--- type: Person title: Andrew Rambaut description: "Professor, University of Edinburgh" tags: - person - edinburgh organization: edinburgh document_count: 11733 first_seen: "2020-04-30T16:09:46" last_seen: "2023-06-28T20:44:44" aliases: - A. Rambaut - Andrew Rambaut - Rambaut sources: - { id: slack_pm, resource: /sources/slack-pm.md, title: Slack / Private Message Drop, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release" } generated: { by: randpaul-corpus-pipeline/1.0, at: "2026-08-01T12:42:27Z" } status: stable --- Professor, University of Edinburgh # Activity - **Documents:** 11733 (sent/authored 1898, received 9835) - **Active:** 2020-04-30 to 2023-06-28 - **Organization:** [edinburgh](/organizations/edinburgh.md) - **Appears as:** `A. Rambaut`, `Andrew Rambaut`, `Rambaut` # Correspondents | Person | Messages | First | Last | |---|---:|---|---| | [Kristian G. Andersen](/people/kristian-g-andersen.md) | 5454 | 2020-04-30 | 2023-06-28 | | [Robert F. Garry](/people/robert-f-garry.md) | 5191 | 2020-04-30 | 2022-06-02 | | [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md) | 4883 | 2020-04-30 | 2022-06-02 | | Uslackbot | 1 | 2021-05-14 | 2021-05-14 | # Topics * [Intelligence community assessments](/topics/intelligence-community.md) - 375 documents * [Natural origin / zoonotic spillover](/topics/natural-origin.md) - 373 documents * [Lab-leak / accidental release hypothesis](/topics/lab-leak-origin.md) - 273 documents * [Furin cleavage site and molecular features](/topics/molecular-features.md) - 268 documents * [Wuhan Institute of Virology collaboration](/topics/wiv-collaboration.md) - 252 documents * [Vaccines](/topics/vaccines.md) - 236 documents * [Proximal Origin paper](/topics/proximal-origin.md) - 112 documents * [FOIA, records and transparency](/topics/foia-transparency.md) - 67 documents * [China relations and data access](/topics/china-relations.md) - 60 documents * [WHO and international investigation](/topics/who-international.md) - 54 documents # Statement timeline What this person is recorded saying, in date order, quoted verbatim with page citations. * **2020-05-01** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "I have not yet heard from you and would ask you to let us know as soon as possible whether or not you will be able to dothis for us.The manuscript abstract appears below.In our paper we describe some unusual characteristics of the regulatory 5' UTR sequences…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-01** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "We are also discussing possible therapeuticimplications of this finding - especially RNA interference and direct knock-out of the unique 5' UTR regulatory sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which, due to the high replication (and error) rate of SARS-CoV-2…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-01** ([proximal_origin](/topics/proximal-origin.md), questions): "Should just reply to the editor - 'Did you read our paper at all'." [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-06** ([npi_masks](/topics/npi-masks.md), asserts): "And you have a married blond woman in your house during lockdown." [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-11** ([china_relations](/topics/china-relations.md), asserts): "Need to feed the 'Eddie is a paid shrill of the Chinese Government' angle to Fox News for a presidential tweet." [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), questions): "But I wonder if you'd have time at least to cast your eye over this very brief set of notes (responding to a number of points in the Nature Medicine paper) that I have received from a molecular biologist contact of mine, who has long experience in vaccine…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "(COMMENTS FROM MOLECULAR BIOLOGIST IN BLUE TYPE) This has two problems in respect of the second half assumption 1. doesnt prove it didn't happen in a petri dish - themixing could have happened naturally in a co-infected pangolin that had two related…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), questions): "Both equally possible, latter probably more plausible - how many co-infected pangolins are out there?" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "But third scenario they don't touch onmight be the most plausible of all - rather than postulating random recombination between the two viruses - the third possibility is that a researcher deliberately inserted the pangolin spike mutation into bat virus to…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), acknowledges): "New polybasic cleavage sites have been observed only after prolonged passage oflow-pathogenicity avian influenza virus in vitro or in vivo17.Yes if you postulated the virus found these 4 amino substitutions one by one - I agree this is highly…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "It is the acquisition en masse of these 4 key new residues and nothing in flanking sequences that raises the distinct impression that someone deliberately inserted these 4 residuesin one step - with recombination would expect some variability on either side…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), asserts): "Subsequent generation of a polybasic cleavage site would have then required repeated passage in cell culture or animals with ACE2 receptors similar to those of humans, but such work has also not previously been described." [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-22** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), acknowledges): "If they did indeed find a bat virus in their stocks with99% identity apart from the polybasic cleavage site then would they be comfortable to disclose this as then the only conclusion was that COVID19 was artificially created in their lab." [^slack_pm] * **2020-05-29** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "```We also demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2's entire RBM was introduced through recombination with coronaviruses from pangolins``` Nope." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-04** ([lab_leak_origin](/topics/lab-leak-origin.md), questions): "So what does Trevor think about the new proof of lab origins paper?" [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-08** ([intelligence_community](/topics/intelligence-community.md), asserts): "It also clarifies Sørensen's financial interest in the development ofthe_ Biovacc-19 _coronavirus vaccine_. _This context did not appear in original post_ New claims that the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was engineered have been dismissed by scientific and…" [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-11** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), questions): "@Robert Garry @Kristian Andersen Can you tell me anything about the RmYN02 cleavage site insertion?" [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-13** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "I have talked to a few journalists about the origins recently but only if they seem genuinely interestedin the natural origins." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-13** ([lab_leak_origin](/topics/lab-leak-origin.md), asserts): "My approach has been to keep pushing how plausible it is and ignore anything that is trying toset up lab origins without actual evidence." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-13** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), asserts): "Jotting down some of the new stuff: Bill's potential source of the furin site - perhaps could dig into that more." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-13** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "Large variety of pangolin viruses (these are illegally imported from SE Asia - so where are they getting them from)." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-13** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "Shows better how the pangolin distance is exactly the same in the variable as the rest of the CTD whereas RaTG13jumps out." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-15** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "Just talked to David Quammen who is writing a piece for the New Yorker about pangolin conservation (with some CoV angles)." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-18** ([china_relations](/topics/china-relations.md), questions): "I wonder which of those Beijing is going to blaim?" [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-18** ([china_relations](/topics/china-relations.md), asserts): "Curiously all of the others in the Beijing group are from late March or early April." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-18** ([china_relations](/topics/china-relations.md), asserts): "You probably saw it but here is the ML tree (with an outgroup root): [shared file(s): beijing_11.ml.tree.png]" [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-18** ([china_relations](/topics/china-relations.md), asserts): "Plausible: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/18/global-report-beijing-covid-19-cluster-may-have-begun-amonth-earlier-china-health-chief" [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-18** ([intelligence_community](/topics/intelligence-community.md), asserts): "I bet they have a flashing red light on the hospital computer which goes on whenever there is a pneumonia case associated with a live animal market." [^slack_pm] * **2020-06-18** ([china_relations](/topics/china-relations.md), questions): "But there was no coronavirus in Beijing so why would you need to wear masks?" [^slack_pm] * **2020-07-01** ([npi_masks](/topics/npi-masks.md), asserts): "Yes they have individual trajectories up and down but are not conditioned on a particular lockdown date." [^slack_pm] # Sources [^slack_pm]: [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)