{"id":323350,"date":"2021-09-23T18:16:04","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T18:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=371091"},"modified":"2021-09-23T18:16:04","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T18:16:04","slug":"leaked-grant-proposal-details-high-risk-coronavirus-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/09\/23\/leaked-grant-proposal-details-high-risk-coronavirus-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaked Grant Proposal Details High-Risk Coronavirus Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

A grant proposal<\/u>\u00a0written by<\/a> the U.S.-based nonprofit the EcoHealth Alliance and submitted in 2018 to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, provides evidence that the group was working \u2014 or at least planning to work \u2014 on several risky areas of research. Among the scientific tasks the group described in its proposal, which was rejected by DARPA, was the creation of full-length infectious clones of bat SARS-related coronaviruses and the insertion of a tiny part of the virus known as a \u201cproteolytic cleavage site\u201d into bat coronaviruses. Of particular interest was a type of cleavage site able to interact with furin, an enzyme expressed in human cells.<\/p>\n

The EcoHealth Alliance did not respond to inquiries about the document, despite having answered previous queries from The Intercept about the group\u2019s government-funded coronavirus research. The group\u2019s president, Peter Daszak, acknowledged the public discussion of an unfunded\u00a0EcoHealth proposal in a tweet<\/a> on Saturday. He did not dispute its authenticity.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Since the genetic code of the coronavirus that caused the pandemic was first sequenced, scientists have puzzled over the \u201cfurin cleavage site.\u201d This strange feature on the spike protein of the virus had never been seen in SARS-related betacoronaviruses, the class to which SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the respiratory illness Covid-19, belongs.<\/p>\n

The furin cleavage site enables the virus to more efficiently bind to and release its genetic material into a human cell and is one of the reasons that the virus is so easily transmissible and harmful. But scientists are divided over how this particular site wound up in the virus, and the cleavage site became a major focus of the heated debate over the origins of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Many who believe that the virus that caused the pandemic emerged from a laboratory have pointed out that it is unlikely that the particular sequence of amino acids\u00a0that make up the furin cleavage site would have occurred naturally.<\/p>\n

Adherents of the idea that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a natural spillover from animal hosts have argued that it could have evolved naturally from an as-yet undiscovered virus. Further, they argued, scientists were unlikely to have engineered the feature.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no logical reason why an engineered virus would utilize such a suboptimal furin cleavage site, which would entail such an unusual and needlessly complex feat of genetic engineering,\u201d 23 scientists wrote earlier this month in an\u00a0article<\/a> in the\u00a0journal Cell. \u201cThere is no evidence of prior research at the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] involving the artificial insertion of complete furin cleavage sites into coronaviruses.”<\/p>\n

But the proposal describes the process of looking for\u00a0novel furin cleavage sites in bat coronaviruses the scientists had\u00a0sampled and inserting them into the spikes of SARS-related viruses in the laboratory.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will introduce appropriate human-specific cleavage sites and evaluate growth potential in [a type of mammalian cell commonly used in microbiology] and HAE cultures,\u201d referring to cells\u00a0found in the lining of the human airway, the proposal states.<\/p>\n

The new proposal, which also described a plan to mass vaccinate bats in caves, does not provide conclusive evidence that the virus that caused the pandemic emerged from a lab. And virus experts remain sharply divided over its origins. But several scientists who work with coronaviruses told The Intercept that they felt that the proposal shifted the terrain of the debate.<\/p>\n\n <\/iframe>\n \n

Tipping the Scales<\/h3>\n

\u201cSome kind of threshold has been crossed,\u201d said Alina Chan, a Boston-based scientist and co-author of the upcoming book \u201cViral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.\u201d Chan has been vocal about the need to thoroughly investigate the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a lab while remaining open to both possible theories of its development. For Chan, the revelation from the proposal was the description of the insertion of a novel furin cleavage site into bat coronaviruses \u2014 something people previously speculated, but had no evidence, may have happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s look at the big picture: A novel SARS coronavirus emerges in Wuhan with a novel cleavage site in it. We now have evidence that, in early 2018, they had pitched inserting novel cleavage sites into novel SARS-related viruses in their lab,\u201d said Chan. \u201cThis definitely tips the scales for me. And I think it should do that for many other scientists too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University who has espoused the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in a lab, agreed. \u201cThe relevance of this is that SARS Cov-2, the pandemic virus, is the only virus in its entire genus of SARS-related coronaviruses that contains a fully functional cleavage site at the S1, S2 junction,\u201d said Ebright, referring to the place where two subunits of the spike protein meet. \u201cAnd here is a proposal from the beginning of 2018, proposing explicitly to engineer that sequence at that position in chimeric lab-generated coronaviruses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA possible transmission chain is now logically consistent \u2014 which it was not before I read the proposal.\u201d<\/blockquote><\/p>\n

Martin Wikelski, a director at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, whose work tracking bats and other animals was referenced in the grant application without his knowledge, also said it made him more open to the idea that the pandemic may have its roots in a lab. \u201cThe information in the proposal certainly changes my thoughts about a possible origin of SARS-CoV-2,\u201d Wikelski told The Intercept. \u201cIn fact, a possible transmission chain is now logically consistent \u2014 which it was not before I read the proposal.\u201d<\/p>\n

But others insisted that the research posed little or no threat and pointed out that the proposal called for most of the genetic engineering work to be done in North Carolina rather than China. \u201cGiven that the work wasn\u2019t funded and wasn\u2019t proposed to take place in Wuhan anyway it\u2019s hard to assess any bearing on the origin of SARS-CoV-2,\u201d Stephen Goldstein, a scientist who studies the evolution of viral genes at the University of Utah, and an author of the recent Cell article, wrote in an email to The Intercept.<\/p>\n

Other scientists contacted by The Intercept noted that there is published evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was already engaged in some of the genetic engineering work described in the proposal and that viruses designed in North Carolina could easily be used in China. \u201cThe mail is filled with little envelopes with plasmid dried on to filter paper that scientists routinely send each other,\u201d said Jack Nunberg, director of the Montana Biotechnology Center at the University of Montana.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/p>\n

Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, was adamant that the proposal did not change his opinion that the pandemic was caused by a natural spillover from animals to humans. \u201cThere are zero data to support a lab origin \u2018notion,\u2019\u201d Racaniello wrote in an email.\u00a0He said he believed that the research being proposed had the potential to fall in the category of gain-of-function research of concern, as did an experiment that was detailed in another grant proposal<\/a> recently obtained by The Intercept. The government funds such research, in which scientists intentionally make viruses more pathogenic or transmissible in order to study them, only in a narrow range of circumstances<\/a>. And DARPA rejected the proposal at least in part because of concerns that it involved such research.<\/p>\n

While Racaniello acknowledged that the research in the DARPA proposal entailed some danger, he said \u201cthe benefits far, far outweigh the risk.\u201d He also said the fact that the viruses described in the proposal were not known pathogens mitigated the concern. \u201cThis is not SARS,\u201d he said, referring to SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused a 2003 outbreak. \u201cIt’s SARS-related.\u201d<\/p>\n

But SARS-CoV-2 is not a direct descendant of that virus \u2014 it\u2019s a relative.<\/p>\n

In fact, the viruses described in the grant proposal were not known pathogens. And the authors of the grant proposal make the case that because the scientists would be using SARS-related bat viruses, as opposed to the SARS virus that was known to infect humans, the research was exempt from \u201cgain-of-function concerns.\u201d But according to several scientists interviewed by The Intercept, the viruses presented a threat nevertheless.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work describes generating full-length bat SARS-related coronaviruses that are thought to pose a risk of human spillover. And that’s the type of work that people could plausibly postulate could have led to a lab-associated origin of SARS-CoV-2,\u201d said Jesse Bloom, a professor at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and director of the Bloom Lab, which studies the evolution of viruses. Bloom pointed out that the scientists acknowledge the risk to humans in their proposal. \u201cIt’s an explicit goal of the grant to identify the bat SARS-related coronaviruses that they think pose the highest risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stuart Newman, a professor of cell biology who directs the developmental biology laboratory at New York Medical College, also said the fact that the viruses weren\u2019t known to be dangerous didn\u2019t preclude the possibility that they might become so. \u201cThat’s really disingenuous,\u201d Newman said of the argument. \u201cThe people that are claiming natural emergence say that it begins with a bat virus that evolved to be compatible with humans. If you use that logic, then this virus could be a threat because it could also make that transition.\u201d Newman, a longtime critic of\u00a0gain-of-function\u00a0research and founder of the Council for Responsible Genetics, said that the proposal confirmed some of his\u00a0worst fears. “This is not like slightly stepping over the line,” said Newman.\u00a0“This is doing everything that people say is going to cause a pandemic if you do it.”<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/p>\n

While the grant proposal does not provide the smoking gun that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab, for some scientists it adds to the evidence that it might have. \u201cWhether that particular study did or didn’t [lead to the pandemic], it certainly could have,\u201d said Nunberg, of Montana Biotechnology Center. \u201cOnce you make an unnatural virus, you’re basically setting it up in an unstable evolutionary place. The virus is going to undergo a whole bunch of changes to try and cope with its imperfections. So who knows what will come of it.\u201d The risks of such research are profound and irreversible, he said. \u201cYou can’t call back the virus once you release it into the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The largely anonymous online group DRASTIC published the full text of the proposal on Tuesday. The right-wing outlet Sky News Australia detailed its contents in a sensationalist one-hour documentary featuring an interview with former President Donald Trump, which also aired Tuesday in the U.S. on Fox Nation.<\/p>\n

DARPA, a division of the Department of Defense, said regulations prevented it from confirming that it had reviewed the proposal. \u201cSince EcoHealth Alliance may or may not be the direct source of the material in question, and we are precluded by Federal Acquisition Regulations from divulging bidders or any associated proposal details, we recommend that you reach out to them to confirm the document\u2019s authenticity,\u201d a DARPA spokesperson\u00a0wrote in an email to The Intercept. The British Daily Telegraph reported that it had confirmed the document\u2019s legitimacy with a former member of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

The Telegraph story erroneously reported that the scientists proposed to inoculate bats with live <\/em>viruses. In fact, they hoped to inoculate them with chimeric S proteins, which were proposed to be developed through a subcontract in the grant in Ralph Baric\u2019s lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, not in Wuhan. Baric did not respond to The Intercept\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

Conflict of Interest<\/h3>\n

Many questions remain about the proposal, including whether any of the research described in it was completed. Even without the DARPA funding, there were many other potential ways to pay for the experiments. And scientists interviewed for this article agreed that often researchers do some of the science they describe in proposals before or after they submit them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a highly funded\u00a0group of researchers that wouldn\u2019t let one rejection halt their work,\u201d said Chan, the\u00a0\u201cViral\u201d author.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most troubling question about the proposal is why, within the small group of scientists who have been searching for information that could shed light on the origins of the pandemic, there\u00a0has apparently been\u00a0so little awareness of the planned work until now. Peter Daszak and Linfa Wang, two of the researchers who submitted the proposal, did not previously acknowledge it.<\/p>\n

Daszak, the EcoHealth Alliance president, has actively\u00a0sought to\u00a0quash interest in the idea that the\u00a0novel coronavirus originated in a lab. In February 2020, as the pandemic began to grip major cities in the U.S.,\u00a0he\u00a0began organizing scientists to write an open letter<\/a> that was published in the Lancet addressing the origins of the virus. \u201cThe rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins,\u201d read the statement\u00a0signed by Daszak and 26 co-authors. \u201cWe stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daszak directed and gathered signatures for the letter, all the while suggesting that he and his collaborators on the proposed DARPA project, Baric and Wang, distance themselves from the effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke with Linfa [Wang] last night about the statement we sent round. He thinks, and I agree with him, that you, me and him should not sign this statement, so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn’t work in a counterproductive way,\u201d Daszak wrote\u00a0to Baric in February 2020, just weeks before it appeared in the journal, according to an email<\/a> surfaced a year later by public health investigative research group U.S. Right to Know.\u00a0\u201cWe’ll then put it out in a way that doesn’t link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice.\u201d Ultimately, Daszak did sign the letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also think this is a good decision,\u201d Baric replied. \u201cOtherwise it looks self-serving and we lose impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baric and Wang did not respond to inquiries from The Intercept about their decision not to sign the letter in the Lancet.<\/p>\n

Daszak and Wang \u2014 a professor in the emerging infectious diseases program at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore \u2014 were also members of the joint team the World Health Organization sent to China in February 2020 to investigate the origins of the pandemic, which concluded that it was \u201cextremely unlikely\u201d that the virus had been released from a laboratory. (In March, WHO\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0for further investigation of the origins of the virus and stated that \u201call hypotheses remain open.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it really disappointing that two of the members of the joint WHO-China team, which is essentially the group of scientists that were tasked as representatives of both the scientific community and the World Health Organization of investigating this, are actually on this proposal, knew that this line of research was at least under consideration, and didn\u2019t mention it all,\u201d said Bloom, of Fred Hutch. \u201cWhatever information that relates to help people think about this just needs to be made transparently available and explained.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Leaked Grant Proposal Details High-Risk Coronavirus Research<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The proposal, rejected by U.S. military research agency DARPA, describes the insertion of human-specific cleavage sites into SARS-related bat coronaviruses.<\/p>\n

The post Leaked Grant Proposal Details High-Risk Coronavirus Research<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,340],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323350"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325666,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323350\/revisions\/325666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}