[The Svedberg seminar] – Viral ecogenomics: exploring viral diversity and virus-host interactions from metagenomes
May 5, 2025 @ 15:15 – 16:15 CEST
Simon Roux
PhD, Viral Genomics Group Lead
DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
Bio
Dr. Roux lead the Viral Genomics group as part of the Metagenome program of the DOE Joint Genome Institute. Research in the group includes the development of tools and methods to explore viral diversity and the study of virus:host interactions in model soil and freshwater environments. The long-term goal this my research is to understand the ecological and evolutionary drivers of virus:host dynamics in natural microbial communities and address questions such as “how do viruses spread and adapt across environments ?”, “how do viruses take over and reprogram microbial cells ?”, and “how do viral infections alter ecosystem processes ?”.
Viral ecogenomics: exploring viral diversity and virus-host interactions from metagenomes
Microbes are driving nutrient and energy transfers across the planet’s ecosystems, but do so under strong constraints exerted by viruses. Over the last decade, metagenomics revolutionized our ability to “see” viruses by providing large genome catalogs for uncultivated viruses, enabling a better characterization of virus-host interactions and their impact on microbiomes. Here I will present our latest work in this field, including (i) new approaches to maximize the recovery and annotation of viral genomes from metagenomes, (ii) analysis of virus-host dynamics across seasons in a natural soil ecosystem based on paired metagenomes and metatranscriptomes, and (iii) unexpected challenges in leveraging CRISPR spacer data to infer virus:host interactions.
Host: Maliheh Mehrshad maliheh.mehrshad@slu.se SLU, Luisa Hugerth luisa.hugerth@scilifelab.se UU
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