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Slack / Private Message Drop, pp.223-224 [SLACK_000437] · slack_pm:msg:02317

Date: 2020-10-20 19:09
Type: chat message · slack
mentioned: Kristian G. Andersen
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Robert F. Garry, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Edward C. Holmes

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@Kristian Andersen I just got this: Hello Professor Holmes My name is Thomas Crow. I'm a freelance science writer who writes for Crikey, Scitech's Particle website and NewZealand eScience Institute. SLACK_000438 I'm looking at writing a story on how they've recently updated the RaTG13 genome in the NCBI gene bank:https//www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov/nuccore/MN996532and Pete Doherty recommended you as a good person to contact about this.I saw some people claiming on Twitter that this is evidence that the virus was not naturally occurring and that it wasmanufactured in a lab. I don't know enough about reading genomes to parse this update, but I was wondering if you could have a look and let me know if there's any significance you can see (apparently there's been a couple of base pair changes).I don't expect you to read through the whole thing! I'd just like your take on anything that jumps out at you or if you have a possible explanation as to why the gene bank was updated. I think it would be good to address this by anexpert before rumours start picking up.Thank you.Thomas CrowScience Writer_witterLinkedIn

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2020-10-20 19:09 Edward C. Holmes

@Kristian Andersen I just got this: Hello Professor Holmes My name is Thomas Crow. I'm a freelance science writer who writes for Crikey, Scitech's Particle website and NewZealand eScience Institute. SLACK_000438 I'm looking at writing a story on how they've recently updated the RaTG13 genome in the NCBI gene bank:https//www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov/nuccore/MN996532and Pete Doherty recommended you as a good person to contact about this.I saw some people claiming on Twitter that this is evidence that the virus was not naturally occurring and that it wasmanufactured in a lab. I don't know enough about reading genomes to parse this update, but I was wondering if you could have a look and let me know if there's any significance you can see (apparently there's been a couple of base pair changes).I don't expect you to read through the whole thing! I'd just like your take on anything that jumps out at you or if you have a possible explanation as to why the gene bank was updated. I think it would be good to address this by anexpert before rumours start picking up.Thank you.Thomas CrowScience Writer_witterLinkedIn
2020-10-20 19:09 Edward C. Holmes open

I've no interest in the story, but I see they updated RaTG13 on GenBank. Anything significant?
2020-10-20 19:09 Edward C. Holmes open

Bloody good timing. Not.
2020-10-20 19:09 Edward C. Holmes open

Only appears to be a few base changes by the look of it.
2020-10-20 19:09 Kristian G. Andersen open

They're writing about an article about a sequence being updated on Genbank? Fuck me. There is NO significance to this and it's not worth commenting on - ANYBODY who does this type of work knows that sequences get updated every now and again, especially when the sequences are (a) important and (b) had a few low-coverage regions that might have had assembly errors. This changes nothing - and as you say, only a handful of completely insignificant changes. This is 100% business as usual - move on.

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