Open Readings 2023 - DAY 4 - Gytis Dudas

Dr. Gytis Dudas finished his bachelor’s degree with Honours in Evolutionary Biology, and in 2016 completed his Ph.D. degree at the University of Edinburgh. From 2016 to 2018 G. Dudas worked as a Mahan Postdoctoral Fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He also works as a consultant for Chan Zuckerberg BioHub, The Scripps Research Institute and Ring Therapeutics.

Dr. Gytis Dudas’ research focuses on virus evolution and ecology, metagenomic virus discovery and genomic epidemiology. G. Dudas has worked with Ebola, SARS-CoV-2, MERS-corona-, and Zika viruses. He has also studied anelloviruses, influenza B and other. Currently Dr. Gytis Dudas works as a senior researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology in Vilnius University Life Sciences Center. He has received a grant from the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) to set up his own laboratory to carry out studies assessing the ability of surface proteins from several orthomyxoviridae, distant relatives of the influenza virus, to penetrate vertebrate cells.

Gytis Dudas works as an Ad hoc referee for over 20 journals, he is a social media editor for Virus Evolution, and is part of an advisory council of independent experts to the Lithuanian government tasked with advising the government on COVID-19 matters. G. Dudas is the co-author and chief data analyst for Lithuania’s pandemic SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance project. His most distinguished awards include SciPy John Hunter Excellence in Plotting Prize, Young Investigator Award, SMBE Young Investigator Travel Award, Mahan postdoctoral fellowship and other.