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Lab-made virus infects cells, interacts with antibodies just like SARS-CoV-2:
Airborne and potentially deadly, the virus that causes COVID-19 can only be studied safely under high-level biosafety conditions. Scientists handling the infectious virus must wear full-body biohazard suits with pressurized respirators, and work inside laboratories with multiple containment levels and specialized ventilation systems. While necessary to protect laboratory workers, these safety precautions slow down efforts to find drugs and vaccines for COVID-19 since many scientists lack access to the required biosafety facilities.
To help remedy that, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a hybrid virus that will enable more scientists to enter the fight against the pandemic. The researchers genetically modified a mild virus by swapping one of its genes for one from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The resulting hybrid virus infects cells and is recognized by antibodies just like SARS-CoV-2, but can be handled under ordinary laboratory safety conditions.
The study is available online in Cell Host & Microbe.
I've never had this many requests for a scientific material in such a short period of time. We've distributed the virus to researchers in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and, of course, all over the U.S. We have requests pending from the U.K. and Germany. Even before we published, people heard that we were working on this and started requesting the material."
Sean Whelan, PhD, co-senior author, the Marvin A. Brennecke Distinguished Professor and head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology
[...] Since the hybrid virus looks like SARS-CoV-2 to the immune system but does not cause severe disease, it is a potential vaccine candidate, Diamond added. He, Whelan and colleagues are conducting animal studies to evaluate the possibility.
Journal Reference:
Case, J.B., et al. (2020) Neutralizing antibody and soluble ACE2 inhibition of a replication-competent VSV-SARS-CoV-2 and a clinical isolate of SARS-CoV-2. Cell Host & Microbe. doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2020.06.021.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @04:17PM
... which was also developed in a lab!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @04:19PM (3 children)
I am Legend.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday July 24 2020, @04:30PM
'eh, the premise, at least behind the movie was a scientist finding a cure for a virus that was already out there. Not accidentally releasing a "zombie virus".
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @06:02PM
You are Runaway, coward, far from a legend but in your own mind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @08:04PM
Let me just fuck around here with a few genes in this highly contagious deadly virus that nobody truly understands and I'll just, here hold my beer...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @04:20PM (5 children)
This is science fiction and is probably a horrendous idea for the real world, but it is intriguing. What if we could create a virus like SARS-CoV-2 that was more transmissible than the current virus, would result in little to no symptoms, and would produce an immune response? Basically, we would create a virus that was much less dangerous but a more infectious version of SARS-CoV-2. People could be intentionally infected with the virus, receive immunity, but then spread it to others to create an immune response. Because it would be more infectious, the spread of the new strain of the virus would be faster than with SARS-CoV-2. And hopefully very few people would become ill or die. The eventual goal would be to slow or eradicate the spread of deadlier strains of the virus by building up immunity in the population to a much less dangerous strain.
It's similar to infecting people with a weakened form of a virus or bacteria in order to vaccinate them. However, in this case, the vaccine would be transmissible and people would go out and infect others with the vaccine.
Again, there are very real ethical concerns that make this a horrendous real world idea. But it's an idea I'd been thinking about and seemed like a somewhat related concept to the article.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Friday July 24 2020, @04:52PM
Isn't that how they solved things on 'The Last Ship'?
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @05:15PM
Wasn't that the idea behind attenuated viruses?
The thing is there was a chance they could mutate back to a non-attenuated form.
but with genetic engineering perhaps we can figure out how to prevent that?
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday July 24 2020, @05:23PM
Intriguing idea. But I think we all know how that movie ends.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday July 24 2020, @08:16PM
Well, the live virus polio vaccine often does produce an infectious case. It's just that the version of polio that it infects people with is one the immune system can easily suppress. Or one could go back a lot further and consider the people who used to intentionally get cowpox to protect themselves from smallpox.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Friday July 24 2020, @09:34PM
That's called a vaccine. Its a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to have humans supervise the reproduction and transmission in controlled environments rather than your "let it go" concept, but yeah...
The other problem with your meme is the common conspiracy theory that AIDS was human created and intentionally released precisely to eliminate the disease of sexual perversion.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday July 24 2020, @04:22PM (11 children)
While I'm sure this kind of research is valuable and helps us find cures, vaccines, etc. Creating a better virus, isn't something we need more of.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 24 2020, @04:50PM (5 children)
The amusing thing? We've had a lot of people tell us that Covid19 could not have been engineered in a lab. But, right here, we have people engineering a similar virus, albeit, without some of the deadlier aspects of Covid19.
Now, either we can engineer viruses, or we cannot engineer viruses. I really don't want to hear, "Yeah, but NOBODY would have engineered Covid19! You're a racist for even thinking the Chinese (or Bill Gates, or any of the other proffered names) would DO such a thing!"
We have two possible sources of Covid19. It either evolved naturally in the pressure cooker of the wet markets in Wuhan - or it came from a laboratory in Wuhan. Even odds?
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @05:02PM
It displays affinity for human ACE-2 receptors, there's no natural evolution (and by extension recombination event) that would have escaped our notice. If the selection pressure required to "evolve" this virus occurred outside of a laboratory setting, people should have no problem providing evidence for it. The burden of proof remains on those claiming SARS-CoV-2 is anything other than gain of function research.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Aegis on Friday July 24 2020, @07:54PM
Third option: we can engineer viruses but you would be able to tell it was engineered if you saw it
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @09:13AM
It is a fallacy to think that the probability of an outcome is always equal to 1/n where n is equal to the number of possible outcomes.
Besides, those aren't the only two possibilities.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday July 25 2020, @05:18PM (1 child)
I thought it was pretty established it was an American picking up a bat on the side of the road and adding it to his pot of road kill stew while picking his nose and then flying into China that was the cause.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @05:44PM
Mmmm - you're making me hungry. Think I'll go drive up and down the highway, and see what's on the menu.
(Score: 1) by PaperNoodle on Friday July 24 2020, @07:45PM (4 children)
Unless that virus is used for gene therapy.
B3
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday July 24 2020, @08:24PM (3 children)
It's actually rather scary even if the virus is used for gene therapy. This doesn't mean it's not the thing to do, but it sure means you'd better be careful with the details.
P.S.: Approx. this kind of thing is done in several approaches to creating a vaccine. Only the details are different. Usually, up until now, the "weakening" of the virus is done by randomly mutating it until it's harmless by still effective as a virus. (This is often done by heating it "just this much".) What's different this time is that they're hybridizing viruses in an intentional way to have a particular attack surface. And, yes, that's scary...but that doesn't mean it isn't the right move. It just means you need to be excruciatingly careful. One could argue that they way they're shipping samples around doesn't qualify as being that careful, but it's hard to be sure that's correct. So, yes, scary.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by PaperNoodle on Friday July 24 2020, @09:25PM (2 children)
Like any technology it can be destructive. Nuclear power "too cheap to meter!" becomes the most devastating bombs ever created. But that goes the other way too. ICBMs opened up space.
We should never forget that any technology can be as destructive, yes.
B3
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday July 25 2020, @05:16AM (1 child)
And I think, like nuclear power, somebody somewhere is going to figure out how to do this stuff eventually, so maybe it's best to be on top of it. Or at least the first to admit it.
And maybe hopefully through better understanding of viruses and their mechanism of infection and damage, the research will also lead to more and better antivirals.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by PaperNoodle on Saturday July 25 2020, @11:51PM
>somebody somewhere is going to figure out how to do this stuff eventually, so maybe it's best to be on top of it.
Of course. And like pandoras box it can never be closed. Maybe it's one of the Great Filters for Fermis Paradox. As we create ever more powerful technology so to does the average power of an average person of that society increase. Consider the use of antibiotics in the population and the recent issues of drug resistant bacteria in hospitals. There is nothing to admit other than technology is powerful and power can be miused for good or ill.
We will probably never get away from the international politics of rogue states developing weapons of mass destruction. Which also means we will never get away from potential conflict over those issues. We will never get away from the average person in an advance society utilizing technology in a deleterious manner.
>the research will also lead to more and better antivirals.
There is always a double edge sword. Create a super virus to kill all humans also means creating a super virus to cure all humans of a disease. Take your pick in either case all humans are affected.
B3
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday July 24 2020, @04:25PM (1 child)
...and as a bonus, all the labs that use this to enable them to shuck their protective gear will soon have a whole bunch of infected people running around to (a) test things on and (b) spread it to everyone else on the planet, where it will have millions or billions of opportunities to (c) mutate into something more... interesting.
Oh, joy.
--
Fact: Celery is 95% water
and 100% not pizza.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Friday July 24 2020, @04:57PM
That was generally my thought.
Probably it wouldn't mutate as described, but there's this little bit of unrelated, yet still germane, wisdom I remember from many years ago that goes "The law of averages is NOT an effective method of birth control."
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @04:30PM
So, now they have the data in from the 'ranging shot' release, they now start preparing the backstory for the survivors of the 'biggie'...
Blah blah blah...harmless research virus....blah blah blah....evil actors....blah blah blah....oopsie there goes 50-90% of the population...
Body's Immune System: Relax lads, we know this one, we've been vaccinated....
The 'biggie': Oy! Have you got the wrong virus.... (cf. here [youtube.com])
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @04:41PM (1 child)
IANAVRS (I am not a virus research scientist).
Here's my car analogy -- develop highly detailed car & world simulations, so that self-driving cars don't have to be tested on the road...where they have already killed a few people.
Other suggestions?
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday July 24 2020, @08:59PM
Training mechanics to work underneath cars is dangerous because cars are heavy and can crush you. So we'll make styrofoam cars for them to train with instead.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday July 24 2020, @04:56PM (1 child)
Will this be just like the one that escaped?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @05:08PM
No, this next escape might have the same exterior coating, but contains a very different payload....an apocalyptic trojan horse of a different colour, as it were...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @07:31PM (3 children)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/23/americas/china-billion-vaccine-latin-america-coronavirus-intl/index.html [cnn.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday July 24 2020, @08:35PM (1 child)
China has been vaccinating their military for months now. AFAICT all they were certain about at the start was that it was usually harmless. Perhaps by now they know whether it's effective, and how effective.
According the various news reports they did a small advanced study to determine that it wasn't going to cause many sever reactions, and then plowed ahead with mass vaccinations. That's a way to get fast results if you're lucky. If you're only moderately lucky it's a way to get fast vaccination...but the vaccination doesn't do much. And if you're unlucky a lot of people get quite sick of the vaccination. If you're really unlucky a lot of people are permanently disabled, and many are dead.
This is basically moving directly from phase I testing to phase III testing. It can save a lot of time, but it can also leave you with a bunch of permanent invalids and another bunch of corpses. Essentially a whole bunch of soldiers were told "THIS is part of how you defend our country.".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @09:57PM
Fake masks [brusselstimes.com], fake test kits [bbc.com], now fake loan with fake vaccine?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @08:52PM
1. Create a virus. (allegedly)
2. Create a vaccine for the virus.
3. Let loose the virus, then wait.(allegedly)
4. At the opportune moment, offer to loan people the money to buy the vaccine from you.
5. Profit! (you're making money *and*, more importantly, establishing new threads to manipulate.)
Proof, it it was actually needed, that by their despicably capitalistic actions here the Chinese ruling elite aren't the Communists you think they are, but are, instead, quintessentially Chinese, and as pragmatic as they've always been for thousands of years, whatever regime apparently runs the show there..
You know, they've never quite forgiven the west for shit moves like the Opium wars...
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Friday July 24 2020, @09:37PM (1 child)
Can't they just wrap a bandanna around their face, or does that only magically prevent all viral infection at BLM/antifa arson riots?
I'm just saying the TV told me wearing a bandanna prevents all illness transmission if you're a truly devout Democrat virtue signaller. Probably works on VD too, not just COVID.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @01:33AM
Shit son, the religious right told me that just believing in Jesus prevents all illness transmission. Blood of the christ got them devout Democrat virtur signaller's beat six ways to sunday, with a deal like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2020, @11:39PM
Just snip up a bit of smallpox DNA and paste it into this baby and you've solved all of mankind's problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @12:27AM
i wonder ... if somebody dies and test positif for presence of this "doll" version of covid...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @09:02PM (1 child)
See subject: hello again you rotten bastards. I'm back and this time I'm here to stay.
* I hate niggers more than ever and I'm not ashamed of it one fucking bit. Fuck all kikes, too.
Don't even think about trying your spam mod bullshit with me. I own this fucking shithole and you stupid niggers can't stop me. I own this fucking shithole and you stupid niggers can't stop me. Fuck all of you rotten bastards & tranny kikes. You niggers can't hold a candle to anything I've accomplished.
APK
P.S.=> All of you fuckers like martyb can go eat shit and die... apk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @12:14AM
Catching up on the news I see the impostor has spammed every entry.
I am saddened to see someone must use my old mistakes against me, but love and respect to all God's, Yahweh's, Allah's children.
Your friend and ally,
apk