Steven Fiddaman

@LJScarsbrook Love this — you’re a machine!

🚨 PNAS Special Feature 🐕 We analysed genomes of historical German Shepherds to reveal how bottlenecks linked to WWII and the use of popular sires led to significant declines in genomic health. We also found an early 20th century wolf-dog hybrid! 🔗: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

@SomEcoWorrier Congrats Denise!

I crossed something big off my to do list this morning.

@LJScarsbrook @LudovicLorlando @otago @UniofOxford Massive congratulations and very well deserved!

After successfully defending my DPhil thesis on ancient dog genomics, I’m now officially a Doctor! Thanks to everyone who’s been a part of this almost 10-year academic journey, which started in @otago and finished in @UniofOxford!

@DanielElleder @UniofOxford Thanks, Daniel, I’m always up for a visit to Prague.

@StevenFiddaman @UniofOxford Congratulations. Please visit us in Prague at some point. We try to keep Jan Svoboda’s legacy alive, which includes lots of “chicken work”. pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

Today is my last day in @UniofOxford after 14 years, it’s been a blast. 1/4

Very excited for all that awaits in this next chapter! 🐓🧬🦠 4/4

I’ll be taking inspiration from wild birds and ancient DNA. I’ll also be leading efforts to understand the evolution of Marek’s Disease Virus, which causes a devastating, cancer-causing disease of chickens. 3/4

@GingerHowley @louis_l_hote Of course, and I’m looking forward to the thread!

@GingerHowley @louis_l_hote Incredible work guys!

Last Friday we had 2 amazing talks from @StevenFiddaman and @_MarcoDeMartino. Thanks to all of you who joined us, and to them for their great job. Next month we will have a woolly themed session, with Damla Kaptan and @undeaddandy showing us their results.

Remember that this Friday we have our first #AaRCTikTalks, and that you need to register in order to join. The link can be found in our our webpage: …mal-adna-research-community.github.io/AaRC.github.io…

Here we have the announcement for the first #AaRCTikTalks! We'll have @StevenFiddaman and @_MarcoDeMartino presenting their research the 26th of April. Registration: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

To kickstart the activity of AaRC, we have organized a seminar series #AaRCTikTalks, which will take place monthly. Here are the first talks!

See our new comprehensive review on natural selection acting in viral sensors in vertebrates: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

@smithjac7 We’re at PAG too!

Great Poultry workshop today at #PAG31. Excellent talks from all the speakers

Studying ancient chickens, researchers in Science reveal the evolutionary history of Marek’s disease virus, which kills >90% of unvaccinated birds. The results shed light on the evolution of virulence in a major disease in modern agriculture. scim.ag/5jP

@GingerHowley @ucdagfood Awesome news! Many congratulations! 🙌

@sebduchene Thanks Sebastian, it was great to read such a detailed and insightful perspective article. I really appreciate the kind words.

This is some really nice work that demonstrates convergent evolution of virulence in chickens, using ancient genome samples. This :thread gives a nice summary and here is a perspective of the field that I wrote: science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

@pickledhen That’s a really great point! If it hasn’t necessarily had an impact on virulence it could have affected how the virus is shed and how it persists in the environment, which could be very important too.

@StevenFiddaman I’m curious as to whether the disrupted expression of normal behaviours, such as dust bathing which reduce feather lipids & changes in feed selected for fattening hens or producing marketable eggs have contributed to increased virulence of the pathogen too. Will read paper! 🙂

How do #pathogens become more virulent? Read on for a tale of #ancient bones, #ancientDNA, and a very modern danger in the chicken industry… 🧵1/14