EVBC Structure and Members

The European Virus Bioinformatics Center has 310 members from 180 research institutions distributed over 44 countries across Europe and the world. EVBC brings together researchers from different sectors, domains, disciplines and background into a unique consortium. The scientific aims of the EVBC are defined by its members.

Every year, EVBC members (and also external researchers interested in the work done by EVBC) meet at the Annual Meeting of the EVBC during the International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting.

The Board of Directors and the Director are elected during this meeting every third year. The composition of the Board of Directors shall represent the full range and interdisciplinary nature of the center.

To learn more about our members, check out our member profiles or our publication about outstanding women experts in virology and viral bioinformatics (F. Hufsky et al. Women in the European Virus Bioinformatics Center. Viruses. 2022; 14(7):1522).

What our members love about viruses

Arif Nur Muhammad Ansori

Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia

It’s very mysterious!

Peter Simmonds

University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

I think I just grew to like viruses eventually, as my original involvement in them was really just chance. [...] there was really no escape!

Noriko Cassman

Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany

How viruses infect every branch of life and were maybe even central to its origin

Vincent Navratil

Université Claude Bernard Lyon1, France

The way they control and shape everything living on the Earth and beyond

Matthew B. Sullivan

Ohio State University, US

The constant mysteries

Ingrida Olendraite

University of Cambridge, UK

[...] how every time there is something unexpected hiding in their small RNA genomes. [...]

Neta Zuckerman

Ministry of Health National Virology Laboratory, Israel

[...] how a thing so small and invisible can cause so much trouble.

Philippe Le Mercier

SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland

They don’t respect the rules

David L Robertson

MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, UK

That despite their relatively simple genomes viruses contain the information to usurp host cells for their own replication and on top of this counteract host responses. [...]

Isabella Eckerle

Hôpitaux universitaires de Genève, Switzerland

They are simple in terms of their composition and, at the same time, so complicated! [...]

Sebastian Lequime

University of Groningen, Netherlands

How efficient they are given the relatively small size of their genomes (especially RNA viruses) and the very strong evolutionary pressures.

Kevin Lamkiewicz

FSU Jena, Germany

[...] You can work with viral sequences on nearly every laptop and make cool science nearly everywhere without having to worry much about RAM or hard drive storage. [...]

Paul Rivarez

National Institute of Biology, Slovenia

Their unexpectedly vast diversity, surprising ecological and biogeochemical functions, fascinating evolution and co-evolution with their hosts.

Simon Roux

DOE Joint Genome Institute, US

I love the diversity of the viral world, and the many solutions that evolved in the virosphere in response to all the challenges and hurdles viruses are facing to replicate.

Arli Aditya Parikesit

Indonesia International Institute for Life Sciences, Indonesia

Viruses are enigmatic. Scientists made many predictive models on them, and almost all of them proven to be incorrect after a while.

Robert Paxton

Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

Their evolutionary dynamism

Jelle Matthijnssens

KU Leuven, Belgium

They keep surprising us over and over again, [...]. The amount of things to be learned here is endless.

Spyros Lytras

MRC - University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, UK

For me, viruses are the perfect model system for studying evolution! [...] They really give us a sped up view of how all life has come to be.

Dimitri Boeckaerts

Ghent University, Belgium

I love the fact that viruses can be so simple, and yet are capable of very complex interactions.

Florian Erhard

University of Würzburg, Germany

Viruses are experts in molecular cell biology and they can teach us about it.

Jens H. Kuhn

Tunnell Government Services, US

Everything

Luca Nishimura

SOKENDAI, Japan

Their great diversity and evolutional histories

Emilio Mastriani

Harbin Medical University, China

Their ability to adapt and organize for surviving.

Elliot Lefkowitz

University of Alabama at Birmingham, US

How they manage to do such magnificent things from such a small package

Diego Simón

Universidad de la República, Uruguay

Viruses are relatively simple yet full of emergent properties (many worrisome but all fascinating).

Emma Hodcroft

University of Bern, Switzerland

The fact that you can open up their genomes in a alignment viewer! But also – their fast evolutionary rate, which keeps things interesting and makes a lot of my work possible!