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K-State Today

Division of Communications and Marketing
Kansas State University
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November 8, 2021

CEZID lecturer Jesse Bloom to interpret evolution of SARS-CoV-2

Submitted by Joe Montgomery

Jesse Bloom

The COBRE Center on Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, or CEZID, is hosting Jesse Bloom in the CEZID Distinguished Speaker Seminar Series at 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12, via Zoom.

Bloom's presentation for the seminar is "Interpreting the evolution of SARS-CoV-2."

Bloom is a professor at the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His lab uses a mix of experimental and computational approaches to study the evolution of viruses, with a special focus on influenza and SARS-CoV-2.

Bloom received his doctorate in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with Frances Arnold and then performed postdoctoral research with David Baltimore. He has been a faculty member at the Fred Hutch since 2011.

"In my lab, we use computers to understand and visualize evolutionary information," Bloom said. "The challenge for us is to make sense of all this information, which is telling us something about how a virus is changing in a significant way."

The CEZID seminar series is organized within the diagnostic medicine and pathobiology department in the College of Veterinary Medicine and is hosted by Juergen Richt and Phil Hardwidge.