scholarly journals Bacterial Viruses Subcommittee and Archaeal Viruses Subcommittee of the ICTV: update of taxonomy changes in 2021

Author(s):  
Mart Krupovic ◽  
Dann Turner ◽  
Vera Morozova ◽  
Mike Dyall-Smith ◽  
Hanna M. Oksanen ◽  
...  

AbstractIn this article, we – the Bacterial Viruses Subcommittee and the Archaeal Viruses Subcommittee of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) – summarise the results of our activities for the period March 2020 – March 2021. We report the division of the former Bacterial and Archaeal Viruses Subcommittee in two separate Subcommittees, welcome new members, a new Subcommittee Chair and Vice Chair, and give an overview of the new taxa that were proposed in 2020, approved by the Executive Committee and ratified by vote in 2021. In particular, a new realm, three orders, 15 families, 31 subfamilies, 734 genera and 1845 species were newly created or redefined (moved/promoted).

Antibiotics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Wittmann ◽  
Dann Turner ◽  
Andrew D. Millard ◽  
Padmanabhan Mahadevan ◽  
Andrew M. Kropinski ◽  
...  

Escherichia phage N4 was isolated in 1966 in Italy and has remained a genomic orphan for a long time. It encodes an extremely large virion-associated RNA polymerase unique for bacterial viruses that became characteristic for this group. In recent years, due to new and relatively inexpensive sequencing techniques the number of publicly available phage genome sequences expanded rapidly. This revealed new members of the N4-like phage group, from 33 members in 2015 to 115 N4-like viruses in 2020. Using new technologies and methods for classification, the Bacterial and Archaeal Viruses Subcommittee of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) has moved the classification and taxonomy of bacterial viruses from mere morphological approaches to genomic and proteomic methods. The analysis of 115 N4-like genomes resulted in a huge reassessment of this group and the proposal of a new family “Schitoviridae”, including eight subfamilies and numerous new genera.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoko Fujiwara ◽  
Tim Jensen

Abstract Donald Wiebe claims that the IAHR leadership (already before an Extended Executive Committee (EEC) meeting in Delphi) had decided to water down the academic standards of the IAHR with a proposal to change its name to “International Association for the Study of Religions.” His criticism, we argue, is based on a series of misunderstandings as regards: 1) the difference between the consultative body (EEC) and the decision-making body (EC), 2) the difference between the preliminary points of view of individuals and final proposals by the EC, 3) personal conversations, 4) the link between the proposal to change the name and the wish to tighten up the academic profile of the IAHR. Moreover, if the final decision-making bodies, the International Committee and the General Assembly, adopt the proposal, the new name as little as the old can make the IAHR more or less scientific. Tightening up the academic, scientific profile of the IAHR takes more than a change of name.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 290-290
Author(s):  
Linda Mather ◽  
Bev Kelly
Keyword(s):  

This month, PIAPA welcomes some new members to the organisation. Here, Linda Mather, PIAPA Chair and Bev Kelly, PIAPA Vice Chair, introduce themselves, and discuss their aspirations in their new roles with the organisation


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (S349) ◽  
pp. 139-146
Author(s):  
Jean-Louis Bougeret

AbstractBenjamin Baillaud was appointed president of the First Executive Committee of the International Astronomical Union which met in Brussels during the Constitutive Assembly of the International Research Council (IRC) on July 28th, 1919. He served in this position until 1922, at the time of the First General Assembly of the IAU which took place in Rome, May 2–10. At that time, Baillaud was director of the Paris Observatory. He had previously been director of the Toulouse Observatory for a period of 30 years and Dean of the School of Sciences of the University of Toulouse. He specialized in celestial mechanics and he was a strong supporter of the “Carte du Ciel” project; he was elected chairman of the permanent international committee of the Carte du Ciel in 1909. He also was the founding president of the Bureau International de l’Heure (BIH) and he was directly involved in the coordination of the ephemerides at an international level. In this paper, we present some of his activities, particularly those concerning international programmes, for which he received international recognition and which eventually led to his election in 1919 to the position of first president of the IAU. We also briefly recount the very first meetings and years of the IAU.


Viruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1268
Author(s):  
Cristina Moraru ◽  
Arvind Varsani ◽  
Andrew M. Kropinski

Nucleotide-based intergenomic similarities are useful to understand how viruses are related with each other and to classify them. Here we have developed VIRIDIC, which implements the traditional algorithm used by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), Bacterial and Archaeal Viruses Subcommittee, to calculate virus intergenomic similarities. When compared with other software, VIRIDIC gave the best agreement with the traditional algorithm, which is based on the percent identity between two genomes determined by BLASTN. Furthermore, VIRIDIC proved best at estimating the relatedness between more distantly-related phages, relatedness that other tools can significantly overestimate. In addition to the intergenomic similarities, VIRIDIC also calculates three indicators of the alignment ability to capture the relatedness between viruses: the aligned fractions for each genome in a pair and the length ratio between the two genomes. The main output of VIRIDIC is a heatmap integrating the intergenomic similarity values with information regarding the genome lengths and the aligned genome fraction. Additionally, VIRIDIC can group viruses into clusters, based on user-defined intergenomic similarity thresholds. The sensitivity of VIRIDIC is given by the BLASTN. Thus, it is able to capture relationships between viruses having in common even short genomic regions, with as low as 65% similarity. Below this similarity level, protein-based analyses should be used, as they are the best suited to capture distant relationships. VIRIDIC is available at viridic.icbm.de, both as a web-service and a stand-alone tool. It allows fast analysis of large phage genome datasets, especially in the stand-alone version, which can be run on the user’s own servers and can be integrated in bioinformatics pipelines. VIRIDIC was developed having viruses of Bacteria and Archaea in mind; however, it could potentially be used for eukaryotic viruses as well, as long as they are monopartite.


1997 ◽  
Vol 37 (318) ◽  
pp. 324-325

At its meetings on 4 July 1996 and 24 April 1997, the Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross elected three new members of the Committee:Mr. Jean-Roger BonvinMr. Peter ArbenzMr. Jakob NüeschThis brings the membership of the Committee to 21 members.


1986 ◽  
Vol 26 (251) ◽  
pp. 108-109

The Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross has welcomed three new members: Mrs. Renée Guisan, Mr. Daniel Frei and Mr. Alain Rossier, while taking leave of four active members: Mr. Olivier Long and Mr. Victor Umbricht (both of whom have retired for reasons of age), Mrs. Marion Bovée-Rothenbach and Mr. Gilbert Etienne.The Assembly also granted leave of absence to Mr. Peter Arbenz in view of his new duties as the Swiss Government's delegate on refugee matters.


1968 ◽  
Vol 8 (91) ◽  
pp. 534-535

Taking advantage of the presence in Geneva of many National Society delegates for the 87th session of the League's Executive Committee, the International Committee arranged a conference at its headquarters. This took place on September 3 and was attended by a large audience.


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