Posted on 04/12/2020 2:39:22 AM PDT by tired&retired
Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, last week (November 9) published a study on his team’s efforts to engineer a virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice.
The hybrid virus could infect human airway cells and caused disease in mice, according to the team’s results, which were published in Nature Medicine.
The results demonstrate the ability of the SHC014 surface protein to bind and infect human cells, validating concerns that this virus—or other coronaviruses found in bat species—may be capable of making the leap to people without first evolving in an intermediate host, Nature reported. They also reignite a debate about whether that information justifies the risk of such work, known as gain-of-function research. “If the [new] virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, told Nature.
In October 2013, the US government put a stop to all federal funding for gain-of-function studies, with particular concern rising about influenza, SARS, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
“NIH [National Institutes of Health] has funded such studies because they help define the fundamental nature of human-pathogen interactions, enable the assessment of the pandemic potential of emerging infectious agents, and inform public health and preparedness efforts,” NIH Director Francis Collins said in a statement at the time. “These studies, however, also entail biosafety and biosecurity risks, which need to be understood better.”
(Excerpt) Read more at the-scientist.com ...
Also from 12 November 2015
Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research
Lab-made coronavirus related to SARS can infect human cells.
https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787
An experiment that created a hybrid version of a bat coronavirus — one related to the virus that causes SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) — has triggered renewed debate over whether engineering lab variants of viruses with possible pandemic potential is worth the risks.
In an article published in Nature Medicine1 on 9 November, scientists investigated a virus called SHC014, which is found in horseshoe bats in China. The researchers created a chimaeric virus, made up of a surface protein of SHC014 and the backbone of a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow in mice and to mimic human disease. The chimaera infected human airway cells — proving that the surface protein of SHC014 has the necessary structure to bind to a key receptor on the cells and to infect them. It also caused disease in mice, but did not kill them.
Although almost all coronaviruses isolated from bats have not been able to bind to the key human receptor, SHC014 is not the first that can do so. In 2013, researchers reported this ability for the first time in a different coronavirus isolated from the same bat population.
US suspends risky disease research
Government to cease funding gain-of-function studies that make viruses more dangerous, pending a safety assessment.
Sara Reardon
22 October 2014
https://www.nature.com/news/us-suspends-risky-disease-research-1.16192
The US government surprised many researchers on 17 October when it announced that it will temporarily stop funding new research that makes certain viruses more deadly or transmissible. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is also asking researchers who conduct such ‘gain-of-function’ experiments on influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) to stop their work until a risk assessment is completed — leaving many unsure of how to proceed.
“I think it’s really excellent news,” says Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, who has long called for more oversight for gain-of-function research. “I think it’s common sense to deliberate before you act.”
Critics of such work argue that it is unnecessarily dangerous and risks accidentally releasing viruses with pandemic potential — such as an engineered H5N1 influenza virus that easily spreads between ferrets breathing the same air1, 2. In 2012, such concerns prompted a global group of flu researchers to halt gain-of-function experiments for a year (see Nature http://doi.org/wgx; 2012). The debate reignited in July, after a series of lab accidents involving mishandled pathogens at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.
One of the most prominent laboratories conducting gain-of-function studies is run by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a flu researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 2012, Kawaoka published a controversial paper1 reporting airborne transmission of engineered H5N1 flu between ferrets. He has since created an H1N1 flu virus using genes similar to those from the 1918 pandemic strain3, to show how such a dangerous flu could emerge. The engineered H1N1 was transmissible in mammals and much more harmful than the natural strain.
US announces rules for potential bioterror agents
24 Sep 2014 by Sara Reardon
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/09/us-announces-rules-for-potential-bioterror-agents.html
A long-awaited US government policy on biological research that could be used for terrorism or other nefarious purposes is little changed from a draft released 19 months ago, despite receiving 38 comments from institutions and researchers concerned that it goes either too far or not far enough. The centrepiece of the policy, released on 24 September, is a set of guidelines for researchers working on 15 specific pathogens or toxins. But the rules do not regulate experiments that engineer pathogens not on the list to make them more deadly – so-called gain-of-function research. Officials from the White House and US National Institutes of Health (NIH) say the government will be addressing these concerns in coming weeks.
The rules apply only to labs that receive government funding. All institutions are required to register with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) if they are using one of a longer list of “select agents” defined by the government. But experiments that would, for instance, make a pathogen not on the list more dangerous “would be outside the scope of the current framework,” Patterson says.
Such experiments would include the controversial creation of a mutant flu virus that is deadlier and more transmissible between animals.
Possible dangers include not just misuse but unintentional releases of pathogens. In two recent incidents at the CDC, H5N1 virus was accidentally shipped to a lab instead of a harmless virus, and dozens of workers were potentially exposed to anthrax.
Safety lapses in US government labs spark debate
Head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pledges ‘comprehensive, sweeping change’ after incidents involving influenza and anthrax.
Sara Reardon
16 July 2014
https://www.nature.com/news/safety-lapses-in-us-government-labs-spark-debate-1.15570
The move, announced today by CDC director Thomas Frieden, comes after the agency revealed in recent weeks that staff members were potentially exposed to anthrax and unintentionally shipped H5N1 influenza virus to another government laboratory. The incidents are part of a larger pattern of safety violations documented in reports from the CDC and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), prompting “the comprehensive, sweeping change in our lab culture we’re now implementing”, Frieden told a US House of Representatives committee.
Scientists call for urgent talks on mutant-flu research in Europe
Benefits and risks of ‘gain-of-function’ work must be evaluated, they say.
Heidi Ledford
20 December 2013
Work resumes on lethal flu strains
Study of lab-made viruses a ‘public-health responsibility’.
Declan Butler
23 January 2013
https://www.nature.com/news/work-resumes-on-lethal-flu-strains-1.12266
An international group of scientists this week ended a year-long moratorium on controversial work to engineer potentially deadly strains of the H5N1 avian flu virus in the lab.
Researchers agreed to temporarily halt the work in January 2012, after a fierce row erupted over whether it was safe to publish two papers reporting that the introduction of a handful of mutations enabled the H5N1 virus to spread efficiently between ferrets, a model of flu in mammals (see Nature http://doi.org/fxv55r; 2012). Both papers were eventually published, one in Nature and one in Science.
Why the frak would someone create these type viruses - what medical benefit does creating these type viruses give or bring? Always wondered this sh*t.
Make no mistake, this virus was not released intentionally however, why do all the shiity diseases in the last 20 years come from China?
“...In October 2013, the US government put a stop to all federal funding for gain-of-function studies, with particular concern rising about influenza, SARS, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)....”
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It’s pretty clear that the Chicoms didn’t stop funding THEIR research along these dangerous lines.
The Chicoms are MALEVOLENT actors in today’s world. They are NOBODY’S friend.
“Make no mistake, this virus was not released intentionally...”
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I agree, it was not released intentionally. But IT WAS RELEASED and released from a Chinese lab.
In a separate post I listed the authors of a journal article and they were from UNC Chapel Hill and Virology Research Lab in Wuhan China.
Notice how they added an update to the page to cover tracks? Even the Director of NIH merely speculates and admits they dont know where it came from but claims its natural nevertheless. Its in the NIH director’s blog. So what they are saying to me is “oh yeah that? Yes tbings have been engineered but not this one.
I guess we could ask Comrade General Chi Haotian, Vice-Chairman Of China’s Military Commission about the coincidence......
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