How to Maintain Lab Safety While Making Viruses Deadlier 218
Lasrick (2629253) writes "A scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison published an article in June revealing that he had taken genes from the deadly human 1918 Spanish Flu and inserted them into the H5N1 avian flu to make a new virus—one which was both far deadlier and far more capable of spreading than the original avian strain. In July it was revealed that the same scientist was conducting another study in which he genetically altered the 2009 strain of flu to enable it to evade immune responses, 'effectively making the human population defenseless against re-emergence.' In the U.S. alone, biosafety incidents involving pathogens happen more than twice per week. These 'gain-of-function' experiments are accidents waiting to happen, with the possibility of starting deadly pandemics that could kill millions. It isn't as if it hasn't happened before: in 2009, a group of Chinese scientists created a viral strain of flu virus that escaped the lab and created a pandemic, killing thousands of people. 'Against this backdrop, the growing use of gain-of-function approaches for research requires more careful examination. And the potential consequences keep getting more catastrophic.' This article explores the history of lab-created pandemics and outlines recommendations for a safer approach to this type of research."
Re:So ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean seriously. Skip the stupid article and actually read the abstract:
Wild birds harbor a large gene pool of influenza A viruses that have the potential to cause influenza pandemics. Foreseeing and understanding this potential is important for effective surveillance. Our phylogenetic and geographic analyses revealed the global prevalence of avian influenza virus genes whose proteins differ only a few amino acids from the 1918 pandemic influenza virus, suggesting that 1918-like pandemic viruses may emerge in the future. To assess this risk, we generated and characterized a virus composed of avian influenza viral segments with high homology to the 1918 virus. This virus exhibited pathogenicity in mice and ferrets higher than that in an authentic avian influenza virus. Further, acquisition of seven amino acid substitutions in the viral polymerases and the hemagglutinin surface glycoprotein conferred respiratory droplet transmission to the 1918-like avian virus in ferrets, demonstrating that contemporary avian influenza viruses with 1918 virus-like proteins may have pandemic potential.
The entire point of this research was to test whether we're at risk of something like the 1918 flu virus reoccurring, since the current avian flu virus is strikingly similar. This strikes me as kind of an important thing to know, since it informs almost every aspect of disease-response planning.
The research was about taking avian flu, performing some fairly likely gene splicing of the type we know can happen during viral replication or incubation, and seeing if the observations of similarity are a problem. Turns out they are. But that also suggests that we might be able to make drugs which target the specific genes which confer the worst effects.
Unless of course we do something really stupid, like letting sensationalist bullshit convince people to go all anti-science.
Re:Homeland security would like a word... (Score:4, Interesting)
Scientists do this all the time. My buddy once worked in a lab in Maryland that engineered extremely virulent (in some cases deadly) rhinoviruses. Killer colds!
They do this to understand what makes a virus more dangerous, or what makes it more contagious. It's part of the scientific method. If you have a theory that gene Z can make a virus more deadly, the best way to _test_ that hypothesis is to add gene Z to the virus and compare its effects to a control. You're not doing it to make a deadly virus; you're doing it so you can detect deadly viruses in the wild. Over time this has allowed us to estimate the future damage of viral epidemics with increasing accuracy.
Of course, "best" is relative. It's best in the sense that it provides the most sound scientific data. But the potential non-scientific externalities come into play in a big way. The "best" way to test the radiological effects of nuclear fall-out is to drop a bomb on a population, but obviously that's a tad unethical.