Verena
🦠 Yale-based, NSF-funded Institute for pandemic prediction.
💻 How we do it: data, biology, AI, and team science.
⚖️ Why we do it: scientific discoveries and global health security.
➡️ See more at viralemergence.org.
- Reposted by VerenaA long-term dream of mine has been to bridge @viralemergence.org's work on AI/ML-driven viral risk assessment with AI/ML-driven work on drug discovery. This would make a great topic for this fellowship here at Yale! If you're interested in applying, reach out. medicine.yale.edu/biomedical-d...
- We're looking for a full-stack developer! Help us build the best open data platforms for pandemic prediction in the world. Probably a short-term contract, but if you're looking for a full-time gig, let's talk. Inquire within: www.viralemergence.org/blog/were-hi...
- Reposted by Verenawe're excited to share that Proceedings B has also come on board for listing PHAROS as a recommended repository for open wildlife pathogen and parasite testing data! thanks to @royalsociety.org for the support. @viralemergence.org royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/pages/f...
- Exciting news to start 2026: for the first time ever, the PHAROS repository for wildlife disease surveillance is a journal-recommended home for your archived data! Thanks to Integrative and Comparative Biology for taking the leap with us 🦠🔢➡️🌎💻💫 academic.oup.com/icb/pages/Ge...
- Reposted by Verena🚨 Exciting new work out today led by @carolinecummings.bsky.social! Do bats host deadly viruses? Yes - but only specific bats (that just happen to be found in a lot of places!). Challenging some big ideas in the zoonosis world with data. Well done Caroline and team!!
- just in time for #batweek --Phylogenetic and ML analyses show that viral epidemic potential is not uniform among bats: virulence, transmissibility, and death burden cluster within distinct clades.🦇@carolinecummings.bsky.social @colincarlson.bsky.social @viralemergence.org go.sn.pub/acnbg1
- Reposted by VerenaLast week, we were lucky to host an international workshop on Pandemic Risk Scenarios for the 21st Century, with generous support from PAX sapiens and @viralemergence.org. Lots of lessons learned from climate and biodiversity science on how to design useful models and imagine better futures!
- Reposted by Verena🦇🦠 New preprint - in a long-term effort led by the amazing @mayajuman.bsky.social, we've shown that the ML tools developed by @viralemergence.org let us efficiently screen museum collections for pathogens with pandemic potential 🎉🔓 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by VerenaExcited to share our study reporting the first Sin Nombre virus (SNV) genome sequences from the Northwestern U.S., and the first ever from a vole host. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by VerenaHonored to be featured in WSU’s “Q&A with a Graduate Student.” I talk about my path, current work, and the role of mentorship (special mention to my PI, @stephseifertphd.bsky.social) and collaboration in advancing my research goals. Full Q&A: vetmed.wsu.edu/qa-with-grad...
- Reposted by VerenaNew preprint! 🥳🎉 We looked at viral coinfection patterns at the largest scale ever in wildlife. We found a strong association among CoVs, PMVs, and influenza A, and higher coinfection rates in wildlife trade; plus, evidence that bats accumulate persistent infections. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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- Reposted by VerenaLike I said: a small part of a much bigger project, which I'll let @faustobustos.bsky.social tell you about - including a much longer-term effort to figure out how to improve WHO and PAHO case definitions / syndromic surveillance / clinical treatment for very hard to distinguish endemic arboviruses.
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- Reposted by VerenaNEW! 🚨🦠 We trained ML algorithms to identify the clinical presentations that best distinguish pediatric dengue, chikungunya, and Zika. One notable finding: afebrile dengue may be being missed. A small part of a big project led by @faustobustos.bsky.social, out now 🔓 www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
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- Reposted by Verena🚨 Very, very big news. Today, a global coalition - including members of the IPCC, IPBES, and WHO expert advisors, as well as independent virologists, epidemiologists, and lawyers - started the process of creating an "IPCC for Pandemics." 🔓 www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... 🧵 Five things to know 👉
- Reposted by Verena👋 We’re still collecting responses!! We’d love your input if you’re in an adjacent field — already seeing some super cool questions that make me so excited for the workshop.
- Viral -ologists of all kinds - molecular, ecological, evolutionary - if you haven't yet, consider joining our horizon scan study and help us identify 100 questions that are guiding where your field is going! Fill in the survey and get an invite to a workshop: 📝 airtable.com/appTW4ZoSFjR...
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- Reposted by Verena🚨 Our team just released a reproducible Docker pipeline for RNAseq assembly and annotation designed for nonmodel organisms! We're using it to explore how bats manage viral infections, but it's built for broad utility in wildlife transcriptomics. @viralemergence.org www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Verena🚨 New publication out today. Bats are over 1480 species. In this latest article, we discuss the diversity within bats and their immune systems. Elegantly led by the Becker and Frank laboratories. nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @danjbecker.bsky.social @bat-lady.bsky.social
- Reposted by Verena🦠🌿🐦🧪 How can biodiversity monitoring help global efforts in disease surveillance? With ✨ fantastic ✨ colleagues from @viralemergence.org and the @geobon.org working group on One Health, we try to identify three key lessons for the future. 🧵 A short thread! academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...
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- Reposted by VerenaDo you study wildlife disease? Don't just share your sequences - share your testing data! We've developed a minimum data standard and an R package to help you, and wrote a little how-to-share-data handbook for disease ecology and One Health surveillance projects 🦇🦟🦠🗺️🔢 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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- Reposted by VerenaIf you’re at @eeid2025.bsky.social Come see my poster tomorrow, and let’s talk about viral evolution!
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- An update from the team on the uncertain future of our program and the impact of NSF budget cuts. Please share and reach out 🦠
- Check out @stephseifertphd.bsky.social's amazing work with bat cell lines in The Scientist! www.the-scientist.com/bat-cells-in...
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- Reposted by VerenaI talked to Nature about the latest development at NSF, which is a five-alarm fire for American science. The scale of immediate impact is massive. We narrowly escaped this affecting @viralemergence.org for now, but will have to shut down in a few months if this stays. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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- Reposted by Verena🦟🦠 NEW! We looked at every experiment going back to the 1960s, and found that mosquitoes are almost certainly not primary or secondary vectors of Oropouche virus - a common claim in both the scientific literature and public health communication. #EpiSky #IDSky 😷🧪 journals.plos.org/plosntds/art...
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- Updated preprint: "A minimum data standard for wildlife disease research and surveillance." With: ✏️ A new version of the standard 💻 A new R package to help you format your data 🦇 A retrospective mini-study of data sharing rates Preprint here: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... Got data? Reach out! 🦠🧪
- Public health journalists: We have a new paper coming on April 30! Currently under embargo, but the headline is "Oropouche virus is probably transmitted by midges, not mosquitoes - but it's been horribly understudied for decades." Ping us if you're keen!
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- Reposted by VerenaAre bats tolerant of all viruses? With a comparative -omics approach, we show that Egyptian fruit bat cells show both antiviral and pro-inflammatory immune responses to infection with Zika virus while our Jamaican fruit bat cells are not susceptible. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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- Reposted by Verena🚨Excited to share our latest research published in @commsbio.bsky.social , where we've developed a predictive model that integrates both host ecological traits and viral genomic features to identify potential reservoir hosts for Orthopoxviruses, including mpox virus. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
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