Private channel session 1659
16 messages over 29m, 2021-11-26 – 2021-11-26.
A “conversation” here is an activity session — a run of messages with under 60 minutes of silence inside it. The channel had no native conversation boundaries.
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We have something else to discuss. Andrew & I were on a call with Jeremy and Greg Towers from UCL. The short story is that Greg was interviewing a postdoc from WIV and was very concerned about their biosafety. It relates to the attached paper. Basically, they have collected saliva and tissue samples from bats across China which are then stored in VTM. They then culture them to look for rhabdoviruses and Greg is worried that they could have cultured a CoV at the same time. He asked the postdoc what they did to prevent this and he said that they deep sequenced the samples and found no CoV which Greg doesn't think is good enough. Personally, I agree with Greg that this sort of procedure is no longer acceptable. However, I find this a weak theory for the origin of SC2 as itrequires a whole series of unlikely events: (i) the bat sample has the virus; (ii) the virus grows in culture; (iii) that virus is then transmitted to the lab worker in an accident; (iv) the furin cleavage site is retained despite culture inVeroE6 and an R. affinis cell line; (v) there is a virus in the sample despite there being no sequence evidence; (v)the infected lab worker then has to pass it on. And of course we now have all the market stuff. That said, they clearly need have a lot of bat tissues at WIV. I know the French authors on the paper and I will follow up with them. Interested in your thoughts. [shared file(s): Luo_viruses-13-00064-v2.pdf]
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We have known this since the very beginning - I mentioned it on our very first call that I was concerned about themcollecting and growing sampling from bats under BSL-2. This work is exactly that.To be clear, this type of work is approved under BSL-2 almost universally - I can do it at my lab here at Scripps (and,in fact, we have). I'm fully in agreement that further precautions are required, but a single paper like this changes nothing - again, it's no secret this is how it has been done and I/we flagged it on day 1. Adds credence to the fact that we should consider a lab leak, but doesn't change any of the data showing it isn't.
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I agree. Greg was definitely worried about a lab leak but was more concerned about putting in procedures to improve biosafety and I agree with that.
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I think we all agree: • Lab leak a potential concern • Actual data strongly pointing to no lab leak • Biosafety needs to be strengthened given how widespread SC1-like and SC2-like viruses are across SE Asia I don't think anybody with expertise would disagree on any of these points
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Totally agree.
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Me too - consistent from day 1.
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Yup - not my problem that people are now only discovering this and finding it scary. Typically this line of argument ispresented as if new information has been unearthed very recently and it's somehow new knowledge. Complete bollocks.
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Not to mention that certain Rhabdoviruses are literally the most deadly viruses on the planet...
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If this all came down to "what's the likelihood of a lab leak", then sure, all of this would be very concerning. However,we have to contend with all the "unlikelihood" that would have to happen _upstream_ and _downstream_ of anactual lab leak for that to explain how SC2 emerged in the human population, plus, of course, actual evidence. People love to focus on the "lab leak happens" part and then forget about everything else. If you live in that vacuum,sure, it can be hard to convince yourself that's not how this happened. Problem is, we don't live in a vacuum.
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Perhaps a commentary timed for shortly after the Zoonati paper discussing how, given the origins are now reasonably pinned down, important it is to separate the issues and make some sensible positions on lab risk (and aswe dicussed this morning the much greater risk from field work)
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Very good idea!
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Make it clear that: (1) separate debate on biosafety in the light of how widespread SARSr viruses are, and (2) that continued investigations to understand their emergence is required, including figuring out exactly how SC2 poppedup (and SC1 for that matter).
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Yup, I'm all for that.
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Let's do it - I actually think this is a really good idea.
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Yes. And there are often safe ways of getting much of the data.
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Yup - and in fact, tying it all back to what we said in our 2018 Nature commentary... Would be extra powerful sinceso many idiots have brought up that commentary as a proof that we changed our minds - which we didn't. Ifanything, I think we all would double down on what we said in that commentary.