BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Viruses: from within-host evolution to global pandemics - Professo
 r Katrina Lythgoe from Department of Biology\, University of Oxford
DTSTART:20260305T130000Z
DTEND:20260305T140000Z
UID:TALK231130@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Caroline Newnham
DESCRIPTION:Viruses replicate within cells\, but rely on transmission to b
 e sustained in the long term\, leading to at least two levels of selection
 \, within and between hosts\, which are often in conflict. During the firs
 t few months of the COVID-19 pandemic there was a general consensus that s
 election would be driven by between host transmission because of the short
  duration of typical SARS-CoV-2 infections. But then Alpha appeared\, with
  its large constellation of mutations and associated transmission advantag
 e\, and with that came the proposition that this new variant emerged durin
 g a long persistent infection. By using deep sequencing data collected by 
 hospitals during the early phase of the pandemic\, and the more than 120\,
 000 sequenced samples we collected as part of the Office for National Stat
 istics COVID-19 Infection Survey\, I will walk through the discoveries we 
 have made\, ranging from the tiny transmission bottleneck size of SARS-CoV
 -2\, the high prevalence of persistent infections and their link to long C
 ovid\, to the balance between within-host evolution\, epidemic waves of in
 fection\, and patterns of re-infection.
LOCATION:Biffen Lecture theatre and Zoom
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR