Group in Switzerland has recreated the coronavirus in part from synthetic DNA.
They ordered the genetic parts from a Chinese company, Genscript
(1/thread)
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
They ordered the genetic parts from a Chinese company, Genscript
(1/thread)
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
This is a record. The sequence went online January 14th and this team managed to recreate the virus about a month later.
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It wasnt wholly synthetic. They ended up getting a copy of the genome of the real virus from which they grabbed a couple of bits that proved hard to synthesize.
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We published a story about this kind of undertaking last week, focussing on a lab in North Carolina also working on it.
4/ technologyreview.com/s/615231/biolo…
4/ technologyreview.com/s/615231/biolo…
5/ Tell you the truth: I'd never heard of this group in Switzerland, at the Institute of Virology at University of Bern.
That's why synthesis creeps people out. Hard to tell who is doing it and, therefore, who has the virus.
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That's why synthesis creeps people out. Hard to tell who is doing it and, therefore, who has the virus.
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