4 ms·
As a molecular biologist. I would say it‘s probably contamination of the samples. The confidence comes from the other contaminating sequences found in the same
by ImaCake 5y ago
As a molecular biologist. I would say it‘s probably contamination of the samples. The confidence comes from the other contaminating sequences found in the same samples; the hamster DNA (and monkey was the other one I think). Both are routinely used as cells lines in biology labs for viral research (not 100% on the viral research bit, but makes sense). The author‘s conclusion that it was COVID grown in a cell line and it contaminated the samples next to them on the sequencing chip is plausible. This kind of contamination is rare, but not very rare. As the author points out, there are multiple points of failure that could have caused it. Each unlikely but plausible.
- drukenemo 5y agoAnd that rare contamination would happen exactly with the most dangerous (at least world impact-wise), in decades? Still plausible?
- chc 5y agoIt's a little hard to informally assign probability in cases like. We wouldn't be hearing about this if it weren't SARS-CoV-2, so what are the odds that (if it is contaminated) the sample we're hearing about in this case would be contaminated with SARS-CoV-2? Pretty much 100%.
- woodruffw 5y agoThank you for the context. I don’t want to ask you to speculate out of the blue, but if you feel qualified: do you think it’s possible that COVID originated outside of a lab but that China has lied about the timeline to avoid embarrassment? That’s always struck me as a plausible scenario, one that seems to fall by the wayside in these conversations.
- 323 5y agoHow could outside a lab be more embarrassing than a lab-leak? There would be nothing to blame China about an outside the lab scenario.
- zeruch 5y agoDepends on interpretation: one infers possible security embarrassment (or exposure of a secret), the other potentially total incompetence at failure to ID/notice/contain (or otherwise manage). Depending on which members of the Politburo care more about what perception, may in fact mold towards which one they feel more "comfortable admitting to" if the evidence is ambiguous.
- hackerfromthefu 5y agoFrom what I've read, they NEVER admit to anything.
- zeruch 5y agoMostly true, but there is always nagging truths that surface at which point denial becomes worse for them. It all depends on what they are allowed to get away with; if other states balk vs capitulate, there are more rounds of diplomatic chess to go through.
- notahacker 5y agoThey're denying the lab leak too. But if it turns out that, say, there was an isolated outbreak in some rural area a few months earlier known to the authorities who covered up because they thought they had it under control (whilst also knowing it was new and SARS-like and worthy of study at their coronavirus lab) that would be hugely damaging for the Chinese government even if it spread naturally
- woodruffw 5y agoYeah, this is the kind of scenario I was thinking of: the PRC covers up all kinds of petty mistakes and refuses to acknowledge them even in the face of overwhelming evidence and the potential for exculpation from much more damaging theories. But again, it’s speculation on my part.
- ImaCake 5y agoI honestly don’t know. The molecular evidence suggests that COVID evolved in the wild. It’s either a natural spillover or a lab leak. But its definitely not a lab made virus. China is secret by default, maybe they don’t know if it’s a lab leak but are covering their tracks just in case it is. Either way the molecular evidence doesn’t incriminate them. So it is frustrating how people buy into the political arguments not realising just how good molecular arguments are.
- rzz3 5y agoSorry but what molecular evidence suggests it evolved in the wild, exactly? We haven’t identified a single predecessor mutation between the original bat Coronavirus and SARS-CoV-2, nor have we identified infections from the time period that are geographically between the habitat of the carrier bats and Wuhan. No one is disputing that it’s based on a bat coronavirus, but the thesis is that the bay coronavirus was modified in the lab and then leaked.
- mikeyouse 5y agoNah, lab modifications have very obvious fingerprints - not of which exist in any of the samples. Separately from that, we've found nearly every mutation that was given as evidence of manipulation arising naturally in other populations. [Polypasic FCS: https://twitter.com/MichaelWorobey/status/1471546513281019905 https://twitter.com/MichaelWorobey/status/147154651328101990..., ACE2 Receptor Binding is ancestral and evolvable trait: https://mobile.twitter.com/tylernstarr/status/1489257185825591303 https://mobile.twitter.com/tylernstarr/status/14892571858255..., Natural insertions at s1/s2 cleavage: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098222030662X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098222... site, etc. etc.] Who's actually claiming lab manipulation any more?
- rzz3 5y agoIsn’t some of the so-called gain of function research (and I do mean in the broadest sense) effectively controlled evolution over many cycles such that it evolves the correct mutations? And though I know the paper was retracted, what about those HIV-1 inserts? Either way, empirically we have no conclusive evidence of natural origin (of the stages between the original bat coronavirus and the original Wuhan variant) nor of a lab leak. One also does not preclude the other; a virus of natural origin could still leak from a lab that studies such viruses.
- tripletao 5y agoWhat do you mean by "probably"? My understanding is that it's unquestionably contamination, since no one is suggesting the virus was actually in Antarctic soil. The only question is the provenance of the contaminating sample, the likely possibilities being: 1. Virus cultured in a lab, in monkey or hamster cells but with virus originating from a human patient. This wouldn't be evidence of lab origin of the virus. It would still show that China is concealing important facts about the early origin of the pandemic though, since the recovered viral genome is among the most ancestral (closest to the closest-known bat viruses) known. It should thus have been scientifically noteworthy enough to publish, but that genome was unpublished until these Hungarians dug it out. 2. Virus cultured as part of a scientific experiment, before the beginning of the pandemic. That would be the "smoking gun", but nothing yet allows us to distinguish between this and case (1). Sangon Biotech's customer records might answer this, since they know when the sample was sequenced and what other customers' samples were sequenced around the same time. Those aren't too easy to get, though. I've seen speculation that Illumina's cloud services may contain significant information within reach of American subpoena, but no concrete action. Other comments speculate that an infected lab technician could explain the reads, but that wouldn't explain the hamster and monkey DNA.
- ImaCake 5y agoI was just hedging my statements really. The rest of what yoy say addresses other important considerations well so I don’t have anything else to add.