe Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has decided to award the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to: Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance”
- Phew thankfully I waited until an hour before my T cell lecture to update my slides
- 🦠 "Social Virology at the Tri-Kingdom Interface in Birds and Mammals" 🐥 We have a new 4y (open to intl students) PhD project advertised through the NorthWestBio Doctoral Training Partnership (lnkd.in/ee8hRpN6 ) between QUBelfast and Lancaster on virus-bacterial interactions across vertebrates!
- Wonderful early morning on my first day lecturing this semester - teaching second years about all things antibodies and their uses!
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- What’s the point of Young Academies like @yai.ie ? www.nature.com/articles/d41...
- Inspiring day at the @yai.ie ‘s “evidence for policy summit” with a big focus on how early career researchers fit into the system across the island, with a focus on sustainability and a fair and inclusive society. Big thanks to Johnathan Dalzell from DAERA coming down from NI.
- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordExperimental infections reveal unexceptional viral tolerance in bats biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordOur first post on here and it's a doozy 😍🤩. Our epic piece on #sarbecovirus host range. #virology #sars2 #covid #vaccines. Enjoy and please repost. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordI will be recruiting two PhDs for my ERC Project HERDPATH - let's discover out how livestock and pathogens evolved together using #aDNA. Projects will be animal or pathogen focused but will be in dialogue. Details at my quaint website below. Deadline 3rd October. kevingdaly.github.io
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- Reposted by Connor G G BamfordLast few places available to attend our Evidence for Policy Summit in Dublin next week. Visit: www.yai.ie for sign up details. If you can't attend in person, email yai@ria.ie for livestream details! #evidenceforpolicy #youngacademyireland #EfP25 @emmaefarrell.bsky.social @karinadoorley.bsky.social
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- this is great - a big evolutionary signal of importance but we have little idea what this protein is doing www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... but has probably got something to do with lung infection...
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- www.bbc.com/news/article... Lough Neagh: What's projects are tackling blue-green algae blooms? - BBC News
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[Not loaded yet] - Reposted by Connor G G BamfordVery proud of the work from lab members and collaborators that coincidentally came out today www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... and www.nature.com/articles/s41.... A bacterial and viral pathogen associated with mass mortality in seastars and oysters. @kevinzhong2006.bsky.social @rhizalyssa.bsky.social
- I think this is a very important study but begs the question about how many oncologists talk with infectious disease specialists? Or how often do cancer biologists talk to microbiologists? What else are we missing even within biology? www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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- Come join us at the Young Academy Ireland. Lots of opportunities and support to do good things! Please reach out if you want to hear more!
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