4 ms·

>Bear in mind researchers in Wuhan were combining snippets from strains of bat coronaviruses to increase virulence, injecting viruses into “humanised” mice, tes

by daenz 5y ago

>Bear in mind researchers in Wuhan were combining snippets from strains of bat coronaviruses to increase virulence, injecting viruses into “humanised” mice, testing how diseases can jump the species barrier and creating chimeric diseases using cloning techniques that show no sign of human manipulation. Can someone explain to me in layperson's terms what the purpose of this is, and why the risk of a global pandemic with millions of deaths is outweighed by its value?

primis 5y ago
Research labs attempt artifical evolution of viruses and bacteria under extremely controlled situations in order to attempt to find cures preemptively. They also identify symptoms and severity before natural evolution has a chance outside the lab to create these novel pandemics itself.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  The other point is that such research usually targets non-human species. Say, they try to adapt a bat-virus to a ferret. The idea that such a virus is transmissible to Humans, escapes and causes a pandemic is something of a miracle in itself. If it actually happened that way, which I don't believe right now.
  - Amezarak 5y ago
    Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were engaged in gain-of-function and serial passage research, but it is also a matter of public record that they were targeting human hosts in collaboration with others, as well. > Early in 2016, Baric and Shi again collaborated. Shi sent Baric a fresh bat virus spike protein, and Baric inserted it into the backbone of a human SARS virus and then used that infectious clone to attack human airway cells. “The virus readily and efficiently replicated in cultured human airway tissues, suggesting an ability to potentially jump directly to humans,” reported the UNC’s website. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca... As for why people engage in research that has such enormous downside risks - well, they want grant money and to keep getting paid. I'm sure they think - 'it's ok, I'm careful', just like anyone else engaging in such behavior, even though there's a long history of lab leaks leading to serious problems.
    - bayesian_horse 5y ago
      In that particular case, I wouldn't say "the virus jumps directly to humans", because it is already a human-specific virus, just with a different spike protein. It may evade preexisting immunity (or maybe not, since the spike protein isn't the only point of attack), but that's about it. SARS-CoV-2 is decidedly nothing of the sort, the entire thing is unknown, while it has some resemblance to bat corona viruses. Viruses that pass through cell cultures are usually getting weaker, by the way. You'd have to "pass" them through actual human subjects to actively increase their pandemic potential. That would not only be unethical but also very difficult.
berberous 5y ago
1. There have been and will continue to be many pandemics in the course of human history. If we can understand viruses better, perhaps we can stop those pandemics for good one day, and the risk of one outbreak is worth the benefit of potentially stopping or slowing many more (which may also be more lethal). 2. Hindsight is 20/20. While there were prior lab leaks and those who thought this would happen, I think the fact that Covid happened and the severity of its effects will cause those believe point 1 above to reconsider the degree of risk and whether it’s really worth the potential benefits.
- AstralStorm 5y ago
  Albeit as a test case it exposed all the political issues. We have failed to address it promptly in half of the western world and quite a chunk of global south. In short, were this virus slower and deadlier, we would be screwed as humanity. (Even on order of Black Death.)
jjazwiecki 5y ago
This is as far as my lay understanding goes: the idea was that you could better handle potential outbreaks by creating potential outbreaks in a lab, and studying them there. If you have bad priors ("we have perfect protocols, because we've never caused a global pandemic") I could see how you'd get to this being a net positive: there will be another pandemic, probably involving one of these, so let's study it before it's a pandemic. I've thought of the intent as a little like using a fuzzer in security research, although that might not by a great analogy.
- runawaybottle 5y ago
  We need to do this research on the Moon/Mars/Underwater/Arctic/Desert. Not in a city with millions of people. You know, now that I just typed that out, I’m becoming more and more convinced common sense was lacking when it comes to that Wuhan Lab. Something simple most likely happened because the common sense just wasn’t there. Edit: Here are the articles related to lab leaks before 2015 (these articles were posted before 2015, before the conspiracy or any kind of anti-China agenda): https://science.sciencemag.org/content/304/5671/659 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/304/5671/659 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC416634/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC416634/ https://nationalpost.com/news/a-brief-terrifying-history-of-viruses-escaping-from-labs-70s-chinese-pandemic-was-a-lab-mistake/wcm/d66182f3-8080-445f-9bb2-5ae107940d22/amp/ https://nationalpost.com/news/a-brief-terrifying-history-of-... I simply googled ‘before:2015-01-01 china lab leak’ to get this confirmation bias.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    Hindsight is 20/20. Whatever really happened, there never was a vial in that lab that said "potentially pandemic virus - handle with extreme care". Even if the virus came from (or rather through) a lab, there is no evidence what the researcher's actual intentions were. We don't even know which researchers were responsible.
    - thu2111 5y ago
      I don't think that's quite true. The grants and papers talk about what the goals were and the biosafety labels being used.
read_if_gay_ 5y ago
Maybe they just misjudged the risk, so much that taking it was a nobrainer.
bayesian_horse 5y ago
As far as I understood it there is no evidence they did anything of the sort. And even if they did, they probably attempted to combine viruses from two non-human species and then they probably didn't conceive the possibility that this chimeric virus would be transmissible to Humans, escape and then cause a pandemic. If this is actually what happened, that's a miracle in itself.

by daenz 5y ago

primis 5y ago

Research labs attempt artifical evolution of viruses and bacteria under extremely controlled situations in order to attempt to find cures preemptively. They also identify symptoms and severity before natural evolution has a chance outside the lab to create these novel pandemics itself.

bayesian_horse 5y ago
The other point is that such research usually targets non-human species. Say, they try to adapt a bat-virus to a ferret. The idea that such a virus is transmissible to Humans, escapes and causes a pandemic is something of a miracle in itself. If it actually happened that way, which I don't believe right now.
- Amezarak 5y ago
  Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were engaged in gain-of-function and serial passage research, but it is also a matter of public record that they were targeting human hosts in collaboration with others, as well. > Early in 2016, Baric and Shi again collaborated. Shi sent Baric a fresh bat virus spike protein, and Baric inserted it into the backbone of a human SARS virus and then used that infectious clone to attack human airway cells. “The virus readily and efficiently replicated in cultured human airway tissues, suggesting an ability to potentially jump directly to humans,” reported the UNC’s website. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca... As for why people engage in research that has such enormous downside risks - well, they want grant money and to keep getting paid. I'm sure they think - 'it's ok, I'm careful', just like anyone else engaging in such behavior, even though there's a long history of lab leaks leading to serious problems.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    In that particular case, I wouldn't say "the virus jumps directly to humans", because it is already a human-specific virus, just with a different spike protein. It may evade preexisting immunity (or maybe not, since the spike protein isn't the only point of attack), but that's about it. SARS-CoV-2 is decidedly nothing of the sort, the entire thing is unknown, while it has some resemblance to bat corona viruses. Viruses that pass through cell cultures are usually getting weaker, by the way. You'd have to "pass" them through actual human subjects to actively increase their pandemic potential. That would not only be unethical but also very difficult.

berberous 5y ago

1. There have been and will continue to be many pandemics in the course of human history. If we can understand viruses better, perhaps we can stop those pandemics for good one day, and the risk of one outbreak is worth the benefit of potentially stopping or slowing many more (which may also be more lethal). 2. Hindsight is 20/20. While there were prior lab leaks and those who thought this would happen, I think the fact that Covid happened and the severity of its effects will cause those believe point 1 above to reconsider the degree of risk and whether it’s really worth the potential benefits.

AstralStorm 5y ago
Albeit as a test case it exposed all the political issues. We have failed to address it promptly in half of the western world and quite a chunk of global south. In short, were this virus slower and deadlier, we would be screwed as humanity. (Even on order of Black Death.)

jjazwiecki 5y ago

This is as far as my lay understanding goes: the idea was that you could better handle potential outbreaks by creating potential outbreaks in a lab, and studying them there. If you have bad priors ("we have perfect protocols, because we've never caused a global pandemic") I could see how you'd get to this being a net positive: there will be another pandemic, probably involving one of these, so let's study it before it's a pandemic. I've thought of the intent as a little like using a fuzzer in security research, although that might not by a great analogy.

runawaybottle 5y ago
We need to do this research on the Moon/Mars/Underwater/Arctic/Desert. Not in a city with millions of people. You know, now that I just typed that out, I’m becoming more and more convinced common sense was lacking when it comes to that Wuhan Lab. Something simple most likely happened because the common sense just wasn’t there. Edit: Here are the articles related to lab leaks before 2015 (these articles were posted before 2015, before the conspiracy or any kind of anti-China agenda): https://science.sciencemag.org/content/304/5671/659 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/304/5671/659 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC416634/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC416634/ https://nationalpost.com/news/a-brief-terrifying-history-of-viruses-escaping-from-labs-70s-chinese-pandemic-was-a-lab-mistake/wcm/d66182f3-8080-445f-9bb2-5ae107940d22/amp/ https://nationalpost.com/news/a-brief-terrifying-history-of-... I simply googled ‘before:2015-01-01 china lab leak’ to get this confirmation bias.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  Hindsight is 20/20. Whatever really happened, there never was a vial in that lab that said "potentially pandemic virus - handle with extreme care". Even if the virus came from (or rather through) a lab, there is no evidence what the researcher's actual intentions were. We don't even know which researchers were responsible.
  - thu2111 5y ago
    I don't think that's quite true. The grants and papers talk about what the goals were and the biosafety labels being used.

read_if_gay_ 5y ago

Maybe they just misjudged the risk, so much that taking it was a nobrainer.

bayesian_horse 5y ago

As far as I understood it there is no evidence they did anything of the sort. And even if they did, they probably attempted to combine viruses from two non-human species and then they probably didn't conceive the possibility that this chimeric virus would be transmissible to Humans, escape and then cause a pandemic. If this is actually what happened, that's a miracle in itself.