Grove Lab News
Cakes!
March 2025: We’d like to take a moment to celebrate the cakes that Sarah has made for various lab events. Not only are they delicious but also expertly decorated with lab memes.
On the Road
March 2025: We recently had the opportunity to share our research at the Australian Virology Society and German Society for Virology conferences. It was a real privilege to connect with these vibrant and impressive scientific communities.
New Publication on SARS-CoV-2 Evolution
Jan 2025: Diego Cantoni from our team contributed to an exciting study, in collaboration with colleagues at the CVR, tracking how SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins evolved during the pandemic. The work, led by Wil Furnon, Vanessa Cowton, and Giuditta De Lorenzo, used viruses with different spike variants representing SARS-CoV-2 evolution from 2020-2024.
Launch of Viro3D Database
Dec 2024: We're excited to announce the publication of our preprint "Viro3D: a comprehensive database of virus protein structure predictions". Using cutting-edge AI tools (AlphaFold2-ColabFold and ESMFold), we've predicted structures for 85,000 proteins from 4,400 human and animal viruses, expanding the structural coverage of viral proteins by 30 times compared to experimental structures. This was a team-CVR collaboration with our colleagues Ulad Litvin, Spyros Lytras, Alexander Jack, David Robertson, and Joseph Hughes. We've made all these structures freely available through our new interactive resource: https://viro3d.cvr.gla.ac.uk/
New Publication on Flaviviridae Glycoproteins
Sept 2024: We're pleased to share our new study published in Nature which maps glycoprotein structures across the entire Flaviviridae family. By combining phylogenetic analyses with protein structure prediction, we've surveyed glycoproteins in this diverse virus family that includes important pathogens such as hepatitis C, dengue and Zika viruses. Our findings reveal class II fusion systems in most species, while highlighting structurally distinct E1E2 glycoproteins in hepaciviruses, pegiviruses and pestiviruses. This work, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Sydney, provides insights into viral fusion mechanisms and evolutionary history that have shaped the virology and ecology of these significant pathogens.