Francois Balloux

Sep 19, 2024 | tagesspiegel.de | Carsten Watzl |Emanuel Wyler |Francois Balloux |Farangies Ghafoor

© dpa/Jens Kalaene/Bearbeitung Tagesspiegel Die jüngste Mutation des Virus wächst in Deutschland besonders stark. Drei Fachleute ordnen ein, was das für die Bevölkerung bedeutet und wer seinen Schutz jetzt auffrischen sollte. Mit dem Herbst hält jetzt eine neue Corona-Mutation Einzug. Die XEC-Variante wurde im Juni in Deutschland entdeckt und kommt mittlerweile in 27 Ländern Europas, in Nordamerika und Asien vor.

Jul 19, 2024 | biorxiv.org | Cedric Tan |Lucy van Dorp |Francois Balloux |Marina Escalera Zamudio

AbstractThroughout the evolutionary history of SARS-CoV-2, divergent variants with an unusually high number of novel mutations have repeatedly emerged and displaced other lineages in co-circulation. The latest example is the BA.2.86 Variant Of Interest (VOI), which rapidly outcompeted all other lineages following its detection in late July 2023. Descending sublineages dominated globally by July 2024, at the time of writing this study.

Mar 24, 2024 | nature.com | Lucy van Dorp |Francois Balloux

AbstractMost emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases stem from viruses that naturally circulate in non-human vertebrates. When these viruses cross over into humans, they can cause disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. While zoonotic host jumps have been extensively studied from an ecological perspective, little attention has gone into characterizing the evolutionary drivers and correlates underlying these events.

Jan 1, 2024 | nature.com | Ruobing Wang |Lucy van Dorp |Francois Balloux

AbstractThe acquisition of exogenous mobile genetic material imposes an adaptive burden on bacteria, whereas the adaptational evolution of virulence plasmids upon entry into carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) and its impact remains unclear. To better understand the virulence in CRKP, we characterize virulence plasmids utilizing a large genomic data containing 1219 K. pneumoniae from our long-term surveillance and publicly accessible databases.

Sep 5, 2023 | biorxiv.org | Cedric Tan |Lucy van Dorp |Francois Balloux

AbstractMost emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases stem from viruses that naturally circulate in non-human vertebrates. When these viruses cross over into humans, they can cause disease outbreaks and epidemics. While zoonotic host jumps have been extensively studied from an ecological perspective, little attention has gone into characterising the evolutionary drivers and correlates underlying these events.