Slack / Private Message Drop — page 4

not yet heard from you and would ask you to let us know as soon as possible whether or not you will be able to do this for us. The manuscript abstract appears below. In our paper we describe some unusual characteristics of the regulatory 5' UTR sequences of SARS-CoV-2 that might imply its non-natural origin. Moreover, we have developed and internally validated a robust, sensitive and specific quantitative Real-Time PCR assay targeting this very unique part of the SARS-CoV-2 genome, which we have been using for routine diagnostics instead of the original, N gene targeting protocol; our 5' UTR-targeting protocol can be found in the Supplementary material of this paper. We are also discussing possible therapeutic implications of this finding - especially RNA interference and direct knock-out of the unique 5' UTR regulatory sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which, due to the high replication (and error) rate of SARS-CoV-2 might be superior to the development of conventional immunogenic vaccines and might be an interesting idea to pursue.``` 5' UTR apparently has a non-natural origin. [2020-05-01 09:23:06] [Kristian Andersen] Oh, okay - I guess we were totally wrong all the time then. Should we just go ahead and retract our paper? [2020-05-01 09:27:55] [Andrew Rambaut] Should just reply to the editor - 'Did you read our paper at all'. [2020-05-01 13:08:11] [Kristian Andersen] Does anybody have access? https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.washingtonpost.co m/politics/2020/05/01/was-new-coronavirus-accidentally-released-wuhan-lab-its-doubtful/&ct=ga&cd=CA EYACoTMzI1ODA3ODQwNTYyMjEyNzQxOTIaYzJjMjMyMDI0NjFjMjMyODpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNH zDagpeqeWk3d4vP-rR127unjoYQ [2020-05-01 13:13:24] [Andrew Rambaut] shared file(s): Was_the_new_coronavirus_accidentally_released_from_a_Wuhan_lab__It___s_doubtful_ [2020-05-01 13:19:29] [Andrew Rambaut] https://www.cell.com/pb-assets/products/coronavirus/immuni4362.pdf [2020-05-01 13:45:22] [Robert Garry] Maybe I'm a bit harsh but reads kinda like a high school "book report." Maybe a C+ grade. [2020-05-01 14:03:32] [Kristian Andersen] What is this? A paper or some sort of commentary? [2020-05-01 14:05:30] [Andrew Rambaut] It is weird. It is kind of saying 'we knew all this and could have said it but couldn't be bothered'. [2020-05-01 14:06:29] [Kristian Andersen] That would be something Ralph would do [2020-05-01 14:23:37] [Robert Garry]