Recommendable! However, it is bizarre! So the mice were engineered to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection????
On the one hand, we want to understand pathogenic viruses better, on the other hand, what risks are involved in this research (e.g. lab leak, terrorist attack or theft etc.).
Remember the gain of function research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the global pandemic e.g. sponsored by none other than Anthony Fauci most likely in circumvention of U.S. regulations!
The article also confirms that variants of SARS-CoV-2 are harmless.
"When researchers at Boston University (BU) in Massachusetts inserted a gene from the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 into a strain of the virus from the beginning of the pandemic, they were trying to understand why Omicron causes mild disease. ...
But the experiments, described in a 14 October preprint1, have ignited a red-hot controversy over what constitutes truly risky SARS-CoV-2 research ...
At issue is whether — and when — researchers modifying SARS-CoV-2 or other deadly pathogens need to keep regulators and funding agencies such as the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) informed about their work, even if the agencies didn’t fund the experiments in question. Studies that make pathogens more transmissible or virulent are sometimes called ‘gain of function’ research. ...
Unlike BA.1, which usually causes mild, non-fatal disease, this strain caused severe disease in mice engineered to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection [???]. Eight of the ten mice exposed to the strain died or had to be killed as a result of weight loss and other consequences of the infection. ...
This research is valuable because it suggests that the factors that make certain strains of SARS-CoV-2 deadly might lie outside the spike protein ...
The work had been approved by a BU biosafety committee, as well as a Boston city public-health board, and was conducted in a biocontainment facility deemed safe for work with SARS-CoV-2. But it is unclear whether the BU study has run afoul of any rules governing risky pathogen research. Under current guidelines, any research funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — of which the NIH is part — that can be “reasonably anticipated” to make a potential pandemic pathogen (PPP) more virulent or transmissible should undergo extra review. ..."
But the experiments, described in a 14 October preprint1, have ignited a red-hot controversy over what constitutes truly risky SARS-CoV-2 research ...
At issue is whether — and when — researchers modifying SARS-CoV-2 or other deadly pathogens need to keep regulators and funding agencies such as the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) informed about their work, even if the agencies didn’t fund the experiments in question. Studies that make pathogens more transmissible or virulent are sometimes called ‘gain of function’ research. ...
Unlike BA.1, which usually causes mild, non-fatal disease, this strain caused severe disease in mice engineered to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection [???]. Eight of the ten mice exposed to the strain died or had to be killed as a result of weight loss and other consequences of the infection. ...
This research is valuable because it suggests that the factors that make certain strains of SARS-CoV-2 deadly might lie outside the spike protein ...
The work had been approved by a BU biosafety committee, as well as a Boston city public-health board, and was conducted in a biocontainment facility deemed safe for work with SARS-CoV-2. But it is unclear whether the BU study has run afoul of any rules governing risky pathogen research. Under current guidelines, any research funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — of which the NIH is part — that can be “reasonably anticipated” to make a potential pandemic pathogen (PPP) more virulent or transmissible should undergo extra review. ..."
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