Baric Transcribed Interview (Redacted) — page 131

DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com you in, patched you in? DR. BARIC: No. No. MR. HENDERSON: So there was no suggestion that you should remain silent or not? DR. BARIC: No. Again, I was silent because I had sort of felt that maybe I caused the whole meeting to occur because I had talked about it earlier. And I wanted to hear what independent people thought. Otherwise, I could drive the whole direction of the meeting, and that was not right. At least that was my -- if it's flawed thinking, then I apologize. But I don't think it was flawed thinking. MR. HENDERSON: And back to the DARPA proposal, had you done any of the work that you were proposing to do under that proposal prior to the application? DR. BARIC: No. We've never dropped a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus like that. MR. HENDERSON: Were you aware of any of the other applicants having done the work prior to? DR. BARIC: Yeah, I think maybe we should take a second and review the furin cleavage site, because you seem to think it is the critical event that drove SARS-2 to be pathogenic. So in the coronavirus literature, furin cleavage sites have a mixed history. So in feline enteric coronavirus, if that virus has a furin cleavage site it's