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Lab leak of what even? There is nothing magical about virological labs. They don't create new virus out of nothing. Most of the time there is a "lab leak" the

Lab leak of what even? There is nothing magical about virological labs. They don't create new virus out of nothing. Most of the time there is a "lab leak" the virus already had all the potential it had before. In all the cases I can remember, the only reason the "lab leak" was even a significant event (as opposed to a bucket spilling into the ocean) is when the lab was geographically distinct from the endemic occurrence or the virus had been largely eradicated before. The main problem with "lab leak hypotheses" is that they aren't clear about what went into that supposed lab and what came out of it. Was there an obscure bat virus? Was there something already infectious to Humans (but somehow undetected by other scientists)? Are we alleging genetic editing? "Gain of Function" (which is easier said then done)? That Sars-CoV-2 genome which first hit Wuhan was already a finely tuned killing machine, much more finely tuned than anything a lab could produce intentionally. All of this makes speculation about the Virus having passed through a laboratory somewhere incredibly pointless, except for trying to undermine scientific consensus.

rleigh 4y ago
What do you exactly mean that Gain of Function is "easier said than done"? We routinely engineer changes in viruses for all sorts of purposes. Even I can do it [baculovirus expression cassette vectors--takes less than a day from engineering the cassette to getting expression products]. The tools to do this can be ordered from a catalogue, and it's never been easier to manipulate genomes. You design and order the primers you need and get them a couple of days later. Just take a look through the first few links here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=lentivirus+expression https://duckduckgo.com/?q=lentivirus+expression That's just one type of technology that can be used with ease. There are many others. Baculovirus and adenovirus systems are in common use. Making a custom system for a different virus isn't hard, it just takes a bit more time and effort. I was taught multiple techniques to do this in the late '90s and they weren't new even then. Genetic modification started in viruses--the M13 bacteriophage. It's only got easier and more sophisticated since then. The Wuhan researchers already have multiple papers published which involved making modified viruses, and were specifically funded to perform Gain of Function research. You seem to be claiming this is out of the question, but this seems counter to what is possible, their existing track record, and the grants they were working under at the time. Why are you underplaying what went on here, and maybe wilfully misdirecting? A lot of this stuff is already well documented, since it's been going on for many years. You can find their papers with a few searches, and they have already been reported on multiple times over the last couple of years.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Then you don't understand viral evolution or genomic epidemiology. "Gain of function" genomes just aren't that viable. Modifying genomes always means the virus becomes less effective in most ways - except one. It's so much not like "programming" it isn't even funny. Posing "Gain Of Function" experiments as the origin of Sars-Cov-2 also forgets to answer the question of what exactly the starting genome was. At the very least it was completely unknown outside that mystery lab. And there is zero signature anything has been done to it despite natural selection. And when we're talking evolutionary experiments, now you need to explain a couple thousands of hosts (and mice don't really cut it, ferrets and upwards more probably...) at the very minimum, if not hundreds of thousands, which are a lot harder to hide. Biology is really hard. That's why it took millions of hosts to finetune Sars-Cov-2 to the menace it eventually became. That's not going to happen in a lab any time soon because we don't have the tools. We have tools to assemble and modify some genes, but the chance of actually creating a pandemic that way, accidentally or intentionally is next to zero. Yes, it is out of the question that Wuhan researchers created Sars-Cov-2 through "Gain Of Function research, especially related to those "papers" that are often cited to spread this misinformation.
  - rleigh 4y ago
    I don't think it's me spreading baseless misinformation, it's you. Take a long hard look at what you wrote, what I wrote, and then think critically about the problem from all of the angles. I have a degree in Molecular Biology and a PhD in immunology, and I've worked in infectious disease research. Most of what you wrote is dangerous and inaccurate nonsense.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      What exactly you think is wrong with my reasoning? Just throwing a PhD around gets you nowhere with me, you might as well invoke some Pokemon cards. "Gain of Function" experiments involve viral particles that sometimes aren't even infectious to actual living hosts any more, hard to believe they are viable as "practical" diseases. In my practical understanding, maybe you have some new groundbreaking and unpublished methods of inventing completely novel but extremely viable viruses from scratch, laboratories have to take in a virus before they leak it. That's still the part of the "lab leak hypothesis" that is the sketchiest. Sars-CoV-2 has no known remotely immediate ancestors in any database. Meaning the supposed laboratory X had to do everything in secret before they knew it had to be kept secret. And there was some secrecy after the fact, but the typical Chinese face saving idiocy doesn't buy you the liberty to claim anything you want. Also there is no "designing" of diseases without a sophisticated and large scale industrial process, and it's hard to believe China would chose anything like SARS-CoV-2 for that... There have been some experiments around making a virus more adapted to one host species or integrating some novel proteins. That's about it. All the experiments concentrate on single aspects of a virus because evolving a complete virus is just so combinatorically complex (and pointlessly dangerous). If a lab passes a bat virus through Human cell cultures, yes, it gets more adapted to Human cell cultures, but less virulent. Most genetic manipulation will also result in a virus that loses lots of its function. It is virtually inconceivable that a lab takes in a virus that is incapable of infecting Humans (or causing a pandemic) and then leaks a virus that is capable of infecting Humans and causing a pandemic. There is nothing in that lab selecting the particles for their "pandemic potential", and we know that "pandemic potential" is a trait that virus rarely achieve. If Sars-Cov-2 DID "leak" from a lab, my opinion is that it did so without any intentional modifications. And then there would still be the question where did they find it and when would it have reached Humans without help.

rleigh 4y ago

What do you exactly mean that Gain of Function is "easier said than done"? We routinely engineer changes in viruses for all sorts of purposes. Even I can do it [baculovirus expression cassette vectors--takes less than a day from engineering the cassette to getting expression products]. The tools to do this can be ordered from a catalogue, and it's never been easier to manipulate genomes. You design and order the primers you need and get them a couple of days later. Just take a look through the first few links here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=lentivirus+expression https://duckduckgo.com/?q=lentivirus+expression That's just one type of technology that can be used with ease. There are many others. Baculovirus and adenovirus systems are in common use. Making a custom system for a different virus isn't hard, it just takes a bit more time and effort. I was taught multiple techniques to do this in the late '90s and they weren't new even then. Genetic modification started in viruses--the M13 bacteriophage. It's only got easier and more sophisticated since then. The Wuhan researchers already have multiple papers published which involved making modified viruses, and were specifically funded to perform Gain of Function research. You seem to be claiming this is out of the question, but this seems counter to what is possible, their existing track record, and the grants they were working under at the time. Why are you underplaying what went on here, and maybe wilfully misdirecting? A lot of this stuff is already well documented, since it's been going on for many years. You can find their papers with a few searches, and they have already been reported on multiple times over the last couple of years.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Then you don't understand viral evolution or genomic epidemiology. "Gain of function" genomes just aren't that viable. Modifying genomes always means the virus becomes less effective in most ways - except one. It's so much not like "programming" it isn't even funny. Posing "Gain Of Function" experiments as the origin of Sars-Cov-2 also forgets to answer the question of what exactly the starting genome was. At the very least it was completely unknown outside that mystery lab. And there is zero signature anything has been done to it despite natural selection. And when we're talking evolutionary experiments, now you need to explain a couple thousands of hosts (and mice don't really cut it, ferrets and upwards more probably...) at the very minimum, if not hundreds of thousands, which are a lot harder to hide. Biology is really hard. That's why it took millions of hosts to finetune Sars-Cov-2 to the menace it eventually became. That's not going to happen in a lab any time soon because we don't have the tools. We have tools to assemble and modify some genes, but the chance of actually creating a pandemic that way, accidentally or intentionally is next to zero. Yes, it is out of the question that Wuhan researchers created Sars-Cov-2 through "Gain Of Function research, especially related to those "papers" that are often cited to spread this misinformation.
- rleigh 4y ago
  I don't think it's me spreading baseless misinformation, it's you. Take a long hard look at what you wrote, what I wrote, and then think critically about the problem from all of the angles. I have a degree in Molecular Biology and a PhD in immunology, and I've worked in infectious disease research. Most of what you wrote is dangerous and inaccurate nonsense.
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    What exactly you think is wrong with my reasoning? Just throwing a PhD around gets you nowhere with me, you might as well invoke some Pokemon cards. "Gain of Function" experiments involve viral particles that sometimes aren't even infectious to actual living hosts any more, hard to believe they are viable as "practical" diseases. In my practical understanding, maybe you have some new groundbreaking and unpublished methods of inventing completely novel but extremely viable viruses from scratch, laboratories have to take in a virus before they leak it. That's still the part of the "lab leak hypothesis" that is the sketchiest. Sars-CoV-2 has no known remotely immediate ancestors in any database. Meaning the supposed laboratory X had to do everything in secret before they knew it had to be kept secret. And there was some secrecy after the fact, but the typical Chinese face saving idiocy doesn't buy you the liberty to claim anything you want. Also there is no "designing" of diseases without a sophisticated and large scale industrial process, and it's hard to believe China would chose anything like SARS-CoV-2 for that... There have been some experiments around making a virus more adapted to one host species or integrating some novel proteins. That's about it. All the experiments concentrate on single aspects of a virus because evolving a complete virus is just so combinatorically complex (and pointlessly dangerous). If a lab passes a bat virus through Human cell cultures, yes, it gets more adapted to Human cell cultures, but less virulent. Most genetic manipulation will also result in a virus that loses lots of its function. It is virtually inconceivable that a lab takes in a virus that is incapable of infecting Humans (or causing a pandemic) and then leaks a virus that is capable of infecting Humans and causing a pandemic. There is nothing in that lab selecting the particles for their "pandemic potential", and we know that "pandemic potential" is a trait that virus rarely achieve. If Sars-Cov-2 DID "leak" from a lab, my opinion is that it did so without any intentional modifications. And then there would still be the question where did they find it and when would it have reached Humans without help.