A New Lab-Made COVID-19 Virus Puts Gain-of-Function Research Under the Microscope
reporting that they had created a version of SARS-CoV-2 combining two features of different, existing strains that boosted its virulence and transmissibility. Scientists and the public raised questions about the work, which refocused attention on such experiments, and prompted the U.S. government to investigate whether the research followed protocols for these kinds of studies.
The B.U. scientists were trying to answer a different, but related question of what made Omicron better able to escape the protection provided by the immune system and vaccines. To do so, they created chimeric viruses that contained some genetic material from the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, and some from the Omicron BA.1 strain, focusing on the virus’ key feature, the spike protein, which alerts the immune system into action.
In a statement provided to TIME, the agency said that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , which is part of NIH, “did not review nor issue awards” for the experiment described in the B.U. pre-print study that has triggered the current discussion. The NIH is investigating whether indirect federal dollars were used in conducting the experiment, and if so, whether B.U. scientists failed to follow federal policies governing research into potentially dangerous pathogens.
Would modifying viruses to understand which mutations made them more virulent, and more able to evade drugs and vaccines, fall into this category? Virus experts do such work routinely, says Ho, and he himself has conducted such experiments for years with HIV, as well as with SARS-CoV-2. What’s more, these new versions of viruses and bacteria are constantly being created by nature as well, in response to natural selection pressures.
Boston University maintains that the version of the virus its scientists created at the university’s National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratories is actually less lethal, at 80%, than the original virus, which was 100% deadly in the mice when they were exposed to the virus at certain concentrations. The university also said its researchers were given permission to conduct the research by the university’s internal review board.
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