Benjamin Neuman

How can you convince a coronavirus to share its cell entry secrets? Give it something sweet! 🍬 Using #cryoEM & MD, we show how a sugar-based receptor binds to the HKU1 spike and triggers opening via an allosteric mechanism (🧵). biorxiv.org/content/10.110… #glycotime #virology

@tomtanya84 @ejustin46 I'd request major corrections if I was reviewing. Nuclear localization of S during infection seems reasonable. Obsession with S mRNA, when their probe can't tell mRNA from genome is bizarre, and a bit irresponsible. Spidey sense tingling.

@ejustin46 @DrBenNeuman probably has an opinion on this but he hasn’t been on twitter for a while.

This feature of SARS-CoV-2 may explain why patients can continue to produce viral RNA after recovery and suggests a new aspect of RNA virus replication. "Nuclear translocation of spike mRNA and protein is a novel pathogenic feature of SARS-CoV-2" biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

No, there is no solid evidence that Omicron is a recombinant isolate. Smart authors, I think, but this preprint is some overly enthusiastic, cherry-picked nonsense. osf.io/f7txy/ via @OSFramework

@megsyperk @HoustonChron @PeterHotez medrxiv.org/content/10.110… has some red flags. Study is retrospective, article buries the lede that vax after infection gave best protection, and I suspect the unvaccinated group includes fairly strong survivor bias making the interpretation problematic. Needs statistician review.

@HoustonChron Have you learned nothing over the last 18 months? Why I’m the world are you amplifying a story about a pre-print study that hasn’t been peer reviewed? @PeterHotez or @DrBenNeuman care to weigh in?

@GregAbbott_TX With great power, comes great responsibility. Banning the most direct tool to end COVID while the state is in crisis because of COVID does not make sense to this virologist.

I issued an Executive Order maintaining the prohibition of vaccine mandates. Additionally, I've added the issue of vaccine mandates to the Special Session agenda. #txlege involvement is important to avoid a patchwork of vaccine mandates across Texas. bit.ly/TXMandates

Strongly disagree with this article. Kids are definitely not "like your vaccinated grandparent." Here's why: a ragey thread.

"When you go out on a motorcycle, you put on that helmet. Not because you expect to crash, but because if anything bad happens, you want it to be there to protect you. That's exactly what the vaccine is, nothing more" said @DrBenNeuman. #covid19 spectrumlocalnews.com/share/tx/austi…

Coming up at 7 on @TXCapTonight Reax to @GovAbbott lifting #COVID19 restrictions Hear from restaurant owners, @DrBenNeuman and county judges including @TravisCoJudge & @JudgeClayJ + @MillerForTexas weighs in and talks #WinterStorm effects on farmers and ranchers

@gidmord @edwardcholmes @Jemma_Geoghegan @edwardcholmes @jemma_geoghegan @gidmord - Agree - some new evidence that abyssovirus, a marine invert corona-like virus, actively grows in gills. Makes sense that site of greatest exposure might be virus target. Happy to help with bioinformatics when the time comes.

@gidmord @edwardcholmes @Jemma_Geoghegan Link to this to pass along to the naming committee? Still waiting to hear back on your fascinating salmon nidovirus.

@GregAbbott_TX I think the mistake here is treating #COVID19 as an individual risk, when it is very much a collective risk. Think second-hand smoke. You can't give yourself COVID. The science around #masks in Texas has not changed materially since Gov. Abbott's July 20th tweet.

I just announced Texas is OPEN 100%. EVERYTHING. I also ended the statewide mask mandate.

@ArcherWilde @LisaGray_HouTX @TAMU Hi @archerwilde - the correct answer as I see it is "first available" and in my case, that was Moderna. Someday choice, but today, just get it in there :)

@LisaGray_HouTX @TAMU I've read this article twice and I do not see where it says which vaccine he'd take. Am I missing it? Can you just outright tell us which he'd take? Thanks!

"About every two weeks a new mutation comes in," explains @TAMU coronavirus expert Ben Neuman. "We expect 30 mutations a year. It’s been a year, and we’ve got a 29 mutation variants circulating." houstonchronicle.com/life/article/c…

@DecoDiva @drterrysimpson I don't know Dr. Terry yet, but it's a big world and I'm really not great with names. Of people, anyway :)

@DrBenNeuman I'm in the Texarkana, Tx area. Have been following @drterrysimpson for a decade, at least. Have you ever heard of each other? If not, I'd like to introduce you. Each of you, among your many accomplishments, have interest in & knowledge of viruses in common.

Netherlands is home to some of the world's finest coronavirus researchers. Talk of NL herd immunity is very distressing - notably does not seem to include them. Don't give up - listen to experts please. We all win together or lose together. #noweaklinks #COVID19 #SARSCoV2

New paper in @NatureMedicine: "Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus." go.nature.com/2x2aKIn

Promising Covid19 preprint- Reinfection could not occur in SARS-CoV-2 infected rhesus macaques | bioRxiv - what do relevant experts think? Let’s do some post publication peer review! ⁦@cshperspectives⁩ biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Hard to express how opposed I am to the idea of surrendering to #SARSCoV2 and hoping for herd immunity. No weak links in the chain please. Let China's success in stopping the virus be our roadmap. #COVID19

@martinenserink @anthroetc A positive development. Italy have not gone full Wuhan in their response - more soft quarantine - but this approach should pay off. Before it's over, I suspect many countries with local transmission of SARS-CoV-2 including USA may do likewise. Time will tell. #SARS2 #COVID_19

Stunning development, and so fast. But Italy is adopting some of the measures that helped China beat back the virus. Other European countries may soon face similar choices. bbc.in/2TALGkq

@philosophybites True. News is mostly following the WHO, imprecisely using COVID-19 for both virus and disease. Communication is key - if that's what it takes, OK for now. Science community gets it though - "COVID-19" and "SARS-CoV-2" have similar hit counts on google scholar. #SARS #COVID-19

I’ve yet to see this distinction between the virus and the disease in media coverage

@navindutt But we tend to use Latin for naming, and wouldn't that be the corona coronavirus? This is actually a close enough relative of SARS coronavirus that we had no choice but to include it as part of the same species. The new virus is SARS-CoV-2 #SARSCoV2 #COVID19

@DrBenNeuman Good evening dr Ben . What about calling it the “ The Crown “ virus . Understand you are on the naming group of the corona virus . Crown because of its typical shape.