Ewan Harrison

In our latest blog, Marissa Knoll discusses respiratory virus research, moving her life (and cat) from New York City to the UK, and the perks of postdoc life - such as being a fellow at @queens.cam.ac.uk. ⤵️ sangerinstitute.blog/2026/10/21/c...

Rapid release of multiplex PCR amplicon scheme for Andes hantavirus whole genome sequencing validated on control material: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @scalene.bsky.social @stevepullan.bsky.social @ukhsa.bsky.social output from HPRU in Public Health Genomics

Lovely work driven by Lizzie Ledger in the group: a new but druggable mechanism by which Staphs produce biofilm using components of human serum. First polysaccharides, then protein, then eDNA, now lipids too! bsky.app/profile/bior...

We are very happy to see our study finally appear online @nature.com! This has been work of nearly 10 years in collaboration with the National Institute of Genome Medicine 🇲🇽, the National Cancer Institute 🇲🇽, the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social and others ⬇️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Incredible time at #AIR2026 covering breadth of respiratory infection, microbiomes and immunology with some really beautiful biology. Thanks to fellow committee members @resp-micro.bsky.social @drclairesmith.bsky.social @ewanharrison.bsky.social , Alex Kayongo and organisers @eventswcs.bsky.social

Another insightful day of science, discussion and making new friends at #AIR2026 Day 2 Highlights: making sense of big data, spatial transcriptomics and in vitro modelling of respiratory infections @eventswcs.bsky.social @sangerinstitute.bsky.social

Brilliant news!

Work on respiratory immunology or microbes? Interested in big data, omics or the latest in vitro models?... Treat your lab to a christmas present of AIR 2026 registration! Feb 11th-13th, registration closing soon: coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/air-20...

Really pleased to share the first paper to come out of the lab. We found that hospital patients were frequently colonised with P. aeruginosa and that the same clone was shared between the gut and the lung. The phylogenies indicate that the clones moved from lung->gut www.nature.com/articles/s41...

ICYMI: New online! Unpacking the spread of pathogens

Worried about identification of human samples from microbial sequencing? We were too- this is what we've done about it! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

featuring @duncan-ng.bsky.social @pathogenomenick.bsky.social @emmanuel-saliba.bsky.social @resp-micro.bsky.social @asthmaandlung.org.uk @ewanharrison.bsky.social @ryanthwaites.bsky.social and many many more I can't find on bluesky

New respiratory 🫁 infection and microbiomes conference in Hinxton with stellar line up of speakers. 🚨 Submit your abstracts now! 🚨 Please RT coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/air-20...

Samples from 1917 have helped identify the genetic culprits responsible for the spread of treatment-resistant infections 🔎 By mapping plasmid evolution since the pre-antibiotic era, experts found that a minority of plasmids cause most of the multidrug resistance in the world 🧵

Our paper “Global dissemination of npmA mediated pan‑aminoglycoside resistance via a mobile element in Gram‑positive bacteria” is now in @natcomms.nature.com. Part of my freshly defended PhD, so doubly happy! 😄🎉 🧵 (1/14) www.doi.org/10.1038/s414...

More of this kind of thing.

📢Today Pathoplexus announces the inclusion of 2 new viral pathogens: RSV (A & B) and HMPV. These respiratory viruses cause a serious health burden, particularly in infants & the vulnerable, & Pathoplexus aims to support sequence sharing to improve understanding & response. 1/4

Happy to share our first preprint looking at the nasal microbiome in ~1000 healthy adults from the CARRIAGE study of 20,000 healthy blood donors to understand nasal colonisation by Staphylococcus aureus. Ten years in the making! doi.org/10.21203/rs....

Happy to share the first preprint from my lab. Great work by Lewis Fisher and collaboration with Jukka Corander www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

If you can't afford to use a diagnostic test, then its relative performance characteristics become irrelevant. Important issue raised re blood cultures 👇 @lancetmicrobe.bsky.social #ClinMicro #IDSky #AMR www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

There were more than 125,000 measles cases in the WHO European region in 2024 - the highest number since 1997! 38 deaths have been reported so far, every single one of them preventable. Worth remembering this also as we report on the measles outbreak in the US. 🧪 #IDsky

Weeks ago I highlighted the false balance of “if only scientists could communicate better”. One OpEd writer kindly reached out to me and I want to share my main response to them because I find it remarkable that people still can’t see what we are now all seeing has been under way for years. 🧵👇

Happy to share the findings of our latest work on mutational adaptation of Staphylococcus aureus during colonisation now published on @NatureComms rdcu.be/d55l3

Certain sublineages of antimicrobial resistant bacteria dominate the surveillance landscape, but what causes them to become resistant? Check out our latest work in Shigella to find out and/or read the thread below www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.27.24316207v2 1/n

Frustrating - I reviewed a paper that was highly problematic, mainly in scientific rigour undermining most of the conclusions, so I recommend Reject. However the editor decides to Revise presumably due to the more positive comments from reviewer 2... /1