Ewelina and Ewa spent the first week of July at Viruses of Microbes 2026 in Prague — the largest meeting devoted to viruses that infect microorganisms, from bacteriophages to archaeal viruses and viruses of microbial eukaryotes.

The conference has run under the International Society for Viruses of Microbes since its first edition in Paris in 2010, and this year drew several hundred researchers, clinicians and industry scientists to the Hilton Prague. The programme ran under the theme Revealing Novel Interactions, Innovations, and Applications, covering virus–host interactions, phage therapy, synthetic virology, bioinformatics and environmental biotechnology — a good match for where our own phage work is heading.

Ewa presented a poster on her work on phage proteins that interfere with host translation.

Beyond the talks, we made new friends, reconnected with old ones, and returned with new knowledge.