Benjamin Minch

This study identifies genomic islands in giant viruses, showing they drive genome plasticity, mosaicism, and host adaptation through gene exchange with bacteria.

The paper presents 230 new GV genomes and 398 partial genomes from nine ocean datasets, revealing new functions and a functional divide between GV orders.

The paper analyzes a five-year metagenomic time-series to study temporal dynamics of marine giant viruses, finding that phylogenetic proximity influences their seasonal abundance and ecological interactions.

BEREN is a bioinformatic tool that recovers genomes of giant viruses and related viral groups from metagenomic data, showing improved performance over existing tools.

The paper analyzes viral ecology in deep-sea brine pools using metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data, revealing diverse viral communities and their interactions with prokaryotic and eukaryotic hosts.