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Slack / Private Message Drop, p.323 [SLACK_000537] · slack_pm:msg:03402

Date: 2020-12-18 07:22
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Robert F. Garry

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Agree Andrew that the NTD deletions tune things up. I do suspect as I wrote before that the NTD is likely involved atleast in some early cell interactions, if not interaction with a full-blown receptor.

In context

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2020-12-18 07:06 Andrew Rambaut open

But I think it probably got selected for higher infectivity within the chronic patient and then got out and took off.
2020-12-18 07:08 Kristian G. Andersen open

If it's from a chronic patient, probably also highly resistant to neuts. Any early data on that? Anything clinical?
2020-12-18 07:16 Kristian G. Andersen open

Speaking of which - this is good. https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1339939720558563328?s=21
2020-12-18 07:19 Robert F. Garry open

My follow-upon 3. It seems to me that one of the major hang-ups is: "you can't rule out lab escape." The problem isthat lab escape has several levels of crazy. Level 1a. full-blown sc2 was brought into the lab from someone notpracticing good ppe. s/he got infected in the cave. We all agree that this is possible but compared to all the other bat-human exposures the odds of this are very low. It also assumes that 100%SC2 is already in a bat. Also assumes either that the nonPPE wearing pstdoc never got sick and or that the virus was isolated and covered- up, which isobviously ridiculous. However, the RaTG13 is "fake: crowd which apparently included Frankie/Alina believes that RaTG13 SRA were contrived to cover this up. Total Bullocks. Level 1b. SC2 exists in some other species and byluck a laboratorian caught one of these animals and started the transmission to other humans. This has even lower odds compared to all the other animal-human interactions. Level 2a. presc2 [99%] brought into the lab and modifiedby seamless engineering. Level 2b presc2 [99%] brought into the lab and modified by cell culture or animal passage. Level 2 assumes a very close relative to SC2, which would have obviously been a big story, but then held up for GOF research. Again, the conspiracy theorist thing that Eddie and other made up the pangolin viruses and RatG13to cover this up. Levels 3. sc2 stitched together by combining parts of unreported sarbecoviruses and modified byseamless engineering. This assumes that WIV had the GD pangolin virus sequences or something similar from another animal (bat or other) and that they combined these viruses to create SC2 - this is the Yan/Bannon/Fox nonsense, but in reality it is not that different to what Alina/Drastic etc are proposing. Yan just made the mistake ofputting a flowchart on paper which is obviously loonie.
2020-12-18 07:22 Robert F. Garry

Agree Andrew that the NTD deletions tune things up. I do suspect as I wrote before that the NTD is likely involved atleast in some early cell interactions, if not interaction with a full-blown receptor.
2020-12-18 07:27 Robert F. Garry open

Yes - beautiful and important work out of the Bloom lab - very relevant. Agree that the chronic patients are an unanticipated wild card. Selecting for higher infectivity: it's the whole macrophage tropic HIV get replaced by T-celltropic HIV story again. Immunocompromised patient makes the story even more symmetrical.

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