Viruses. Pandemics. Professor and Head of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. Tweets mine.
Joined February 2014
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Here's a visual of the US H5N1 "Cattle clade", HA plus two internal genes.
Strongly suggests to me there was single origin, at least for these sequences.
Possibly in late 2023/early 2024.
Hi all - I've a couple positions open for lab management and research! Please pass on to creative and enthusiastic folks who might be interested. And repost if you don't mind.
Ability to learn/adapt more important than specific skills!
Thanks so much.
arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/care…
Excellent summary of our findings from @ejustin46!
For a report on our analyses of #H5N1 in cattle, see
worobey bsky social
Tom Peacock, Oliver Pybus, Andrew Rambaut, Angela Rasmussen, Christopher Ruis, Lorena Mariana Malpica Serrano, Marc Suchard, Joel Wertheim, Michael Worobey
Karthik Gangavarapu, Jonathan Pekar, Florence Débarre, Kristian Andersen, Gytis Dudas, Daniel Goldhill, Joseph Hughes, Xiang Ji, Jeffrey Joy, Moritz Kraemer, Philippe Lemey, Louise Moncla, Martha Nelson, Stuart Neil,
We are sharing our high quality consensus genomes, as well as date of sampling and location to US state for >100 #H5N1 cases in cattle.
"We, in turn, encourage researchers globally to use these sequences to support biomedical research, public health, animal health and welfare, and safe and secure food production within the U.S. dairy industry and beyond."
My colleagues and I have just posted a
"Note about availability of #H5N1 2.3.4.4b consensus sequences from cattle and other species" @virological_org.
Consensus genomes and metadata.
virological.org/t/note-about…
Michael Worobey retweeted
As usual, a great summary of the H5N1 situation by @LaurenPelley @CBCNews, including interviews with colleagues at the forefront of the research including @MichaelWorobey, @SMubareka, & @DuckSwabber. And me.
#H5N1 found in a cow with no symptoms; viral fragments in processed milk; striking trends identified in genetic sequences.
All in just a week. And these developments suggest avian flu may be very widespread among U.S. cattle.
More from Amina Zafar and I:
cbc.ca/news/health/h5n1-seco…
Into the weeds:
One reason it is particularly frustrating that full metadata has not been shared for genome sequences my colleagues and I have assembled from raw sequence read data released by @USDA / @USDA_APHIS, is that without those dates...
And more complex scenarios exist. Joel Wertheim and I have noticed that the Texas human H5N1 virus might be a reassortant. Its HA, PB2, and NP all appear to sit basal to the current sample of cattle H5N1, while the other 5 segments appear to sit within the cattle clade.
@influenzal notes that there are no mammalian-adaptive substitutions in common between the viruses that have been sampled in cows and the virus in the Texas patient.
But looping back to @PeacockFlu 's thoughts in the @statnews article, it is still possible that this does represent an independent jump from the avian reservoir into cattle.