The ECR Viromics Webinar Series is a fully virtual forum to enable early career researchers to showcase their research online to the community.
The talks will focus on the study of viruses in complex communities, including natural and built environment ecosystems. We invite you to nominate speakers below.
Upcoming webinars | Past webinars
The ECR Viromics Webinar Series is a collaborative effort between:
- the European Virus Bioinformatics Center
- the NSF EMERGE Biology Integration Institute
- the Center of Microbiome Science.
Next ECR Viromics webinar series talk date:
April 5th, 2023 10am EST - Dr. Ruonan Wu, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA - Talk TBD
Key Details
- When:
- Once a month
- Every second Wednesday
- 7 am PST - 10 am EST; 4 pm CET
- How to attend: Upon registration, you will receive a Zoom link
- Nominate: We invite you to nominate speakers for the webinar series by completing the speaker nomination form below
April 5th, 2023 | Dr. Ruonan Wu, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), USA
Talk: TBD
March 8th, 2023 | Dr. Mohammadali Khan Mirzaei, Institute of Virology, Technical University of Munich, Germany
Talk: "Interrogating the virome-microbiome interactions to mitigate dysbiosis-associated diseases"
January 11th, 2023 | Cormac M. Kinsella, Amsterdam UMC, The Netherlands
Talk: "Computational host discovery for stray viruses in the metagenomic age”
December 14, 2022 | Justine Charon, Sydney, Australia
Talk: “Investigating the protist virosphere: the current limits and how we can face them?”
René Kallies
Leibniz, Germany
November 9, 2022
Topic: “Introduction to MuDoGeR”
Uri Neri
Moshav Yarkona, Israel
October 12, 2022
Topic: “RNA viruses in metatranscriptions – dawn of a new age?”
Daan Jansen
KU Leuven, Belgium
September 14, 2022
Topic: “Community typing as a way to explore virome compositional changes in IBD patients”
Elaine Luo
Postdoctoral Scholar
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
August 10, 2022
Topic: “Viral diversity in the ocean”
Janina Rahlff
Linneaus University, Sweden
July 13, 2022
Topic: “Dwelling in the ocean’s skin: lessons learned from studying viruses at the air-sea boundary”
Janina Rahlff is a marine microbiologist and postdoc in Karin Holmfeldt’s lab at the Linnaeus University in Kalmar, Sweden, where she currently investigates phages and virus-host interactions in the 1 mm thin layer between ocean and atmosphere.
Janina received her PhD from the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Germany, where she explored bacteria in the sea-surface microlayer and before she started her first postdoc at the University of Duisburg-Essen and gained interest in viral metagenomics and the virioneuston (viruses in the microlayer).
Ahmed Zayed
Ph. D., Research scientist
Sullivan Lab at the Ohio State University
June 8, 2022
Topic: “Ecology and evolutionary origins of the Global Ocean RNA virome”
Dr. Zayed’s research spans environmental, medical, and pharmaceutical microbiology, and aims at understanding the interactions happening between microbes and their environments across different ecosystems.
Employing cutting-edge bioinformatic and high-throughput tools, his research led to the discovery of hundreds of thousands of DNA/RNA viral sequences and thousands of microbes in the global ocean, human/animal bodies, and carbon-rich soils.
He finished his Ph.D. in Microbiology in 2019 from the Ohio State University, where he is currently conducting his research on the ecology and evolution of RNA viruses.
Dr. Zayed is also part of the leadership team of the EMERGE Biology Integration Institute which aims at understanding microbial acclimation, assembly, and adaptation processes in complex, dynamic ecosystems.
Special edition: 5th International Viromics Workshop
- Duration:~2 hours of talks
- Location: Live from the mini-symposium segment; the Ohio State University.
- May 11, 2022
- Mini-symposium content: (available to watch on our YouTube channel)
Simon Roux
Joint Genome Institute (JGI)
Topic: Viromics overview
Ahmed Zayed
The Ohio State University (tOSU)
Topic: Oceans overview
Joanne Emerson
University of California, Davis (UC Davis)
Topic: Soils overview
Arvind Varsani
Arizona State University (ASU)
Topic: Host-associated overview (plants, insects, animals)
Rotem Sorek
Ph. D.
Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
April 3, 2022
Topic: “The immune system of bacteria: Beyond CRISPR”
Rotem’s lab webpage: https://www.weizmann.ac.il/molgen/Sorek/
Florian Pfaff
Ph.D., Laboratory Head
Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute, Germany
March 9, 2022
Topic: “Virus discovery now and then – from Koch’s postulate to browsing viruses in the internet”
Florian Pfaff is a bioinformatician heading the Laboratory for Applied Bioinformatics and Sequencing of Viral Genomes and Transcriptomes at the Friedrich Loeffler Institute in Germany.
Florian studied Biotechnology in Jena and Bremerhaven where he already studied the genome and the phylogeny of viruses.
He was working on different projects at the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research and the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Ecology about evolutionary ecology including a scientific expedition with the Argentine research vessel ’ARA Puerto Deseado’.
Florian received his PhD on “Expanding the virosphere – Advanced genomic classification” at the FLI.
Ann Gregory
Ph.D., Postdoc
Sullivan Lab at Ohio State University
February 9, 2022
Topic: “Growing opportunities for studying microdiversity in viral ecology”
Ann Gregory is a viral ecologist and population geneticist interested in understanding the role of viruses in human gut microbiome dynamics.
Ann received her PhD in Matt Sullivan’s lab at Ohio State University where she studied viruses in the global oceans and human gut.
Ann received the EMBO fellowship for a postdoc position in Belgium at KU Leuven under the mentorship of Jeroen Raes, where she shifted gears to focus on bacterial metabolisms in the human gut.
After completing her fellowship, Ann moved back to the US to be closer to family and recently re-joined the Sullivan lab for another postdoc to re-focus on viruses.
