Richard H. Ebright Profile picture
Sep 10, 2021 13 tweets 2 min read Read on X
"Scientists working under..NIH grant to..study bat coronaviruses combined..genetic material from a 'parent'..virus..with other viruses. They twice submitted summaries..that showed..three altered..viruses..reproduced far more quickly than..original virus"

interc.pt/3Ccridd
"The Intercept consulted 11 scientists who are virologists or work in adjacent fields and hold a range of views on both the ethics of gain-of-function research and the Covid-19 origins search."
"All but two of the scientists consulted agreed that, whatever title it is given, the newly public experiment raised serious concerns about the safety and oversight of federally funded research"
"Jesse Bloom: "As a virologist, I personally think creating chimeras of SARS-related bat coronaviruses that are thought to pose high risk to humans entails unacceptable risks""
Jacques van Helden: "The real question is whether or not research has the potential to create or facilitate the selection of viruses that might infect humans. The experiments described in the proposal clearly do have that potential"
Vincent Racaniello: "There’s no question..From the weight loss, it’s gain of function. Tony Fauci is wrong saying it’s not."
"Inside the lungs of the humanized mice, however, the novel viruses..reproduced far more quickly than the original virus that was used to create them..The viral load in the lung tissue of the mice was, at certain points, up to 10,000 times higher..with the altered viruses" Image
"Another figure in the documents suggests that at least one of the altered viruses not only enhanced viral reproduction, but also caused the humanized mice to lose more weight than those exposed to the original virus — a measure of the severity of illness."
"[T]he Notice of Award the agency issued..said..[i]f any..chimeras show..enhanced virus growth greater than 1 log..the researchers were..to stop all experiments..The enhanced growth of the chimeric..viruses..was..4 log greater..But there are no indications..research was stopped."
"In fact, the bat coronavirus grant was renewed for a five-year period in 2019"
"[T]he documents do not prove Paul’s claim that Fauci was lying, as they do not make clear whether Fauci read them"

"What is clear is that program officers at NIAID, the agency that Fauci oversees, did know about the research."
"A paragraph describing the research, as well as two figures illustrating its results, were included in both a 2018 progress report on the bat coronavirus grant and an application for its 2019 renewal. And NIH confirmed that it reviewed them."
If NIH Director Francis Collins has an interest in self-preservation, he will announce: (1) after re-reviewing documents, he has concluded the grant supported gain of function, (2) his staff failed to note this previously, and (3) measures will be taken to prevent future failures

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More from @R_H_Ebright

Sep 14
""We may never know the full story of the pandemic's origin. But if this were a bureaucratic whodunit, the most likely suspect would be Fauci. COVID-19 was Fauci's pandemic."

reason.com/2024/09/14/fau…
"The evidence is not fully conclusive. But it seems…likely…Fauci pushed for what his peers repeatedly said was dangerous research, that some of that dangerous research produced a deadly viral pathogen that escaped the lab, and that Fauci helped cover up…its origins."
"Prior to COVID-19, Fauci had long supported funding pandemic research that other scientists found risky, if not downright dangerous."
Read 23 tweets
Sep 10
There is now no doubt that Covid leaked from a lab

spiked-online.com/2024/09/10/the…
"[W]hat happened in Wuhan, China was worse than a thousand Bhopals. It killed around 28million people – and was by far the most lethal industrial or scientific accident that has ever occurred."
"The outbreak began not just in one of the very few cities doing research on this kind of virus, but also in the city with the biggest SARS-like virus research programme on the planet"
Read 17 tweets
Sep 6
WHO, 09/04/24: "Timely investigations into pathogen…origins are critical for preventing and containing global health crises. The…findings provide the basis for...halting transmission chains...They can also confirm…the possibility of a...breach in…biosafety and biosecurity." Image
"There are a number of tools available for investigating infectious disease outbreaks, but there is not a unified, structured approach to investigating the origins of a novel pathogen’s initial emergence or re-emergence."
"This World Health Organization (WHO) global framework - to define and guide studies into the origins of emerging and re-emerging pathogens of epidemic and pandemic potential - aims to fill that gap by providing a recommended set of investigations and studies"
Read 11 tweets
Sep 4
"The pipeline of new antibiotics is insufficient to keep pace with the growing global burden of drug-resistant infections. Substantial economic challenges discourage private investment in antibiotic research and development"

nature.com/articles/s4159…
"In 2019, there were 4.95 M deaths associated with drug-resistant infections, including 1.27 M directly attributable deaths. Data...indicate...life expectancy globally will be reduced by 1.8 years over the next decade without specific action to address antimicrobial resistance"
"The antibiotic pipeline remains insufficient for current and anticipated future needs; so there continues to be an urgent need to develop innovative antimicrobials"
Read 10 tweets
Aug 20
"[R]esearchers have developed sophisticated understandings of…biology, allowing for…development of remarkably deadly…pathogens…They have learned how to evolve existing viruses to spread more easily…and…to engineer viruses to make them more deadly."
foreignaffairs.com/world/new-biow…
"It remains unclear whether COVID-19 arose from such activities or entered the human population via interaction with wildlife. Either way, it is clear that biological technology, now boosted by artificial intelligence, has made it simpler than ever to produce diseases."
"Should a human-made or human-improved pathogen escape or be released from a lab, the consequences could be catastrophic."
Read 7 tweets
Aug 8
Structural basis of RfaH-dependent transcription-translation coupling termination

(Collaboration between our laboratory and laboratories of Gregor Blaha and Chengyuan Wang.)

nature.com/articles/s4159…
"Here we report cryo-EM structures of transcription‑translation complexes (TTCs) containing RfaH. The results show that RfaH bridges RNAP and the ribosome, with the RfaH N-terminal domain interacting with RNAP, and with the RfaH C-terminal domain interacting with the ribosome." Image
"The results show that the distribution of translational and orientational positions of RNAP relative to the ribosome in RfaH-coupled TTCs is more restricted than in NusG-coupled TTCs, due to the more restricted flexibility of the RfaH interdomain linker." Image
Read 4 tweets

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