Slack / Private Message Drop — page 1033

We have something else to discuss. Andrew & I were on a call with Jeremy and Greg Towers from UCL. The short story is that Greg was interviewing a postdoc from WIV and was very concerned about their biosafety. It relates to the attached paper. Basically, they have collected saliva and tissue samples from bats across China which are then stored in VTM. They then culture them to look for rhabdoviruses and Greg is worried that they could have cultured a CoV at the same time. He asked the postdoc what they did to prevent this and he said that they deep sequenced the samples and found no CoV which Greg doesn't think is good enough. Personally, I agree with Greg that this sort of procedure is no longer acceptable. However, I find this a weak theory for the origin of SC2 as it requires a whole series of unlikely events: (i) the bat sample has the virus; (ii) the virus grows in culture; (iii) that virus is then transmitted to the lab worker in an accident; (iv) the furin cleavage site is retained despite culture in VeroE6 and an R. affinis cell line; (v) there is a virus in the sample despite there being no sequence evidence; (v) the infected lab worker then has to pass it on. And of course we now have all the market stuff. That said, they clearly need have a lot of bat tissues at WIV. I know the French authors on the paper and I will follow up with them. Interested in your thoughts. [shared file(s): Luo_viruses-13-00064-v2.pdf] [2021-11-26 13:47:46] [Kristian Andersen] We have known this since the very beginning - I mentioned it on our very first call that I was concerned about them collecting and growing sampling from bats under BSL-2. This work is exactly that. To be clear, this type of work is approved under BSL-2 almost universally - I can do it at my lab here at Scripps (and, in fact, we have). I'm fully in agreement that further precautions are required, but a single paper like this changes nothing - again, it's no secret this is how it has been done and I/we flagged it on day 1. Adds credence to the fact that we should consider a lab leak, but doesn't change any of the data showing it isn't. [2021-11-26 13:50:30] [Eddie Holmes] I agree. Greg was definitely worried about a lab leak but was more concerned about putting in procedures to improve biosafety and I agree with that. [2021-11-26 13:53:59] [Kristian Andersen] I think we all agree: • Lab leak a potential concern • Actual data strongly pointing to no lab leak • Biosafety needs to be strengthened given how widespread SC1-like and SC2-like viruses are across SE Asia I don't think anybody with expertise would disagree on any of these points [2021-11-26 13:54:35] [Eddie Holmes] Totally agree. [2021-11-26 13:55:02] [Robert Garry] Me too - consistent from day 1. [2021-11-26 13:56:10] [Kristian Andersen] Yup - not my problem that people are now only discovering this and finding it scary. Typically this line of argument is presented as if new information has been unearthed very recently and it's somehow new knowledge. Complete bollocks. [2021-11-26 13:56:31] [Robert Garry] Not to mention that certain Rhabdoviruses are literally the most deadly viruses on the planet... [2021-11-26 13:58:43] [Kristian Andersen]