Influenza filaments: a graveyard of postdocs no longer?

Influenza virions can take a variety of shapes, from the classic spherical or kidney bean morphology found in most lab-adapted strains to much longer filamentous forms that can reach over 20 nm in length. In this issue of , Peterl et al (2025) show that filamentous morphology improves the ability of a virion to enter host cells in the presence of neutralizing antibodies, thus shedding a new light on a role for filaments in influenza virus infection.