By Caitlin Tilley, Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com and Mansur Shaheen Deputy Health Editor For Dailymail.Com
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 revelation exposes how dangerous virus manipulation research continues to go on even in the US, despite fears similar practices may have started the pandemic.
Professor Shmuel Shapira, a leading scientist in the Israeli Government, said: ‘This should be totally forbidden, it’s playing with fire.’
Gain of function research – when viruses are purposefully manipulated to be more infectious or deadly – is thought to be at the center of Covid’s origin.
A Chinese laboratory located just miles from the first cluster of cases carried out similar research on bat coronaviruses.
But the practice has been largely restricted in the US since 2017.
Dr Richard Ebright, a chemist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, told DailyMail.com that: ‘The research is a clear example of gain of function research.
He added: ‘If we are to avoid a next lab-generated pandemic, it is imperative that oversight of enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research be strengthened.’
In the new research , which has not been peer-reviewed, a team of researchers from Boston and Florida extracted Omicron’s spike protein — the unique structure that binds to and invades human cells. It has always been present but it has become more evolved over time. Omicron has dozens of mutations in its spike protein that made it so infectious. Researchers attached Omicron’s spike protein to the original wildtype strain that first emerged in Wuhan at the start of the pandemic. The researchers looked at how mice fared under the new hybrid strain compared to the original Omicron variant
Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories is one of 13 biosafety level 4 labs in the US
The most dangerous type of research can be carried out in these labs, involving highly infectious viruses such as Covid and Ebola
In biosafety 4 labs, researchers do all experiments in a ‘biosafety cabinet’ — an enclosed, ventilated workspace for handling materials contaminated with pathogens
Full-body, air-supplied pressure suits are worn and workers must change their clothing before entering and shower before leaving
80 percent of mice died from the new man-made Covid strain, while none died from the milder Omicron variant alone, researchers at Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories found
Dr Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University chemist, said that this research could spark the next lab-created pandemic. Professor Shmuel Shapira, a leading scientist in the Israeli Government, said that this type of research should be banned as it is playing with fire.
In the new research, which has not been peer-reviewed, a team of researchers from Boston and Florida extracted Omicron’s spike protein — the unique structure that binds to and invades human cells.
It has always been present in the virus but has become more evolved over time. Omicron has dozens of mutations on its spike protein that made it so infectious.
Researchers attached Omicron’s spike to the original wildtype strain that first emerged in Wuhan at the start of the pandemic.
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Isn’t gain of function research and development against Federal Law? Since it is, I guess the FBI and DOJ doing nothing to enforce the law means are in support of this activity being used on citizens when there is “an accident.” Obviously a two-tier justice system, and they don’t even think about an 80% death rate in their own agencies. The people ARE sick!
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I guess it depends on your interpretation of the laws against biological warfare, Raymond. These labs claim the gain of function research is meant to develop vaccines to protect against against biological attack. However it’s pretty clear to people with any common sense that they’re lying through their teeth.
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More proof/sh*t violently collides with the BIG wind-generating machine
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It couldn’t happen at a better time, Jerry. It seems there is a sizeable constituency who are unwilling to let these bastards walk away from their misdeeds.
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