5 ms·

For what it's worth, I saw posts on Reddit saying the opposite: that Bat coronaviruses are BSL-2, not BSL-4, and so it wouldn't make sense to restrict yourself

For what it's worth, I saw posts on Reddit saying the opposite: that Bat coronaviruses are BSL-2, not BSL-4, and so it wouldn't make sense to restrict yourself as a researcher by studying them in the most stringent lab. (I'm not saying this to argue that the lab escape theory is wrong, just to argue that Reddit posts are difficult to appraise.)

LinaLauneBaer 7y ago
As far I know a BSL-4 lab is simply a BSL-3 lab that includes a BSL-2 lab that includes a BSL-1 lab plus some extras.
burfog 7y ago
Research papers, posted in comments on HN just days ago, show that the lab made hybrid bat-human cells in which to grow viruses. This was BSL-4. Both HIV and coronaviruses were grown. The idea was to breed the viruses until they would replicate well in ordinary human cells. That's some diabolical research. To put it in DnD terms: The researchers have high intelligence, low wisdom, and probably low dexterity.
- cjbprime 7y ago
  Want to share some links to them?
  - burfog 7y ago
    OK. Here is China making a coronavirus like the one causing the pandemic, even acting on the ACE2 receptor and testing it in human cells, publishing it in early 2008: https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899 https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899 Here they are again, years later, still playing with extremely hazardous coronaviruses that act on the ACE2 receptor in humans: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711 This one gene-edits the host cells to have both human and bat traits, making it easier to breed bat viruses into becoming human viruses: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6 There are more. The ASM's virology journal published more of generally the same kind of stuff. I can't find the link right now.
    - _delirium 7y ago
      One summary of the overall findings of those articles is something like: there sure are a lot of SARS-like bat coronaviruses in natural reservoirs, and a bunch of them are alarmingly able to spread well in human tissue too, either unmodified or with tiny edits. That doesn't rule out the theory that a lab escape was the source, but it also suggests another SARS-like zoonotic transfer was pretty much a ticking time bomb, and it wouldn't be surprising for it to have happened through that route either.
      - generatorguy 7y ago
        If there is a known reservoir of pandemic causing virus it should be managed in such a way so as to avoid pandemics. Seems like not enough lessons were learned from SARS. How many pandemics are going to come from this reservoir before the world gets fed up with the mismanagement of it?
      - burfog 7y ago
        It's not OK to be actively trying to make those edits, especially after a history of lab containment failures. After the USA banned this research because of the danger, some of it moved out of the country. At least one of the researchers moved from the USA to Wuhan, China. The ban should have been a clear message: such research is unacceptably dangerous.
generatorguy 7y ago
The intent of my comment was that I am surprised to now be seeing that there may have been some substance to the comments on Reddit.

LinaLauneBaer 7y ago

As far I know a BSL-4 lab is simply a BSL-3 lab that includes a BSL-2 lab that includes a BSL-1 lab plus some extras.

burfog 7y ago

Research papers, posted in comments on HN just days ago, show that the lab made hybrid bat-human cells in which to grow viruses. This was BSL-4. Both HIV and coronaviruses were grown. The idea was to breed the viruses until they would replicate well in ordinary human cells. That's some diabolical research. To put it in DnD terms: The researchers have high intelligence, low wisdom, and probably low dexterity.

cjbprime 7y ago
Want to share some links to them?
- burfog 7y ago
  OK. Here is China making a coronavirus like the one causing the pandemic, even acting on the ACE2 receptor and testing it in human cells, publishing it in early 2008: https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899 https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899 Here they are again, years later, still playing with extremely hazardous coronaviruses that act on the ACE2 receptor in humans: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711 This one gene-edits the host cells to have both human and bat traits, making it easier to breed bat viruses into becoming human viruses: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6 There are more. The ASM's virology journal published more of generally the same kind of stuff. I can't find the link right now.
  - _delirium 7y ago
    One summary of the overall findings of those articles is something like: there sure are a lot of SARS-like bat coronaviruses in natural reservoirs, and a bunch of them are alarmingly able to spread well in human tissue too, either unmodified or with tiny edits. That doesn't rule out the theory that a lab escape was the source, but it also suggests another SARS-like zoonotic transfer was pretty much a ticking time bomb, and it wouldn't be surprising for it to have happened through that route either.
    - generatorguy 7y ago
      If there is a known reservoir of pandemic causing virus it should be managed in such a way so as to avoid pandemics. Seems like not enough lessons were learned from SARS. How many pandemics are going to come from this reservoir before the world gets fed up with the mismanagement of it?
    - burfog 7y ago
      It's not OK to be actively trying to make those edits, especially after a history of lab containment failures. After the USA banned this research because of the danger, some of it moved out of the country. At least one of the researchers moved from the USA to Wuhan, China. The ban should have been a clear message: such research is unacceptably dangerous.

generatorguy 7y ago

The intent of my comment was that I am surprised to now be seeing that there may have been some substance to the comments on Reddit.