Virus Genomics, Evolution and Bioinformatics 2026
11 November 2026 – 13 November 2026
Wellcome Genome Campus Conference Centre, Hinxton, United Kingdom
The sixth Virus Genomics, Evolution and Bioinformatics conference showcases applications of bioinformatics, including machine learning and AI, to key questions in viral genomics and evolution. The programme covers vaccines and antiviral treatments, zoonotic transmission and animal viruses, epidemics and outbreaks, viral metagenomics and microbiome research, how viruses adapt and evolve within and between hosts, and the role of viral genomics in public health. It brings together evolutionary biologists, bioinformaticians, and researchers and practitioners working in diagnostics and public health, with oral presentations selected from abstracts, posters and poster-pitch talks.
46 sessions · 32 speakers
Organiser (1)
Sponsors (3)
Twist Bioscience · Wellcome Trust · SecureBio
Speakers (32)
- Nick Loman University of Birmingham
- Deogratius Ssemwanga LSHTM and MRC-UVRI
- Kate Grabowski Johns Hopkins University
- Bryan Grenfell Princeton University
- Marion Koopmans Erasmus University Medical Centre
- Anika John ETH Zürich
- Damien Tully London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
- Marissa Knoll Wellcome Sanger Institute
- Sophie Duraffour Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine
- Liã Bárbara Arruda Wellcome Sanger Institute
- Ash Porter Dalhousie University
- Ashuza Shamamba Guillaume Université Catholique de Bukavu
- Cécile Tran Kiem Imperial College London
- Christophe Fraser University of Oxford
- Claire Guinat INRAE
- Ellie Bourgikos University of Oxford
- Emily Toth Martin University of Michigan
- Erik Karlsson Institut Pasteur du Cambodge
- Evelien Adriaenssens Quadram Institute Bioscience
- Gytis Dudas Vilnius University
- Henrik Salje University of Cambridge
- Jonathon Mifsud KU Leuven
- Joshua Quick University of Birmingham
- JT McCrone Fred Hutch Cancer Center
- Kate Van Brussel University of Sydney
- Kieran Chopra Imperial College London
- Louise Moncla University of Pennsylvania
- Mahan Ghafari University of Oxford
- Moritz Kraemer University of Oxford
- Rosario Evans Pena University of Oxford
- Rubayet Alam University of Glasgow
- Yeuko Manganyi University of Cape Town
Agenda
- Welcome and introductions 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Viral surveillance at the human animal interface: from response to prediction? 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Session 1: Animals and zoonoses 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Ecology and evolution of North American H5Nx viruses 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Viruses get around. Genomic surveillance should too. 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- From Regional Epicentre to Global Panzootic: Spatiotemporal Reassortment Patterns of H5 HPAI Across Flyways at the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Cryptic invasion and transmission dynamics of peste des petits ruminants virus across Europe 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Reconstructing the hidden evolutionary history of Andes virus from patchy genomic surveillance 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Session 2: Epidemics and outbreaks 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- From Pairs to Populations 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Phylodynamic comparison of cocirculating Clade I mpox lineages in Kinshasa suggests similar transmissibility and virulence 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Phylodynamic reconstruction of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus characterizes ecological and anthropogenic drivers across multiple centuries 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Poster pitch talks for odd number posters 11 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Poster session 1 (odd number posters) and networking reception 11 November 2026 · Event Space
- Longitudinal studies of changing susceptibility to emerging and re-emerging viruses 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Session 3: Vaccines and treatment 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Quantifying uncertainty in HIV-1 transmission risk from persons with low-level viremia 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Predicting the antigenic evolution of seasonal influenza viruses by measuring phylogenetic convergence 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Session 4: Viral metagenomics and microbiome 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Sequencing viruses the ARTIC way 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- The richness of the human virome 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Beyond Mpox: Metagenomic Identification of Concurrent Viral Detections in Children with Clade Ib Mpox in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Expanding the diversity and host range of the Sarthroviridae 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Lunchtime SecureBio sponsored 'AI-enabled Biological Risk' Workshop 12 November 2026 · Barbara McClintock Pavilion
- Session 5: Adaptation and evolution: virus dynamics within and between hosts 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- The antigenic and genetic evolution of dengue virus 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Revealing the deep evolutionary history of orthohepaciviruses 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- SARS-CoV-2 saltational events are recurrent and trace to persistent human infections 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Beyond variant calling: phylogenetic models reveal evolutionary insights from within-host diversity 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Compositional diversity and evolutionary dynamics of accessory proteins across the family Coronaviridae 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- One Host, Two Lineages: Population-Scale Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Coinfections 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Breaktime SecureBio sponsored 'AI-enabled Biological Risk' Workshop 12 November 2026 · Barbara McClintock Pavilion
- Session 6: Bioinformatics, machine learning and AI 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- AI for modeling infectious disease outbreaks 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Prediction of antigenic evolution from single virus sequences using an epistasis-aware protein language model approach 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Quantum Approximation in Phylogenetic tree Construction 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- How can we make better phylogenetic tree visualisations? 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Poster pitch talks for even number posters 12 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Poster session 2 (even number posters) and networking reception 12 November 2026 · Event Space
- Operational perspectives on genomic surveillance of viral pathogens in field settings 13 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Session 7: Viral genomics and public health 13 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Targeted metagenomic sequencing of respiratory infections from UK healthcare workers in the SIREN study 13 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Estimating epidemic success of viral lineages from population-level wastewater surveillance data 13 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Evolutionary promiscuity in norovirus emergence: hidden diversity and multiple routes to persistence and spread 13 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Impact of host and pathogen heterogeneities on the epidemiology and phylodynamics of acute viral infections 13 November 2026 · Auditorium
- Closing remarks 13 November 2026 · Auditorium