Slack / Private Message Drop — page 1080

mechanism for FCS rather than immune evasive - still think that it could possibly have some role there though too - the FCS is a major epitope in other class I fusion proteins in SARS-CoV-2 it isn't AFAIK which is strange. [2022-01-27 13:58:48] [Andrew Rambaut] And if it is used as a regulatory system there is no way a human designer would know how to do that [2022-01-27 14:06:44] [Kristian Andersen] [thread - ID: 2022-01-27 14:06:44] Yeah, but notice our discussion of "passage". The Pangolin RBD _disproves_ that, but we didn't catch that until later - we use the RBD to say "not engineering" but we didn't yet use it to say "not passage". That only came after peer review [2022-01-27 14:07:39] [Kristian Andersen] And by disproving - I mean, it disproves that the specific RBD mutations seen in SC2 arose via culture passage, but, of course, it doesn't directly disprove passage itself. [2022-01-27 14:09:38] [Kristian Andersen] Thinking of sending this to Fox - because somebody's gotta at least get it on the record... Thoughts? ```Dear Timothy, No, I do not believe that origin theories were obscured or suppressed, although the question has become heavily politicized by lab leak proponents. I can categorically say that for the research I have been involved with, such allegations, including those recently made in a Fox New Special Report, are false. Our scientific investigations - published in scientific journals - have only been driven by scientific enquiry. Any suggestions to the contrary are false. The events you describe date back to the Trump White House, and it is public knowledge that the question of origin was taken up by the White House Office and Science Technology Policy, immediately following early discussions: https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2020/02/national-academies-provide-rapid-response-to-white-house-on-c oronavirus-data-needs# As was the case in early 2020, available evidence point strongly towards a natural emergence of SARS-CoV-2, as has been the case for other pandemics. Best, Kristian``` [2022-01-27 14:12:40] [Robert Garry] Fauci and Collins made zero edits to out papers - the CREID Grant was written, reviewed and scored prior to the Feb 1 conf call. [2022-01-27 14:15:09] [Eddie Holmes] No harm in doing so but it will have zero impact I think. [2022-01-27 14:20:23] [Andrew Rambaut] [thread - ID: 2022-01-27 14:06:44] @Kristian Andersen Yeah - I agree with that. Will leave DQ's timeline as it is. [2022-01-27 14:20:45]