News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Molecular biology clues portray SARS-CoV-2 as a lab manipulation of RaTG13. Parent comment

Re:Molecular biology clues portray SARS-CoV-2 as a lab manip... by alien_ on Sunday May 30, 2021 @05:02PM (#27336717)
There's this other article https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop... which among other things explains that gain of function is technically defined as modifying existing human viruses to make them more dangerous.

The SARS2 quite likely isn't based on an existing human virus but on a bat coronavirus.

The NIH has been apparently funding modifying bat coronaviruses in Wuhan with minimal guardrails as to be able to infect humanized lab mice but that's not gain of function as per that definition.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Molecular biology clues portray SARS-CoV-2 as a lab manip... by late2part on Sunday May 30, 2021 @05:53PM (#27337224)
Well, despite your technical definition, it would seem it gained function.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Molecular biology clues portray SARS-CoV-2 as a lab manip... by ncmncm on Sunday May 30, 2021 @09:38PM (#27338997)
It gained function without involving any of what are formally considered gain-of-function operations. So, Fauci could fund it, and also truthfully testify under oath that he didn't fund anything that, by the definition, would count as GoF work. That a virus did gain function, by operations not covered by the definition, is a separate problem: The definition should be widened enough to cover what really happened.
[ Parent | on HN ]