Slack / Private Message Drop — page 1079

content of this message and its attachments that does not relate to the official business of Fox Corporation, or its subsidiaries must be taken not to have been sent or endorsed by any of them. No representation is made that this email or its attachments are without defect. [2022-01-27 13:46:39] [Kristian Andersen] Bob, might be worth a simple response. "No, I do not believe that origin theories were obscured or suppressed. I can categorically say that for the work I have been involved with - including the conference call you refer to - such suggestions are false". [2022-01-27 13:48:58] [Kristian Andersen] Just received the same email... [2022-01-27 13:49:21] [Kristian Andersen] @Andrew Rambaut - yes, worth pointing out the Pangolin "evolution". Here's what I said to DQ in an email: Definitely looking forward to reading the whole book!! Once I'm out of grant hell (two more weeks), I'd be delighted to read through it if that's helpful. It's actually interesting reading through the old version of the version of Proximal (via the wayback machine - the current version on Virological is the most recent) to compare it to the final version in Nature Medicine. It's pretty clear that we still considered the "passage" (hypothesis 3) quite plausible at the time - and we had failed to realize the real importance of the pangolin RBD. Fascinating seeing the process of science through this document - even if it's my own :wink:. [2022-01-27 13:49:50] [Kristian Andersen] "we had failed to realize the real importance of the pangolin RBD" That bit is pretty key. [2022-01-27 13:52:49] [Andrew Rambaut] Yes - the 7th Feb version on google docs (basically the 'report') doesn't have pangolins in the alignment. [2022-01-27 13:53:15] [Kristian Andersen] No - we didn't use the pangolin genomes initially because they were so fragmented. [2022-01-27 13:53:34] [Andrew Rambaut] OK. Good. More evidence of science being done [2022-01-27 13:57:41] [Andrew Rambaut] From the 8th Feb version on GoogleDocs: > Although RaTG13 remains the closest relative to 2019-nCoV across the genome as a whole, the Malayan pangolin CoVs are identical to 2019-nCoV at all six key RBD residues. Analyses of these pangolin viruses are ongoing, although they do not carry the furin cleavage site insertion. [2022-01-27 13:57:51] [Robert Garry] I think the key for me was when one of us pointed out that "if the RBD was natural, then the whole thing is natural." Also we were arguing all sides of this from the get go - the whole o-linked glycan thing which was discussed on the conf call was pointing to natural although I do agree with K that it's as likely as not that that's a common regulatory