PloS oneCecilia Rago, Pushpa Kumarapeli, Harshana Liyanage, José M Ordóñez-Mena, Uy Hoang, Gavin Jamie, Jessica Smylie, Timea Suli, Katja Hoschler, Anika Singanayagam,…
BACKGROUND: Effective community surveillance of respiratory diseases relies on the timely collection and analysis of high quality clinical and virology data. The aim was to develop interactive dashboards for general practice, public health, and researcher groups. This would improve the visualisation, utilisation, and quality of virology data from an English sentinel network, support disease trend monitoring, early outbreak response, and thereby reduce poor health outcomes and their societal impact. METHODS: The study was conducted in the Oxford-Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), Research and Surveillance Centre (RSC) sentinel network sponsored by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). A collaborative user-centred design (UCD) approach was used to identify three use cases for general practices, national public health collaborators, and researchers in the internal team. Reference laboratory virology data, and electronic primary care health records were processed, cleaned, linked, and aggregated in a secure Trusted Research Environment (TRE). Dashboards were developed using Microsoft Power BI (Business Intelligence). The effectiveness, usability, and user satisfaction of the dashboards were not formally evaluated. RESULTS: Interactive dashboards were co-designed to present spatiotemporal trends of circulating respiratory viruses in the community, in near real-time, with weekly updates on a Wednesday until the previous week ending on Sunday. The dashboard allowed primary care users to filter data to their own results, and it presented key metrics such as virus positivity rates, with benchmarked targets for team incentives. The dashboard also supported public health planning, and research and surveillance activities of the internal RSC team. CONCLUSION: The user-centred dashboards created a data feedback loop. Future work requires formal evaluation of usage metrics, user impact and satisfaction, data quality, and the quality of virology samples.
BMC medical educationLisa Vorbeck, Miriam Ruesseler, Jan Steinmetzer, Niko Kohmer, Volkhard A J Kempf, Claudia Brandt
BACKGROUND: Collaborative assessment formats have gained increasing attention in medical education due to their potential to foster clinical reasoning, teamwork, and to reduce examination-related stress. However, evidence for their feasibility and acceptance within summative undergraduate medical curricula remains limited. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility and student perceptions of a case-based, collaborative summative examination ("whisper exam") in undergraduate medical education. Specifically, we explored students' perceptions of stress, preparation effort, teamwork, and the alignment between self-assessement and actual examination performance. METHODS: A single-center, descriptive feasibility study was conducted with third-year medical students (n = 350) following a laboratory course in hygiene, microbiology, and virology. Students completed a digital, case-based examination using key-feature questions in pairs. Examination performance was recorded at the team level. Student perceptions were collected via a post-exam voluntary questionnaire and analyzed descriptively. RESULTS: The overall pass rate was 93.1% (326/350 students). Survey responses were obtained from 190 students (54.3%). Most respondents reported lower perceived stress compared to individual examinations and described teamwork as constructive and enjoyable. Preparation effort was reported to be comparable to that required for individual examinations. Self-assessment of performance broadly aligned with examination outcomes, although a tendency toward underestimation was observed. CONCLUSION: The whisper exam was feasible to implement within a summative undergraduate curriculum and positively perceived by the majority of participating students. Findings suggest that collaborative, case-based examinations may complement existing assessment formats. Further research using comparative and multi-institutional designs is required to evaluate educational impact and validity.
BACKGROUND: The Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM) scheme, supported by the World Bank, is establishing four zonal National Institutes of Virology (NIVs) in India. It is essential to identify the zonal disease and research priorities so as to focus research at zonal levels. This study reports a zonal viral disease prioritisation exercise to support outbreak response and collaborative research. It describes zonal-prioritised viral diseases, assesses concordance and differences in zonal priority lists and, and identifies cross‑cutting research themes and preparedness gaps using an multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA)‑based consensus process. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional, multi-stakeholder consultative study across four geographical zones of India in March 2024. The zonal-level consultative workshops employed a systematic consensus-building approach using the modified One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritisation (OHZDP) tool, adapted for emerging viral diseases and applied via MCDA. We identified zonal-level stakeholders, listed 40 viral diseases and categorised them into three groups: common occurrence (Group A), limited occurrence (Group B), and rare occurrences with a chance of emergence, evolution or importation (Group C). The stakeholders from state health departments, medical colleges, research institutes and the Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) network ranked the viral diseases and research themes in each zone. Spearman rank correlation was used to assess concordance of priority rankings between zones. RESULTS: A total of 186 participants (42-48 per zone) contributed to the four zonal workshops including collaborators from VRDL laboratories (26%), public health stakeholders from Integrated Disease Surveillance programme(IDSP) (28%), invited experts (21%), organisers (19%) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) representatives (6%). The key outcomes included the zone-specific lists of priority viral diseases in Groups A, B and C. There were zonal variations in viral disease prioritisation, reflecting local epidemiological patterns. Spearman rank correlation analysis showed moderate positive correlation between the Central and East zones (rho = 0.697, P = 0.031), whereas other pairwise comparisons were not statistically significant, which indicated both shared and distinct priority patterns within the zones. The top five priority viral diseases across zones included dengue, influenza, measles, Japanese encephalitis and hepatitis A. The research themes and subthemes were then decided for collaborative research. CONCLUSIONS: These multistakeholder consultations provided a novel, replicable template for prioritising viral diseases to develop strategies for mitigating the impact of future outbreaks through collaborative research. These zonal priorities may guide similar exercises at national, regional and global levels in future.
Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland)Hathem Khelil, Rosanna Palumbo, Giovanni N Roviello
Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly emerged as a transformative tool in virology, offering new opportunities for the detection, classification, and surveillance of viral pathogens. Recent advances in machine learning, deep neural networks, and multimodal data analysis now enable the identification of viral signatures from genomic sequences, medical images, environmental samples, and social-media-derived epidemiological signals. This review provides a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art AI methodologies applied to viral pathogen research, with a particular focus on image-based diagnostics, automated quality assessment of virology-related digital content, and predictive modelling for outbreak monitoring. We discuss how convolutional and transformer-based architectures are being used to classify infected tissues, detect viral particles, and support laboratory workflows. Furthermore, we highlight the emerging role of AI in evaluating the reliability of user-generated images and short videos related to infectious diseases, an area increasingly relevant in the age of misinformation. Challenges such as dataset bias, limited annotated virological images, ethical concerns, and the need for standardized quality-assessment pipelines are critically examined. Finally, we outline future research directions, including hybrid AI-biological models, AI-supported viral surveillance in healthcare environments, and the integration of explainable AI to enhance clinical trust.
Trends in microbiologyGlenn Randall, Tatyana Golovkina, Dominique Missiakas, Shabaana A Khader
Bernard Roizman, a trailblazing microbiologist, herpes virologist, and mentor, died on 14 April 2026. He was the Joseph Regenstein Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Microbiology and the Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Chicago. During his 52 years of research there, he described the structural components of the herpes simplex virus (HSV), defined its gene expression patterns, and developed methods to genetically manipulate the virus. In the process, he helped develop the fields of molecular epidemiology and oncolytic viruses.
Journal of microbiology and biotechnologyWang Ruting, Liang Jiale, Wu Hongxi, Huang Zhenjin, Zhang Ruohan, Song Yuanbo, Zhang Rongxin, Tang Hongzhen, Jiang Feng
Intestinal organoids have emerged as a transformative model system in virology, bridging the gap between conventional cell lines and animal models by recapitulating the complex cellular diversity, three-dimensional architecture, and key functions of the human intestinal epithelium. This review highlights how this technology has enabled groundbreaking studies of enteric viruses, including the successful cultivation of previously uncultivable human norovirus, and has provided critical insights into the infection mechanisms of rotavirus, enterovirus A71, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2. We discuss how emerging technologies, such as co-culture systems for host-microbiome interactions, vascularization techniques, and CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, are being integrated with organoids to create more physiologically relevant microphysiological systems. Despite challenges related to immune component integration and model standardization, intestinal organoids offer a promising platform for elucidating virus-host interactions, advancing antiviral drug screening, and promoting personalized infectious disease research.
FEMS microbiology reviewsAdolfo B Poma, Luis F Cofas-Vargas, Fernando L Barroso da Silva, Sergio Pantano, Marta Bally
Physical virology investigates viral particles by focusing on their assembly, stability, mechanics, and interactions with host cells, neutralizing antibodies, and surfaces. Within this field, computational virology is becoming an indispensable pillar, serving as a "computational microscope" that bridges the spatio-temporal scales of viral processes, from individual protein dynamics to capsid assembly and cellular entry. This perspective article offers a critical overview of the current state, challenges, and future directions of computational approaches in physical virology. Our vision is anchored in the research presented at the 2025 EMBO/FEBS Lecture Course on Physical Virology held in Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain, and complemented by a targeted survey among attendees. We survey the principal methodological frameworks in use, from all-atom to multiscale molecular simulations, mesoscale simulations, and growing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. We also critically examine the central obstacles impeding the field's progress, including the computational-experimental gap, limited accessibility to simulation data, reproducibility concerns, and systemic gender and geographic inequities. Finally, we outline future perspectives, proposing that integrating physics-aware AI with multiscale simulation frameworks, combined with community-driven data-sharing initiatives, will transform the computational microscope from a descriptive tool into a predictive engine for antiviral therapies, rational vaccine design, and biotechnological innovation.
MedicinaMario E Lozano, Antonio Tenorio Matanzo, Delia Enría, Juan Arbiza
The Spanish translation of the term "host" in virology lacks standardization, leading to ambiguity. This study quantitatively analyzes the frequency of use of candidate terms -huésped, hospedador, hospedero and anfitrión- in three major bibliographic databases (SciELO, Dialnet and Google Scholar). The counts show a high frequency of "huésped" in SciELO and greater terminological diversity in Dialnet and Google Scholar; constructs such as "interacción virus-anfitrión" appear with notable presence in theses and reviews. We propose adopting "anfitrión" as the preferred term due to its semantic precision, popular acceptance, and better suitability for dissemination as the optimal term for translating "host" in virology into Spanish; maintaining "hospedador/hospedante/hospedero" as technical synonyms and relegating the word "huésped" exclusively to refer to the guest pathogen. Although this article focuses on this very useful word for the field of microbiology and epidemiology in general, the use of words derived from semantic calques can hinder the accuracy of texts written in Spanish. Therefore, we recommend the creation of a glossary agreed upon by scientific societies and the inclusion of editorial guidelines to facilitate the terminological transition.