Andrew Rambaut 🦠🧬🌲🔮🤦♂️
Professor of Molecular Evolution | University of Edinburgh | FRSE
Thought Leader
| #18 | Infectious Disease |
Last synced from Twitter 1h ago
The Sarbecovirus origin of SARS-CoV-2’s furin cleavage site
Sequencing the SARS-CoV-2 genome has massively aided the effort to understand and contribute to the control of the COVID-19 pandemic, through comparative genetics and molecular epidemiology. However, due to the very limited sampling of closely...
Evaluating the effects of SARS-CoV-2 Spike mutation D614G on transmissibility and pathogenicity
In February 2020 a substitution at the interface between SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein subunits, Spike D614G, was observed in public databases. The Spike 614G variant subsequently increased in frequency in many locations throughout the world. Global...
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Andrew Rambaut 🦠🧬🌲🔮🤦♂️
The preprint of our analysis of Spike D614G (Doug) in the context of the @CovidGenomicsUK genome sequences is out: medrxiv.org/content/10.110… Work lead by @erikmvolz with @tomrconnor but builds on work and data from across the consortium.
7d
How the Pandemic Defeated America
A virus has brought the world’s most powerful country to its knees.
SARS-CoV-2 lineages
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Andrew Rambaut 🦠🧬🌲🔮🤦♂️
Llama - A tool for helping to put new SARS-CoV-2 genomes into context in the global phylogenetic tree: cov-lineages.org/llama.html Developed by @AineToole @viralverity @McCroneIV This is under active development so feature requests are welcomed.
15d
BBC World Service - Science in Action, 30/07/2020 GMT
The BBC brings you all the week's science news.
Evolutionary origins of the SARS-CoV-2 sarbecovirus lineage responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic
In this manuscript, the authors address evolutionary questions on the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. They find that SARS-CoV-2 is not a recombinant of any sarbecoviruses detected to date, and that the bat and pangolin sequences most closely related to...
Trump ‘owes us an apology.’ Chinese scientist at the center of COVID-19 origin theories speaks out
Wuhan bat virologist Shi Zhengli denies responsibility for the pandemic and calls for more international collaboration
SARS-CoV-2 lineages
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Andrew Rambaut 🦠🧬🌲🔮🤦♂️
Pangolin v2.0 is out! cov-lineages.org/pangolin.html
For all your SARS-CoV-2 global lineage classification needs.
Now with a multinomial logistic regression classifier hand-trained by @DrEmilyScher for a huge improvement in speed.
Amazing work by @AineToole & @DrEmilyScher
23d
COVID-19 Dynamics & Evolution
The COVID-19 Dynamics & Evolution series is a new initiative to bring together researchers working at the forefront of the scientific response to the pandemic. The meetings will focus on quantitative and computational approaches to studying...
Phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in DRC
Recent as of 2020-05-26, 127 SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences had been made available globally on GISAID providing insight into the diversity and dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The sampled cases from the DRC are the...
Methylation-Based Age Estimation in a Wild Mouse
The age structure of populations, or the ageing rate of individuals, impacts aspects of ecology, epidemiology and conservation. Yet for many wild organisms, age is an inaccessible trait. In many cases measuring age or ageing rates in the wild...
SARS-CoV-2 lineages
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Andrew Rambaut 🦠🧬🌲🔮🤦♂️
We proposed a system for genetic lineages of SARS-CoV-2 that would be useful for the large-scale epidemiological tracking of the pandemic. We now have a website that describes the lineages, links to tools and resources and more: cov-lineages.org Site by @AineToole
35d
Coronavirus pandemic may not have started in China, experts say
Oxford researchers say environmental factors, meat-packing plants, faecal spread warrant closer attention, and that some viruses 'don't come or go anywhere, they are always here'.
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Andrew Rambaut 🦠🧬🌲🔮🤦♂️
"Where did SARS-1 go? It's just disappeared," he said. "So we have to think about these things. We need to start researching the ecology of the virus, understanding how it originates and mutates.” - Thanks we’ll get right on that. smh.com.au/world/europe/c… HT @edwardcholmes
39d
David Cameron: We need a new international body to sound the alarm earlier
Over the past few months, Covid-19 has demonstrated how one microscopic virus, one thousandth the width of a human hair, can engulf an entire planet. In doing so, it has exposed both the strengths and
Accommodating individual travel history, global mobility, and unsampled diversity in phylogeography: a SARS-CoV-2 case study.
Spatiotemporal bias in genome sequence sampling can severely confound phylogeographic inference based on discrete trait ancestral reconstruction. This has impeded our ability to accurately track the emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2, which is the...
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Andrew Rambaut 🦠🧬🌲🔮🤦♂️
Some awesome new gadgets in the BEAST tool box - 'Accommodating individual travel history, global mobility, and unsampled diversity in phylogeography: a SARS-CoV-2 case study' biorxiv.org/content/10.110… @LemeyLab @suchard_group Add known travel history into viral phylogeography.
51d
CoV-GLUE: A Web Application for Tracking SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Variation
Summary CoV-GLUE is an online web application for the interpretation and analysis of SARS-CoV-2 virus genome sequences, with a focus on amino acid sequence variation. It is based on the GLUE data-centric bioinformatics environment and provides a...
Taiwan records third COVID-19 death - Focus Taiwan
Taipei, March 30 (CNA) Taiwan's death toll from the COVID-19 coronavirus rose to three Sunday with the passing of a patient in his 40s, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) reported late that night.
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Andrew Rambaut 🦠🧬🌲🔮🤦♂️
@GISAID @MarionKoopmans @Williams_T_C @EvolveDotZoo One other bit of information - the case from Taiwan seems to have been infected in Austria or the Czech Rep. - focustaiwan.tw/society/202003… “led a group tour to Austria and the Czech Republic March 5-14.” Thanks to @davenjoe76 for remembering that.
56d
Deep mutational scanning of SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain reveals constraints on folding and ACE2 binding
The receptor binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein mediates viral attachment to ACE2 receptor, and is a major determinant of host range and a dominant target of neutralizing antibodies. Here we experimentally measure how all...