Guys, I know you might not know better, but this is fake news. The original SARS virus attacks through this mechanism.
The bat corona virus is the closest to the new COVID virus. They share somewhere upwards of 80% nucleotide identity. Which still leaves room for manipulation, don't get me wrong. But it's not so obvious as "Look! It can attack these receptors! This was engineered!"
Basically, the story goes that bats are a giant reservoir for viruses based on their diet. Normally viruses from arthropods (insects, bugs) can't go into mammals. Bats, however, eat their body weight in the things every day. Each virus, bacteria, and whatnot undergoes mutation with every replication. So while it may be one in a billion chances of a mutation being successful enough to transmit to mammals, a single bat eats so much that the probability becomes 1. But bats have adapted to this and it usually doesn't kill the host (or they're weeded out from the gene pool.) I may be paraphrasing heavily from a paper I read, but the virus can actually infect the normal flora in the bats stomach and also the normal flora in a human's stomach. It's entirely feasible that someone could have eaten a bat, the virus got in through that mechanism, and as viruses mutate constantly, could have mutated to a configuration more apt to infect humans and thus went from the stomach to the rest of the body.
It is somewhat without a doubt that the virus came from bats - early on there were leaks that employees of the institute were selling lab specimens to the food market across the street as "fresh meat" and people were bringing lab animals home as "pets."
That does not mean the Chinese didn't fuck with the genome of the virus and make alterations. But this isn't the evidence for that claim and makes us look dumb. Though the vast majority would not understand this, so only a small number of people would call you/Mike out on it. There's plenty of labs that do research on novel viruses found in bats around the world, so this part isn't strange. I wouldn't trust the Chinese government as far as I could throw them, so they were probably tinkering with it and it released because they're entirely incompetent.
"The HIV‐1 packaging system is the most widely used pseudovirus packaging system. To make this packaging system, HIV genes are selectively cloned into DNA vectors. Specifically, 2 to 4 plasmids are used as the vectors, a strategy that aims to minimize viral gene recombination and thereby reduce the possibility of reversion to the WT virus. Table 1 lists the currently used HIV‐1‐based systems. "
This is for cell-based assays, not for "gain of function experiments." I'm not going to explain cell-based assays to you. Instead of jumping to conclusions, you should have researched terms you don't understand.
I explained exactly how this happened and gave a very plausible mechanism behind it. If you don't believe me, that's fine. Say, how long have you worked in vaccine research?
I hate your opinion and your feeble attempt to sound educated while ignoring huge mathematical chances.. Here’s the huge piece you’re ignoring —- The one “wet market” out if 20,000 where this once in a universe virus originated.. is the one closest to a lab where they have multiple press releases over the years saying they figured out how to get bat coronaviruses to infect human cells.. and then also combined it with hiv to get it to infect human cells at a higher rate. So no.. no one with any kind of mathematical mind has an “open mind” to believe this is random because bats eat a lot.
I don't believe in coincidences either, but from a biology standpoint, viruses mutate animal to human transmission. It does happen. Swine flu, avian flu, etc. That fact isn't mutually exclusive with the possibility that this was engineered.
I still think it was somebody that went rogue. Maybe they took samples from the lab and let it loose.
It's quite possible. Maybe they just dosed the "food" they were selling to the wet market. I personally thought the theory that this was released to shut down the Hong Kong protests was interesting.
Yeah, like I said. I don't disagree. I just think the person talking "from a Pathology standpoint" is a complete dipshit and making us look bad.
So, you’re still mad, it just took you a lot more words to say so...
(I’m kidding! Great info)
There’s a French virologist who my French friend says is a “legend in the field” who said that it is nearly certain that this was man-made, it has splices of HIV and malaria inserted, and it is likely that it was being developed as an HIV vaccine.
Wouldn’t it be a kick in the pants if everyone who got this virus is now immune to HIV?
That virologist also said that nature rejects the manipulation and as the virus spreads, the unnatural parts will get removed and it will become less deadly.
It's kind of impossible to determine that. CRISPR gene editing has been in use for the better part of the last decade, and recently a Chinese doctor got jail time for editing a human genome to have HIV resistance. With CRISPR IIRC there isn't really a trace left. With old genetic engineering techniques, there would be something left behind, like with Zinc Finger Gene editing. Even though I technically went over this last semester, it is just so boring and I lacked all interest.
Anyway, viruses aren't that complex compared to living organisms. It's feasible that a genetic sequence (or a similar genetic sequence) could arise through mutations. Homology can be found across completely unrelated species as a trait evolved for a specific function.
HIV infects through a COMPLETELY different mechanism. It infects CCR5 receptors on T lymphocytes. That's why there's a rare mutation in some people where they lack that receptor, and are thus immune to HIV. Having a "spike protein" is a trait that many viruses share.
That virologist also said that nature rejects the manipulation and as the virus spreads, the unnatural parts will get removed and it will become less deadly.
That's not too too off base. Any organism as it evolves will edit out anything that isn't necessary for it to thrive. Currently with medicine, we edit cells (like CHO) to produce a monoclonal antibody, or one of the new drugs on the market. Think Humira or Stelara. These are more complex molecules than your typical aspirin where someone just mixes chemicals together. Problem with this is the CHO cells don't need to make that drug to survive, and through many many cell divisions will eventually edit the gene out that makes the drug. In a similar sense, a bacteria that is antibiotic resistant that is allowed to grow in an environment without antibiotic, will eventually lose that resistance (there are exceptions but I'm not going to write a book).
To be clear, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Rather, I’m saying that I read an article about what this guy said, and that guy sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Or, you know, I’m spreading hearsay or gossip. :-)
His name is Luc Montagnier. Sounds like you might know what he was saying in more detail than I. I’ve heard of crispr as a term, but have never looked into the details of what it is or how it works, so I’m ignorant about a lot of what you just said about that.
What you described about losing the bacterial resistance makes a lot of sense. I had an ah-ha moment similar to that when I studied genetic algorithms in CompSci. Would take a bit to explain. Just that I have had similar experiences and that makes total sense.
Yeah, I dabbled in bioinformatics in undergrad. I could never sit in front of a computer all day for a living, haha. Bioinformatics is especially boring, though.
Luc Montagnier
I don't know much about him, and he is an expert in his field. I'd like to see the basis behind his claims, but he hasn't exactly gone into detail, from what I can find. If you make a claim like that in this field, you either provide substantial evidence or you've committed heresy - especially because a lot of people including scientists are in China's pocket nowadays. Just about all pharmaceutical companies I've worked at talked about branching into China because they have so much money to spend. Seems almost like the Climate Change hoax - you deny that it exists and don't provide damning evidence, then your career is over (actually it's pretty much over from the point you say "I'm skeptical"). Which is why most people who come out against it are retired.
Guys, I know you might not know better, but this is fake news. The original SARS virus attacks through this mechanism.
The bat corona virus is the closest to the new COVID virus. They share somewhere upwards of 80% nucleotide identity. Which still leaves room for manipulation, don't get me wrong. But it's not so obvious as "Look! It can attack these receptors! This was engineered!"
Basically, the story goes that bats are a giant reservoir for viruses based on their diet. Normally viruses from arthropods (insects, bugs) can't go into mammals. Bats, however, eat their body weight in the things every day. Each virus, bacteria, and whatnot undergoes mutation with every replication. So while it may be one in a billion chances of a mutation being successful enough to transmit to mammals, a single bat eats so much that the probability becomes 1. But bats have adapted to this and it usually doesn't kill the host (or they're weeded out from the gene pool.) I may be paraphrasing heavily from a paper I read, but the virus can actually infect the normal flora in the bats stomach and also the normal flora in a human's stomach. It's entirely feasible that someone could have eaten a bat, the virus got in through that mechanism, and as viruses mutate constantly, could have mutated to a configuration more apt to infect humans and thus went from the stomach to the rest of the body.
It is somewhat without a doubt that the virus came from bats - early on there were leaks that employees of the institute were selling lab specimens to the food market across the street as "fresh meat" and people were bringing lab animals home as "pets."
That does not mean the Chinese didn't fuck with the genome of the virus and make alterations. But this isn't the evidence for that claim and makes us look dumb. Though the vast majority would not understand this, so only a small number of people would call you/Mike out on it. There's plenty of labs that do research on novel viruses found in bats around the world, so this part isn't strange. I wouldn't trust the Chinese government as far as I could throw them, so they were probably tinkering with it and it released because they're entirely incompetent.
Edit: Oh and if you don't believe me, this paper was authored in 2004: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/path.1570
You are misinterpreting what the article is saying. They used a pseudovirus system of HIV origin.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rmv.1963
"The HIV‐1 packaging system is the most widely used pseudovirus packaging system. To make this packaging system, HIV genes are selectively cloned into DNA vectors. Specifically, 2 to 4 plasmids are used as the vectors, a strategy that aims to minimize viral gene recombination and thereby reduce the possibility of reversion to the WT virus. Table 1 lists the currently used HIV‐1‐based systems. "
This is for cell-based assays, not for "gain of function experiments." I'm not going to explain cell-based assays to you. Instead of jumping to conclusions, you should have researched terms you don't understand.
I explained exactly how this happened and gave a very plausible mechanism behind it. If you don't believe me, that's fine. Say, how long have you worked in vaccine research?
I hate your opinion and your feeble attempt to sound educated while ignoring huge mathematical chances.. Here’s the huge piece you’re ignoring —- The one “wet market” out if 20,000 where this once in a universe virus originated.. is the one closest to a lab where they have multiple press releases over the years saying they figured out how to get bat coronaviruses to infect human cells.. and then also combined it with hiv to get it to infect human cells at a higher rate. So no.. no one with any kind of mathematical mind has an “open mind” to believe this is random because bats eat a lot.
I don't believe in coincidences either, but from a biology standpoint, viruses mutate animal to human transmission. It does happen. Swine flu, avian flu, etc. That fact isn't mutually exclusive with the possibility that this was engineered.
So post them
You have no idea what you're talking about.
And anyone with actual education in this field (and ten years of experience) knows you're talking out of your ass.
It's quite possible. Maybe they just dosed the "food" they were selling to the wet market. I personally thought the theory that this was released to shut down the Hong Kong protests was interesting.
Yeah, like I said. I don't disagree. I just think the person talking "from a Pathology standpoint" is a complete dipshit and making us look bad.
So, you’re still mad, it just took you a lot more words to say so...
(I’m kidding! Great info)
There’s a French virologist who my French friend says is a “legend in the field” who said that it is nearly certain that this was man-made, it has splices of HIV and malaria inserted, and it is likely that it was being developed as an HIV vaccine.
Wouldn’t it be a kick in the pants if everyone who got this virus is now immune to HIV?
That virologist also said that nature rejects the manipulation and as the virus spreads, the unnatural parts will get removed and it will become less deadly.
Let me see if I can find the article...
Hmm. Can’t find the article I read. Here is some of what he said - https://www.westernjournal.com/doctor-discovered-hiv-confident-covid-19-created-lab/
if releasing the pandemic of the century while working on an HIV vaccine isn't shitting the bed, i'm seth rich.
It's kind of impossible to determine that. CRISPR gene editing has been in use for the better part of the last decade, and recently a Chinese doctor got jail time for editing a human genome to have HIV resistance. With CRISPR IIRC there isn't really a trace left. With old genetic engineering techniques, there would be something left behind, like with Zinc Finger Gene editing. Even though I technically went over this last semester, it is just so boring and I lacked all interest.
Anyway, viruses aren't that complex compared to living organisms. It's feasible that a genetic sequence (or a similar genetic sequence) could arise through mutations. Homology can be found across completely unrelated species as a trait evolved for a specific function.
HIV infects through a COMPLETELY different mechanism. It infects CCR5 receptors on T lymphocytes. That's why there's a rare mutation in some people where they lack that receptor, and are thus immune to HIV. Having a "spike protein" is a trait that many viruses share.
That's not too too off base. Any organism as it evolves will edit out anything that isn't necessary for it to thrive. Currently with medicine, we edit cells (like CHO) to produce a monoclonal antibody, or one of the new drugs on the market. Think Humira or Stelara. These are more complex molecules than your typical aspirin where someone just mixes chemicals together. Problem with this is the CHO cells don't need to make that drug to survive, and through many many cell divisions will eventually edit the gene out that makes the drug. In a similar sense, a bacteria that is antibiotic resistant that is allowed to grow in an environment without antibiotic, will eventually lose that resistance (there are exceptions but I'm not going to write a book).
To be clear, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Rather, I’m saying that I read an article about what this guy said, and that guy sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Or, you know, I’m spreading hearsay or gossip. :-)
His name is Luc Montagnier. Sounds like you might know what he was saying in more detail than I. I’ve heard of crispr as a term, but have never looked into the details of what it is or how it works, so I’m ignorant about a lot of what you just said about that.
What you described about losing the bacterial resistance makes a lot of sense. I had an ah-ha moment similar to that when I studied genetic algorithms in CompSci. Would take a bit to explain. Just that I have had similar experiences and that makes total sense.
Yeah, I dabbled in bioinformatics in undergrad. I could never sit in front of a computer all day for a living, haha. Bioinformatics is especially boring, though.
I don't know much about him, and he is an expert in his field. I'd like to see the basis behind his claims, but he hasn't exactly gone into detail, from what I can find. If you make a claim like that in this field, you either provide substantial evidence or you've committed heresy - especially because a lot of people including scientists are in China's pocket nowadays. Just about all pharmaceutical companies I've worked at talked about branching into China because they have so much money to spend. Seems almost like the Climate Change hoax - you deny that it exists and don't provide damning evidence, then your career is over (actually it's pretty much over from the point you say "I'm skeptical"). Which is why most people who come out against it are retired.
Thank you for the explanation. Knowledge is power.