Ora, è vero che a Wuhan facevano chimere a scopi di ricerca, ma questi due virus sono troppo diversi da SARS2 per essere i suoi antenati diretti. 2/
Il nuovo #coronavirus infatti ha una similarità dell'87% con questi due virus, troppo poco per essere il risultato di una loro ricombinazione (il virus più simile a SARS2 è #RaTG13). 3/
La virologa sostiene inoltre che i cinesi avrebbero "corretto" il genoma di SARS2 caricato in database, per nascondere la somiglianza con i due virus di partenza.
A me non risulta: la seconda versione del genoma caricato in Genbank è praticamente identica alla prima. 4/
In ogni caso, anche se avessero fatto questa correzione, #SARSCoV2 ha ormai girato il mondo (ahimè) ed è stato sequenziato migliaia di volte. Se ci fosse stata una chiara somiglianza con ZC45 e ZXC21 qualcuno se ne sarebbe accorto! 5/
Sono il primo ad avere dubbi sulla Cina: temo non siano stati totalmente trasparenti e forse non ci hanno detto tutto sulle origini del virus. Ma la tesi di #LiMengYan non mi convince per niente!
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It took me some time to read all the Slack conversations between the #ProximalOrigin authors (not just the cheery-picked quotes), but it was a useful exercise.
It showed in real time how their thinking evolved with new evidence, as the authors themselves have been saying. 1/
So now I have no doubt that they did change their mind because of new information, i.e. #pangolin CoVs with similar RBD and bat virus with putative insertions in the FCS spot.
Of course one could wonder if their assessments were correct, but that's a separate issue. 2/
The only thing I still don't understand is: why did they add that word "plausible" in the final version (4th March)?
That statement was very strong, but did not correspond to their level of confidence, as far as I could see from their exchanges. 3/
"The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" will probably be one of the most debated and criticized papers of all times. @edwardcholmes has shared the responses to the reviewers, which is interesting especially because some critics said it wasn't peer reviewed. 1/ documentcloud.org/documents/2373…
Reviewer #1 would like to know the authors' view on the possibility of a lab leak of a natural virus. Their response clarifies why they believed no lab scenario was plausible: the opportunities for animal-to-human spillovers are more frequent. 2/
As it often happens, Reviewer #2 has more criticisms to raise, but not in the direction we might have expected. He almost seems to believe that a lab origin for SARS2 is so absurd that writing a manuscript about it is a useless exercise. 2/
Ok guys, for me the #OriginOfCovid debate has come to an end. After I changed my mind on the most probable origin, Twitter interactions have become more difficult for me. 1/
When I was on the lab leak side it was much easier. The zoonosis proponents have never insulted me, the worse thing they did to me was blocking me. But in the last few months, debating this topic on Twitter has become less and less pleasant. 2/
I have been called dumb and biased. My words have been twisted, screenshots have been taken and posted to ridicule me. Now, someone has even posted a thread claiming that I am a CCP tool. 3/
As I always do, I tried to keep an open mind about this recent preprint. I also invited people to avoid insults and read the paper before criticizing it.
I read several technical comments from experts, and unfortunately it didn't end well for the authors. 1/
This is the most obvious mistake, which IMO invalidates the conclusion of the paper. The restriction enzymes that have been analysed cut outside their recognition site, which means that cloning strategies using them remove the sites in the final product 2/
See for example this figure from a WIV paper (Hu et al, 2017). Once you cut the sequences where the red lines are, and ligate the fragments in the correct other.. the red letters are gone. In other words, if they used these enzymes, you wouldn't see the sites in the genome. 3/
I share this preprint to encourage all virologists, bioinformaticians and molecular biologists to address it and search for flaws. I know emotions run high, but please try to be civil and express your criticisms as clearly as possible for the general public. 1/
I will post the most interesting responses that I found on Twitter, and update the thread whenever new comments are posted. Here's @BallouxFrancois endorsement. 2/
C'è molta curiosità intorno a @PossibileIt e al suo programma per le #Elezioni2022, ma siccome molti sono intimoriti dal file PDF di 95 pagine ho deciso di raccogliere in questo thread i punti principali. 1/
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