Ph.D. student at UMiami Rosenstiel studying ocean viruses.
Joined February 2022
- Tweets 67
- Following 252
- Followers 136
- Likes 503
13 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
12 Oct 2024
Are you interested in finding giant viruses, virophages, and PLVs inside your metagenomes? Struggling to figure out an easy way to do so? Look no further than BEREN, a one-stop-shop tool for recovery, taxonomy, and annotation of these viruses.
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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Giant viruses aren't just big, they are modular. Go check out our latest #preprint where we highlight widespread genomic islands driving genome plasticity and mosaicism in giant viruses! biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
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We found many of these islands to be enriched in host interaction genes and surface adhesion proteins, demonstrating that they could be a mechanism for host adaptation.
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We also explore how these islands can shape strain-level hypervariability in similar giant viruses.
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Our lab's most recent paper is out now! Go learn about all the integrated giant viruses inside the genomes of polar algae and how they are shaping their stress responses.
cell.com/current-biology/ful…
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Benjamin Minch retweeted
26 Nov 2025
Our work in collaboration with Jed Furhman lab at the USC on the temporal dynamics of marine giant viruses published in ISME communications. PhD student @Benjamin_Minch a co-first author. Please take a look!
academic.oup.com/ismecommun/…
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Benjamin Minch retweeted
24 Nov 2025
🦠 Now published in Bioinformatics Advances: “BEREN: A bioinformatic tool for recovering giant viruses, polinton-like viruses, and virophages in metagenomic data.”
Full article available: doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbaf2…
Authors include: @Benjamin_Minch
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Benjamin Minch retweeted
10 Nov 2025
Excited to share our new paper introducing BEREN, a tool for identifying giant and other dsDNA viruses from metagenomic data — now online! Let BEREN help with your discovery-based reseach in viral metagenomics!
academic.oup.com/bioinformat…
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6 Nov 2025
Created a fun phytoplankton-themed Oregon trail style game you can play on your terminal. Check it out
github.com/BenMinch/PhoticZo…
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Benjamin Minch retweeted
19 Aug 2025
We’re recruiting a PhD student (Fall 2026) to study the ecology & evolution of aquatic giant viruses! Research spans lab experiment, field sampling, & bioinformatics. Background in microbiology/bioinforamtics encouraged. More information:
monirlab.com/join/
Please retweet!
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Benjamin Minch retweeted
17 Jun 2025
Scientists used bespoke computer software to identify the genomes of microbes in seawater samples – including 230 giant viruses previously unknown to science. @univmiami @Benjamin_Minch
sciencealert.com/hundreds-of…
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21 Apr 2025
New paper out where we highlight many newly recovered giant viruses and find new functional potential encoded in their genomes!
#giantvirus #Bioinformatics
nature.com/articles/s44298-0…
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9 Apr 2025
Just put together a super easy-to-use and comprehensive pipeline for calculating various genome statistics in bulk (GC, length, codon bias, TNF, complexity, N50, num genes).
github.com/BenMinch/genestat
#bioinformatics #genomics
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Benjamin Minch retweeted
3 Dec 2024
🚨New @delCampoLab Preprint: A Single-cell Atlas of Coral Bleaching! 🪸🦠🔥. We show the microbial ecology of coral bleaching from the gene expression of host and symbiont cells to the shifts in the bacterial and protist communities within the holobiont! researchsquare.com/article/r…
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Benjamin Minch retweeted
What if we could put all tailed phages in a single, evolutionarily meaningful phylogeny? Check out the latest from the Aylward Lab (twitterless) and myself - we present a phylogenomic framework toward unifying phage diversity! 🧬🤝 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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12 Oct 2024
Are you interested in finding giant viruses, virophages, and PLVs inside your metagenomes? Struggling to figure out an easy way to do so? Look no further than BEREN, a one-stop-shop tool for recovery, taxonomy, and annotation of these viruses.
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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Benjamin Minch retweeted
10 Oct 2024
BEREN: A bioinformatic tool for recovering Giant viruses, Polinton-like Viruses, and Virophages in metagenomic data biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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2 Oct 2024
Couldn't find a file to easily convert from PDB (protein data bank) IDs to actual protein information so I decided to make one. Hope someone finds it useful. github.com/BenMinch/PDB-anno…
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Benjamin Minch retweeted
29 Aug 2024
It's Thursday! Time for a new episode of #MattersMicrobial to be released! This time, the #QualityQuorum will hear from @giant_virus about giant viruses and how they interact with their hosts. Please spread the #GoodMicrobialWord. @ASMicrobiology
youtu.be/FWutndOo9aw?si=QG-K…
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Benjamin Minch retweeted
15 Aug 2024
Our latest collaborative research on giant viruses with @JedFuhrman lab on how evolutionary history dictates the temporal succession of marine giant viruses. Preprint out!
@Benjamin_Minch
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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