There is a lot of suspicion that the covid epidemic was the result of "Gain of function" research, which was outlawed in the US but the US sent funds via international organizations to a Chinese lab, even though there have been epidemics of SARS and Brucellosis from lab leaks in that country.
So now, the UK Mail reports that hey, don't wait for China to develop the next dangerous virus by doing gain of function research when scientists in Boston can do it.
Boston University scientists were today condemned for 'playing with fire' after it emerged they had created a lethal new Covid strain in a laboratory. DailyMail.com revealed the team had made a hybrid virus — combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain — that killed 80 per cent of mice in a study.
the UK Mail, a tabloid whose articles make it easy to read although they do tend to emphasize the dramatic part of the story, nevertheless has a good explanation of what is gain of function research, and what the scientists were looking for.
the research has not been peer reviewed but the link to the pdf about the research is here.
DISCUSSION 203 This study provides important insights into Omicron pathogenicity. We show that spike, the 204 single most mutated protein in Omicron, has an incomplete role in Omicron attenuation. In in vitro 205 infection assays, the Omicron spike-bearing ancestral SARS-CoV-2 (Omi-S) exhibits much higher 206 replication efficiency compared with Omicron. Similarly, in K18-hACE2 mice, Omi-S contrasts with 207 non-fatal Omicron and causes a severe disease leading to around 80% mortality. This suggests 208 that mutations outside of spike are major determinants of the attenuated pathogenicity of Omicron 209 in K18-hACE2 mice. Further studies are needed to identify those mutations and decipher their 210 mechanisms of action.
Here is the story with the scientists pretending that this was not a problem because, hey, we need to know this and we all know that labs are safe.... and toward the end she congratulates her fellow docs for getting rid of Monkey pox quickly, ignoring that basic public health practices (isolation, closing high risk meetings, outreach to the non Caucasian community) was not done very much.
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