Rosetrees Interdisciplinary workshop: Physics of Viruses

23 - 24 June 2022
via Zoom

Organising committee: 
Dr Jennifer Lord (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine)
Dr Simon Titmuss (University of Edinburgh)
Prof. Peter Weightman (University of Liverpool)

Workshop overview

The outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic has drawn attention to the importance of understanding viruses.
This workshop will give a physics perspective on the structure and evolution of viruses, their mechanisms of transmission and infection and insights into therapy. It is designed to promote the discussions between physicists, mathematicians and virologists that hopefully will yield insight into these important disease vectors. The workshop is funded by UKRI Physics of Life Network with support from the Rosetrees Trust "Physics of Medicine" Network.

Who should attend?

We invite participation by academic, industrial and clinical research scientists who are interested in generating new collaborative research interactions at the physical/life science interface focused on this subject area.

Provisional programme

Please note, all times are in UK time (GMT).
Day One 
23 June 2022
9.30
Welcome from Peter Weightman (University of Liverpool)                                                 
9.40
Plenary: Prof. Reidun Twarock (Mathematics, University of York)​
​'Mathematical & Physical Virology: Modelling of virus structure, assembly and evolution with applications in virus nanotechnology and antiviral therapy'
Session one 
The Evolution of Viruses chaired by Stephen Smye
10.25
Dr Diana Fusco, (Physics, University of Cambridge)
'Evolutionary pros and cons of superinfection exclusion'
10.55
Dr. Samantha Lycett (Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh)
'Investigating evolution, adaptation and selection in animal and zoonotic viruses using phylodynamic models'   ​
11.20
Refreshment Break
11.35
Prof. Donald Hilvert (Chemistry, ETH Zurich)              
'Evolving virus-like nucleocapsids from a bacterial enzyme'
12.15
Panel Q&A speakers from session 1​
12.35
 Lunch with option to network on the Wonder platform (links provided within the meeting) ​  ​  
Session Two
​The Structure and Assembly of Viruses Chaired by Simon Titmus
13.30
​​Dr Siyu Li (Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, China)
'Elasticity in virus assembly and budding'
​14.00
​​Prof. Fred Anston (Chemistry, University of York)                    
'How do viruses fill their capsids with DNA?'
​14.30
​Prof. Wouter H Roos (Molecular Biophysics, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands)
'Self-assembly and mechanics of viruses'
​15.10
Dr Najet Mahmoudi (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory)
​'Structural kinetics of Hepatitis B virus from small-angle scattering and computational modelling'
15.40
Panel Q&A speakers from session 2
​16.10
​​​End of Day 1
Day Two
24 June 2022
Session 3
Mechanisms of Infection, Transmission and Detection Chaired by Stephen Smye
9.30
​Professor Jonathan Reid (Chemistry, University of Bristol)                                              
'The Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2: Sources, Survival and Aerosol Microphysics'
10.00
Dr. Nicole Robb (Medical School, University of Warwick)
​'Rapid virus detection using single-particle imaging and machine learning' 
10.30
Refreshment Break 
10.40
Dr Joe Grove (The Centre for Virus Research, University of Glasgow)
'The Order and Chaos of Virus Entry'                                                        
11.20
Dr Cyril Rauch and Dr Steve Dunham (University of Nottingham) 
​'Lipid biophysics and/or soft matter- inspired approach for controlling enveloped virus infectivity'
11.50
Panel Q&A  speakers from session 3                 ​
12.10
Lunch 
Session 4
Approaches to Therapy Chaired by ​Peter Weightman
13.20
Dr Andrew Shevchuk (Imperial College)                                                                     
'Live imaging of individual virus particles entry and release using correlative SICM-FCM'
13.50
​Mr Eric Chung ( Bioengineering, UC, San Diego, USA)
'Cancer immunotherapy with plant viruses'
14.20
Panel Q&A speakers from session 4​
14.30
Open and Emerging Questions from the workshop.  What are the big questions?                  
​15.00
End of Workshop


Registration and Abstract submission

Registration for this event is FREE. Zoom links will be sent to all registered attendees the week before the event. For any queries relating to event, please email: k.h.baker@dur.ac.uk. 

We would encourage attendees to submit abstracts for either talks or poster presentations. We have timetabled space for accepted talks and poster flash presentations (see programme above). ​

Recordings

Funded by:                                                                                                 Managed bY: