My objections to this latest bit of Chinese research are twofold: 1) that it involves creating viruses which do not exist in nature, and 2) there is little if any useful knowledge gleaned from this experiment.
The frivolity of the "research" is the problem. While any one GoF experiment may not produce a supremely dangerous pathogen, at a minimum any research that creates new viral strains not found in nature should be viewed skeptically, because by definition said research is proceeding from a fundamental unreality.
We've seen similar expressions of the frivolous nature of much viral research in the various tests and studies done on the mRNA inoculations, where their efficacy is established by whether or not the inoculation produces antibodies within a cell culture, NOT whether it stops disease in the real world.
GoF function research and even serial passage presumes that viral researchers have a full understanding of how viruses behave in the natural world--but if they had that understanding what would be the need for the research? That's a bit of hubris that should be a red flag to everyone.
So I should have made my post clear, but essentially one of the issues with any research with viruses is that you may incur mutations just through research alone, not even intentionally. For instance, you can have a group of people who intentionally pass viruses through several cell lines and see if they gain more selection for human cells, which would be seen with serious scrutiny due to the fact that such a study was done intentionally.
But what if you happen to just pass viruses through cell lines because you just need to grow more viruses to research? In which case the mutations are not intentional but are rather incidental to the need to have more viruses. As an example, there's evidence that passage of SARS-COV2 for stock solutions leads to selection for mutations, including deletions within the FCS:
This seems to be an issue with research with other viruses as well, so there's a serious challenge where research into viruses may themselves, whether intentional or not, cause mutations to arise.
So this is my main concern with labeling anything as gain-of-function, since this may just mean that anything that alters a virus in any way should not be researched, in which case we probably would never be able to conduct any research into viruses at all. We also don't know whether the viruses being researched gain mutations due to the research, or as in the possible case above exist in some very low level among the population and then just gets selected for.
I don't know if the comments made about the 3'UTR mutant existing at some low level is accurate, and it would be a good excuse for doing such research, but it at least suggests there's more to the story than intentional passage to cause these mutations to arise.
I'm just pointing out that GoF discussion should be more targeted and examined through a more nuanced lens. As in this case, let's just say one main reason I wrote this article was due to Alex Berenson's piece, as sometimes I find his coverage of studies to sometimes be lacking.
Nice article that does show the ethical dilemma involved. I would like to know of any such GOF scientific manipulation that has benefited mankind. There may well be plenty of excuses for it, but how many reasons?
It really depends on what we consider GoF to begin with, and that seems to be the main dilemma. I think we consider it predominately through the lens of virulence and possible future pandemics when there may be more to the discussion. One thing that may be worth criticizing is the idea that any viral research should be done for the sake of learning something (if anything) from said research without considering the possible ramifications. That's certainly the sort of research that should be heavily scrutinized.
My objections to this latest bit of Chinese research are twofold: 1) that it involves creating viruses which do not exist in nature, and 2) there is little if any useful knowledge gleaned from this experiment.
https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/is-beijing-crafting-disease-x-from
The frivolity of the "research" is the problem. While any one GoF experiment may not produce a supremely dangerous pathogen, at a minimum any research that creates new viral strains not found in nature should be viewed skeptically, because by definition said research is proceeding from a fundamental unreality.
We've seen similar expressions of the frivolous nature of much viral research in the various tests and studies done on the mRNA inoculations, where their efficacy is established by whether or not the inoculation produces antibodies within a cell culture, NOT whether it stops disease in the real world.
GoF function research and even serial passage presumes that viral researchers have a full understanding of how viruses behave in the natural world--but if they had that understanding what would be the need for the research? That's a bit of hubris that should be a red flag to everyone.
So I should have made my post clear, but essentially one of the issues with any research with viruses is that you may incur mutations just through research alone, not even intentionally. For instance, you can have a group of people who intentionally pass viruses through several cell lines and see if they gain more selection for human cells, which would be seen with serious scrutiny due to the fact that such a study was done intentionally.
But what if you happen to just pass viruses through cell lines because you just need to grow more viruses to research? In which case the mutations are not intentional but are rather incidental to the need to have more viruses. As an example, there's evidence that passage of SARS-COV2 for stock solutions leads to selection for mutations, including deletions within the FCS:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-021-00346-z#Sec6
This seems to be an issue with research with other viruses as well, so there's a serious challenge where research into viruses may themselves, whether intentional or not, cause mutations to arise.
So this is my main concern with labeling anything as gain-of-function, since this may just mean that anything that alters a virus in any way should not be researched, in which case we probably would never be able to conduct any research into viruses at all. We also don't know whether the viruses being researched gain mutations due to the research, or as in the possible case above exist in some very low level among the population and then just gets selected for.
I don't know if the comments made about the 3'UTR mutant existing at some low level is accurate, and it would be a good excuse for doing such research, but it at least suggests there's more to the story than intentional passage to cause these mutations to arise.
I'm just pointing out that GoF discussion should be more targeted and examined through a more nuanced lens. As in this case, let's just say one main reason I wrote this article was due to Alex Berenson's piece, as sometimes I find his coverage of studies to sometimes be lacking.
Nice article that does show the ethical dilemma involved. I would like to know of any such GOF scientific manipulation that has benefited mankind. There may well be plenty of excuses for it, but how many reasons?
It really depends on what we consider GoF to begin with, and that seems to be the main dilemma. I think we consider it predominately through the lens of virulence and possible future pandemics when there may be more to the discussion. One thing that may be worth criticizing is the idea that any viral research should be done for the sake of learning something (if anything) from said research without considering the possible ramifications. That's certainly the sort of research that should be heavily scrutinized.
Exactly. Research for research’s sake maybe more to do with getting grants for monies sake. It’s starting to get into a circular argument.
Problems for 360 degrees