Fauci Intelligence Community Release — page 28

I.ZOv> > ) [E] < > 9 PM From: "Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E]" <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> To: "Mascola, John (NIH/VRC) [E]" < @mail.nih.gov> Subject: RE: Phone call Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:45:46 -0500 Importance: Normal The story gets complicated. I will forward to you a very recent article by Jon Cohen that will shed some light. Tony From: Mascola, John (NIH/VRC) [E] < @mail.nih.gov> Sent: Friday, January 31, 2020 8:16 PM To: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Subject: FW: Phone call Tony, I will track and will review data on the "furin cleavage site" of 2019-nCoV. This is the site that is analogous to the furin cleavage site between gp120 and gp41 of HIV. It generally consists of a short series of basic AA (so Arg, Lys). For most type 1 viral surface proteins (like HIV), the cleavage event is necessary for the trimeric protein to fold into its native configuration. But for CoV family, there is a lot of natural variation at this site - so I would need to hear more details to understand the concern by Kristian and others. John From: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Sent: Friday, January 31, 2020 7:39 PM To: Jeremy Farrar < @wellcome.ac.uk> Cc: Kristian G. Andersen < @gmail.com> Subject: RE: Phone call Jeremy: I just got off the phone with Kristian Anderson and he related to me his concern about the Furine site mutation in the spike protein of the currently circulating 2019-nCoV. I told him that as soon as possible he and Eddie Holmes should get a group of evolutionary biologists together to examine carefully the data to determine if his concerns are validated. He should do this very quickly and if everyone agrees with this concern, they should report it to the appropriate authorities. I would imagine that in the USA this would be the FBI and in the UK it would be MI5. It would be important to quickly get confirmation of the cause of his concern by experts in the field of coronaviruses and evolutionary biology. In the meantime, I will alert my US. Government official colleagues of my conversation with you and Kristian and determine what further investigation they recommend. Let us stay in touch. Best regards, Tony Anthony S. Fauci, MD Director National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases