Richard H. Ebright Profile picture
Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Founder and CEO, APY Therapeutics, LLC @RutgersU @APYTherapeutics @BiosafetyNow

Sep 21, 2021, 7 tweets

"Wuhan scientists were planning to release enhanced airborne coronaviruses into Chinese bat populations to inoculate them against diseases that could jump to humans, leaked grant proposals dating from 2018 show."

telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/2…

"They also planned to create chimeric viruses, genetically enhanced to infect humans more easily, and requested $14million from the [US] Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to fund the work."

"The bid was submitted by British zoologist Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, the US-based organisation, which has worked closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researching bat coronaviruses. Team members included..Shi Zhengli, the WIV researcher dubbed 'bat woman'"

"Darpa refused to fund the work, saying: 'It is clear that the proposed project led by Peter Daszak could have put local communities at risk', and warned..the team had not properly considered..dangers of enhancing..virus (gain of function research) or releasing a vaccine by air."

"Viscount Ridley..called for..investigation..in..House of Lords..'For more than a year I tried..to ask questions of..Daszak with no response. Now it turns out he..authored this vital piece of information about..work in Wuhan but refused to share it with the world. I am furious.'"

"So should the world be."

* The proposal calls for aerosol delivery of recombinant SARSr CoV spike proteins in nanoparticles or in orthopoxviral vectors. Not aerosol delivery of SARSr CoVs.

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