VignuzziLab

Day 3 ICAR 2026 was a morning of interesting DNA virus talks, and afternoon of Prague food.

Fighting off jet lag

I don’t even know what the chances are of this. I am in Prague in Czech Republic. I turned on the television in my hotel room and there is a new show from Italy and right at that second my aunt Valeria is on the microphone complaining about the impossible amount of noise that the colony of 100 peacocks is making in her Beachtown. Hahahaha. My aunt! Best part, look how damn glamorous she looks with those fabulous glasses.

In my defense, I dropped my toothpaste into the airplane toilet just after takeoff. And I am chewing this gum directly above the garbage bin. My civility is on turbo this morning!

Minutes out of Singapore and already fallen chewing gum!!!

On my way to ICAR 2026 in Prague. See you there! International Society for Antiviral Research

And a big thank you to Albert Mingcong ZENG who got a hold of the PRIZED year of the horse Sad Horse whose smile was accidentally printed upside and became the icon of generational angst for Gen Z in China! I’ve been calling out for it since the new year!!! My prized possession.

We are hiring a PhD candidate! Only for non-EU graduates. To work on the molecular and genomic epidemiology of Treponema pallidum, based on our recent publication (doi:10.1128/mbio.00358-26). Interested? Send your CV and expression of interest to fernando.gonzalez@uv.es by 5/20

@drtosinafowowe If wish my tubes were long enough to agree with you right now!

@VignuzziLab Kaleidoscopes may complicate matters. But then, as scientists, we love experiments, right? 🙂 Perhaps, we should just have a caveat: this solution works for conversations between ONLY two people 🙂.

About looking people in the eye when you talk to them...I believe in that! Show them you are present! But I realized you can't look someone in both eyes at the same time...it's nearly impossible, your focus shifts back and forth - and then I obsess over giving one eye too much eye time, will the other be jealous?...but I problem solved it. All you need is two tubes, and you can finally see each other eye to eye to eye to eye, for the first time ever. Chatting about experiments with ShuLing.

@drtosinafowowe Back to the drawing board 🤯 ! Not sure what to do. But I might need to get kaleidoscopes involved

@VignuzziLab This is a very interesting solution 🙂. What happens if more than two people are having a discussion? Does each person have his/her tubes ready? Do you change to a different set of tubes when the conversation has to shift to another person? 🙂

@corD0Nsanitaire Only thing they yelled at me was “no shorts in lab”

@VignuzziLab not the shorts in the lab, my PI would panic

Make your lab impervious to distractions. #BestManagementTips

I would happily volunteer to be the human training the AI at @ASTARsg by looking at dog pictures! It’s what I do all day and night anyway!!!! 🤩🤩🤩

Elle n’a jamais vu Game of Thrones, mais certains personnages lui semblent pourtant familiers : elle prend l’un pour une amie de la famille, un autre pour sa prof de yoga. Plongée dans un trouble neurologique rarissime : l’hyperfamiliarité pour les visages lemonde.fr/realites-biome…

📢🦟 If you work in #VectorEcology and/or #VectorControl, save the date and submitt your abstract to present your work/research at the 24th ESOVE Conference (deadline 26th May)‼️ 👥 Our Scientific Committee ready 🚀 👉 esove2026-valencia.com/index.php/abst… #Mosquitoes #Ticks #ESOVE2026VLC

Putting this pic up again to congratulate this amazing researcher @biofadialnaji Fadi Alnaji who is taking his first steps to independence! He has had a great journey in virology studying virus mutation and recombination and reassortment across many viral families, his research interests have always been well aligned with my own and it's wonderful to have him in my group! Over the last few years, Fadi has continued to study defective viral genomes and develop them as antiviral therapies and is now the lead scientist in my team covering this exciting antiviral approach. Fadi has just secured his first grant as PI, a one-year Singapore Therapeutics Development Review translational pilot award to take his influenza virus DVG therapy to the next stage!

Thank you @agenceANRS for hosting an excellent meeting on emerging infectious diseases and the role of innovation in preparing for the next pandemics. It was a treat to see a lot of familiar faces and to see Raul Sanchez David present his post doctoral work on self amplifying, RNA vaccines, and a truly innovative approach at optimizing this technology!

Join me today at the ANRS MIE scientific meeting on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Paris! @agenceANRS anrs-mie-journees-scientifiques.fr/en/