![]() ![]() Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance obtained grants from the U.S. A possible antidote or vaccine would only be accessible to those conducting such research.Higher mortality and ethnic specificity could be the other features of such new, synthesised organisms or viruses.With advances in biotechnology, it is now possible to genetically engineer existing pathogens to make them more lethal and difficult to treat.President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. The lab-leak proposition was discredited as a conspiracy theory simply because it was being espoused by then U.S.Most experts embraced the natural spread narrative since the alternative was unimaginable.It soon became public that the coronavirus-related research in the WIV was funded by American money.China promoted the narrative that the virus spread from a wet market (seafood and animal market) in Wuhan to avoid any scrutiny of what was being done in the WIV.He has laid out a strong case for a fuller investigation into the event.This article is based on the publication of science writer, editor, and author Nicholas Wade’s well-researched article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “ The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?”.10.1021/ the Covid-19 virus escape from the Wuhan lab? Of SARS-CoV-2 as It Gets Ready for Cell Penetration. Series: Focus on Defense and International Security 689, Methods and protocols Humana Press: London, 2015. ![]() This is very odd, clearly pointing to an artificial origin.ĬOVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 5, 2021.Ģ021, 27, 9. Terminal adenosine (A) becomes part of a codon for alanine (GCA), Portion becomes now part of a new codon for serine (TCT), while the The insertion causes a split in the original codon To the way in which the encoding cassette was inserted to create theĬleavage site. In the inset would have an estimated 0.25% probability to “naturally” Only about 5% of arginines in SARS-CoV-2 or RaTG13 areĬoded by CGG. Strikingly, the two adjacent arginines are coded by two consecutiveĬGG codons. Of the 12-nucleotide insert TCCTCGGCGGGC codingįor the PRRA amino acid sequence at the S1/S2 junction in the spike The furin-associated cleavage site was created by incorporation This cleavage site is incorporated attests to the artificial origin Has not been identified in other CoVs from the same lineage. When the tinkered CoV-RaTG13 became endowed at the spike protein withĪ “detonator”, that is, a cleavage site recognized andĪctivated by the host-cell enzyme furin ( Figure Figure1 1). 5Īn indicator that the NIH-funded research had gone too far Scrutiny with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic. Research was outsourced to the WIV, which remains at the center of NIH funded $3.7 million grant was approvedīy Trump’s COVID-19 advisor Anthony Fauci in 2015. With regard to the recent history of these gain-of-function manipulations Shi’s goal was to turn the batĬoVs into huACE2-binding molecules, that is, to design promoters of Institute of Virology (WIV) created a series of “bat-man”ĬoV chimeric spike proteins 1, 4 to enable CoVs to jumpįrom one species to another and model “spillover effects” 1 As early as 2007, the group headed by Zheng-li Shi from the Wuhan In the laboratory for more than a decade. The pangolin ACE2, 3 and therefore is unlikely Pangolins, the dearth of CoV-infected specimens in their natural populations,Īnd the fact that CoV RATG13 does not have significant affinity for The natural recombination would require that the viruses fromīat and pangolin infected the same cell in the same organism simultaneously,Ī rather improbable event considering the low population density of 3 Such gain-of-function chimeras can in principleĪrise via natural recombination, but that would be unlikely in thisĬase. Is a chimera, with most of its sequence identical to that of the batĬoV RaTG13, except for the receptor binding domain (RBD), which isĪlmost identical to that of a pangolin ( Manis javanica) CoV and has been optimized to bind the ACE2 receptor in human cells. Of genetic manipulation of a bat coronavirus intended to promote transmissibility 1− 3 Many researchers steadfastly support a natural origin, 2 but a recent report by journalist Nicholas Wade 1 upholds the view that SARS-CoV-2 is the outcome Causative agent of the COVID-19 pandemic, is highly controversial. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |