If what they are describing (marking strains using kanamycin) and creating deletion mutants really is what the NIH now considers gain-of-function research (nevermind dangerous) then all microbiology research has to stop immediately.
There's some debate in these comments about the origins of Covid, so I figured it'd be worth dropping the following testimony on the topic which I found eye opening:
IMO while the debate around COVID's origin is interesting, it's pretty much definitionally a waste of time.
1) We'll never actually know the answer
2) Even if we did, it wouldn't change anything about what we ought to do
There's no way China would be "punished" for something if it was a lab leak, and there's no way that [the actually dangerous end of] GoF research is a good risk-reward tradeoff anymore in light of instant mRNA vaccines.
Every breath spent pointing fingers on origin is another breath not spent on the remediations we have to do no matter who's responsible.
To me, a total outsider, developing antibiotic resistant strains of TB sounds at least "gain of function"-adjacent. Are there any experts here who would like to hazard a judgement?
I did this kind of work in a community college biotech program (literally biotech 102, we used E. Coli just to learn the technique). They are not engineering a new, deadlier strain of bacteria, they are using antibiotic resistance to solve a very simple problem: genetic modification is a probabilistic process, you have Gene A and need to get it into bacteria, but Gene A doesn't make the bacteria different externally in any easily detectable way.
So, after the process of inserting Gene A into a batch of bacteria you need to figure out which of the bacteria actually picked up Gene A so you can proceed to the next step of your experiment. So, what you do is you pair Gene A with Gene B, which is a very light resistance to a very specific antibiotic. Now, after you perform the electroporation, you plate the bacteria on agarose gel, let colonies start to develop, and then lightly dose the gel with the antibiotic.
The surviving bacterial colonies are those which have incorporated both Gene A and Gene B (because they are paired). It's just a way of filtering bacteria after electroporation so you can do further work. It's not dangerous to people because A) this antibiotic resistance was already found in nature, B) it's a resistance to a very specific antibiotic, not all antibiotics, and C) you're doing this in a protected lab.
This is an incredibly standard process, to the point where - again - I did this in a Biotech 102 program at community college. You could sign up for a classes where you learn to do this, right now.
Biologists modify cells so that we can study them. The modifications are about 0.00001% effective. If you attempt to modify 10^6 cells then maybe 20 cells will be modified. Most cells do not take the modification. So you need to select out the individual cells that have been modified.
You do this by including antibiotic resistance genes alongside your modification. Now all modified cells are resistant to the antibiotic. Then you apply a small amount antibiotic to kill the unmodified cells. Now you only have the cells with your interesting modification.
This is the mainstay of molecular biology. Every lab biologist has done it. We even do it as college students in lab practicals.
Banning the use of antibiotic resistance genes in biological research is effectively banning all wet lab medical research.
As the article states, it is technically a gain of function experiment. But what is actually prohibited are dangerous gain of function experiments.
This specific use of antibiotics resistance is also extremely common. Pretty much every single microbiology experiment starts this way, and every time you want to genetically modify bacteria you do this. This includes every time you want to produce any protein, because you need genetically modified bacteria for that. This is a large part of all labwork in this field.
As the article notes, the antiobiotic used is one that isn't used for humans. So there is not significant additional danger due to that modification. The bacterium itself is much more dangerous than most that are handled in the lab, but that's why they're in a BSL-3 lab.
I thought the point of the article was that it was indeed adjacent, but that in their particular case there was no risk because (1) the mutated bacteria are actually less virulent, and (2) the mutated bacteria are resistant to one particular type of antibiotic which is not in use due to safety issues, but they are not resistant to any of the drugs that are actually used in humans to treat TB.
Reminder that the Obama administration banned gain of function research due to its dangers. Only for Fauci to perform it through EcoHealth and WIV while claiming he’s not funding it.
They paused funding actual dangerous gain-of-function (as the article makes the distinction), while developing new guidelines for how it should be managed.
They then released the new framework of multi-layered review to clearly define the tradeoffs and how they were managed, and resumed funding for those that could meet the improved criteria.
ie it was standard research advancing regulatory risk management.
Has that ever been proved? All sources I can find are riddled in ambiguity. It's "one of two scenarios". I suppose we'll never really know for certain.
1) It would be lacking bio safety, not GoF research. There are plenty of dangerous viruses stored away for research, which could escape too. Would you like to ban storage aswell?
2) Viruses mutate even if we stop GoF research. So why not try to stay ahead of the curve.
3) Many people died because conspiracy fueled rejection from vaccines even up to masks. Or would you like to elaborate how many millions died because of the new mRNA vaccine?
I think it's unfair to call the theory that a coronavirus popping up next to the world's most active lab experimenting them may have come from the lab a conspiracy theory. I mean did we call people saying radiation from the Chernobyl reactor might have come from an accident conspiracy theorists?
The "conspiracy theorists" include the director of the CDC at the time who was actually in contact with the Chinese CDC and also a virologist, and also the chair of the one official investigation which visited Wuhan in the early days.
The article explains pretty well why this particular research isn't dangerous. It's technically gain of function, but if you prohibit any research that adds antibiotic resistance to bacteria you eliminated essentially all of microbiology research.
Perhaps it would be better to address the issues that can lead to an incident rather than stopping all research. Even counting the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall impact of gain-of-function research on health is still positive.
pazimzadeh|4 months ago
pazimzadeh|4 months ago
timschmidt|4 months ago
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/Testimony-Qu...
It references a great deal of information from https://project-evidence.github.io/
And I've found Jamie Metzl's collection of resources interesting as well: https://jamiemetzl.com/origins-of-sars-cov-2/
rhubarbtree|4 months ago
estearum|4 months ago
1) We'll never actually know the answer
2) Even if we did, it wouldn't change anything about what we ought to do
There's no way China would be "punished" for something if it was a lab leak, and there's no way that [the actually dangerous end of] GoF research is a good risk-reward tradeoff anymore in light of instant mRNA vaccines.
Every breath spent pointing fingers on origin is another breath not spent on the remediations we have to do no matter who's responsible.
fergie|4 months ago
solid_fuel|4 months ago
So, after the process of inserting Gene A into a batch of bacteria you need to figure out which of the bacteria actually picked up Gene A so you can proceed to the next step of your experiment. So, what you do is you pair Gene A with Gene B, which is a very light resistance to a very specific antibiotic. Now, after you perform the electroporation, you plate the bacteria on agarose gel, let colonies start to develop, and then lightly dose the gel with the antibiotic.
The surviving bacterial colonies are those which have incorporated both Gene A and Gene B (because they are paired). It's just a way of filtering bacteria after electroporation so you can do further work. It's not dangerous to people because A) this antibiotic resistance was already found in nature, B) it's a resistance to a very specific antibiotic, not all antibiotics, and C) you're doing this in a protected lab.
This is an incredibly standard process, to the point where - again - I did this in a Biotech 102 program at community college. You could sign up for a classes where you learn to do this, right now.
sjducb|4 months ago
You do this by including antibiotic resistance genes alongside your modification. Now all modified cells are resistant to the antibiotic. Then you apply a small amount antibiotic to kill the unmodified cells. Now you only have the cells with your interesting modification.
This is the mainstay of molecular biology. Every lab biologist has done it. We even do it as college students in lab practicals.
Banning the use of antibiotic resistance genes in biological research is effectively banning all wet lab medical research.
fabian2k|4 months ago
This specific use of antibiotics resistance is also extremely common. Pretty much every single microbiology experiment starts this way, and every time you want to genetically modify bacteria you do this. This includes every time you want to produce any protein, because you need genetically modified bacteria for that. This is a large part of all labwork in this field.
As the article notes, the antiobiotic used is one that isn't used for humans. So there is not significant additional danger due to that modification. The bacterium itself is much more dangerous than most that are handled in the lab, but that's why they're in a BSL-3 lab.
ulrikrasmussen|4 months ago
ggm|4 months ago
JV00|4 months ago
CalChris|4 months ago
kedihacker|4 months ago
SilverElfin|4 months ago
Quarrel|4 months ago
They then released the new framework of multi-layered review to clearly define the tradeoffs and how they were managed, and resumed funding for those that could meet the improved criteria.
ie it was standard research advancing regulatory risk management.
yeahrightthere|4 months ago
[deleted]
tentacleuno|4 months ago
throwawayqqq11|4 months ago
1) It would be lacking bio safety, not GoF research. There are plenty of dangerous viruses stored away for research, which could escape too. Would you like to ban storage aswell?
2) Viruses mutate even if we stop GoF research. So why not try to stay ahead of the curve.
3) Many people died because conspiracy fueled rejection from vaccines even up to masks. Or would you like to elaborate how many millions died because of the new mRNA vaccine?
hackingonempty|4 months ago
The evidence for zoonotic origin of SARS-COV2 is very strong[0] and the conspiracy theorists as usual have little more than speculation.
[0] https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annur...
BryantD|4 months ago
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-r... https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comment...
tim333|4 months ago
The "conspiracy theorists" include the director of the CDC at the time who was actually in contact with the Chinese CDC and also a virologist, and also the chair of the one official investigation which visited Wuhan in the early days.
chaostheory|4 months ago
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S07554...
https://www.newsweek.com/controversial-wuhan-lab-experiments...
https://www.newsweek.com/covid-lab-leak-china-virus-nuclear-...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/10/covid-origins-invest...
https://www.propublica.org/article/senate-report-covid-19-or...
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bies.202000...
fabian2k|4 months ago
JV00|4 months ago
jbstack|4 months ago
solid_fuel|4 months ago