I've long suspected that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting what is termed "gain of function" research. The idea there is that most animal viruses don't jump to humans but some readily do. So there's an obvious public health motivation for understanding why that is and what virus characteristics facilitate animal viruses crossing into the human population.
In 'gain-of-function' research, changes in the protein coats of viruses are intentionally genetically engineered in the laboratory so as to determine whether those changes make it easier for the virus to leap to human cells.
Well, it turns out not only was the Wuhan Institute of Virology doing precisely that, but that the research was being funded at least in part by the United States, by Anthony Fauci's National Institutes of Health.
The grant application is below. (Obtained by The Intercept after a FOIA request.) It's 528 pages long (illustrating the overwhelming burden of federal paperwork) and much of it is accounting for expenditures and self-serving biographies of the grant recipients. But there are also many pages devoted to what they planned to do and what they had accomplished after each year that the grant was in effect.
For example, look at page 160 which discussed what they initially hoped to accomplish. (Highlighting by me.)
"Specific Aim 3: Testing predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. We will test our models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments in cell-culture and humanized mice. With bat-CoVs that we've isolated or sequenced, and using live virus or pseudovirus infection in cells of different origin or expressing different receptor molecules, we will assess potential for each isolated virus and those with receptor binding site sequence to spill over. We will do this by sequencing the spike (or other receptor binding/fusion) protein genes from all our bat-CoVs, creating mutants to identify how significantly each would need to evolve to use ACE-2, CD26/DPP4 (MERS-CoV receptor) or other potential CoV receptors. We will then use receptor-mutant pseudovirus binding assays, in vitro studies in bat, primate, human and other species' cell ines, and with humanized mice where particularly interesting viruses are identified phylogenetically or isolated. These tests will provide public-health relevant data, and also iteratively improve out predictive model to better target bat species and CoVs during our field studies to obtain bat-CoV strains of the greatest interest for understanding the mechanisms of cross-species transmission."
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/...ant-notice
("Humanized mice" are mice genetically engineered to have human receptor sites on their cell membranes, so that the mouse cells behave like human cells when it comes to succeptibility to virus infection.)
Then look at page 298 which descibes what they had actually done in the 4th year of the grant.
"Using the reverse genetic methods we previously developed, infectious clones with the WIV1 backbone and the spike protein of SHC014, WIV16 and Rs4231 respectively, were constructed and recombinant viruses were successfully rescued. In Year 4, we performed preliminary in vivo infection of SARSr-CoVs on transgenic mice that express hACE2. Mice were infected with 10^5 plu of full length recombinant virus of WIV1 (rWIV1) and the three chimeric viruses with different spikes. Pathogenesis of the 4 SARSr-CoVs was then determined in a 2-week course. Mice challenged with rWIV1-SHC014S have experienced about 20% body weight loss by the 6th day post infection... 2 and 4 days post infection, the viral load in lung tissues of mice challenged with rWIV1-SHC014S, rWIV1-WIV16S and rWIV1-Rs4231S reached more than 10^6 genome copies/g..."
These are just a fraction of the details contained in this amazing document.
I want to emphasize that this does not prove that covid originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) virology lab. It still might very well have originated naturally in the ways that these reseachers were hoping to better understand and prevent.
But given that the lab destroyed their sequence data soon after this started, making it impossible to determine whether the covid responsible for the global pandemic coincides with one of their engineered recombinant mutants, given that the laboratory had earlier been criticized for sloppy safety protocols and poorly trained technicians, and given that several Wuhan Institute of Virology workers fell ill with symptoms very much like covid before the disease emerged in the city at large, it makes me wonder whether covid was in fact an accidental laboratory release.
What does seem to be clear is that Anthony Fauci lied to Congress under oath when he was asked whether the NIH had ever funded any 'gain of function' research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and he answered very emphatically that they had not.
In 'gain-of-function' research, changes in the protein coats of viruses are intentionally genetically engineered in the laboratory so as to determine whether those changes make it easier for the virus to leap to human cells.
Well, it turns out not only was the Wuhan Institute of Virology doing precisely that, but that the research was being funded at least in part by the United States, by Anthony Fauci's National Institutes of Health.
The grant application is below. (Obtained by The Intercept after a FOIA request.) It's 528 pages long (illustrating the overwhelming burden of federal paperwork) and much of it is accounting for expenditures and self-serving biographies of the grant recipients. But there are also many pages devoted to what they planned to do and what they had accomplished after each year that the grant was in effect.
For example, look at page 160 which discussed what they initially hoped to accomplish. (Highlighting by me.)
"Specific Aim 3: Testing predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. We will test our models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments in cell-culture and humanized mice. With bat-CoVs that we've isolated or sequenced, and using live virus or pseudovirus infection in cells of different origin or expressing different receptor molecules, we will assess potential for each isolated virus and those with receptor binding site sequence to spill over. We will do this by sequencing the spike (or other receptor binding/fusion) protein genes from all our bat-CoVs, creating mutants to identify how significantly each would need to evolve to use ACE-2, CD26/DPP4 (MERS-CoV receptor) or other potential CoV receptors. We will then use receptor-mutant pseudovirus binding assays, in vitro studies in bat, primate, human and other species' cell ines, and with humanized mice where particularly interesting viruses are identified phylogenetically or isolated. These tests will provide public-health relevant data, and also iteratively improve out predictive model to better target bat species and CoVs during our field studies to obtain bat-CoV strains of the greatest interest for understanding the mechanisms of cross-species transmission."
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/...ant-notice
("Humanized mice" are mice genetically engineered to have human receptor sites on their cell membranes, so that the mouse cells behave like human cells when it comes to succeptibility to virus infection.)
Then look at page 298 which descibes what they had actually done in the 4th year of the grant.
"Using the reverse genetic methods we previously developed, infectious clones with the WIV1 backbone and the spike protein of SHC014, WIV16 and Rs4231 respectively, were constructed and recombinant viruses were successfully rescued. In Year 4, we performed preliminary in vivo infection of SARSr-CoVs on transgenic mice that express hACE2. Mice were infected with 10^5 plu of full length recombinant virus of WIV1 (rWIV1) and the three chimeric viruses with different spikes. Pathogenesis of the 4 SARSr-CoVs was then determined in a 2-week course. Mice challenged with rWIV1-SHC014S have experienced about 20% body weight loss by the 6th day post infection... 2 and 4 days post infection, the viral load in lung tissues of mice challenged with rWIV1-SHC014S, rWIV1-WIV16S and rWIV1-Rs4231S reached more than 10^6 genome copies/g..."
These are just a fraction of the details contained in this amazing document.
I want to emphasize that this does not prove that covid originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) virology lab. It still might very well have originated naturally in the ways that these reseachers were hoping to better understand and prevent.
But given that the lab destroyed their sequence data soon after this started, making it impossible to determine whether the covid responsible for the global pandemic coincides with one of their engineered recombinant mutants, given that the laboratory had earlier been criticized for sloppy safety protocols and poorly trained technicians, and given that several Wuhan Institute of Virology workers fell ill with symptoms very much like covid before the disease emerged in the city at large, it makes me wonder whether covid was in fact an accidental laboratory release.
What does seem to be clear is that Anthony Fauci lied to Congress under oath when he was asked whether the NIH had ever funded any 'gain of function' research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and he answered very emphatically that they had not.