1. Thread on #DARPA History - Synthetic Polio Virus

Created under the DARPA Biological Warfare Defense Program

web.archive.org/web/2014011302…
2. Multi-agent/agent specific thrust

"the approach. will be targeted to a specific pathogen, but It Is applicable to several different pathogens. For example, an approach may be used to develop therapeutics against 20 different pathogens"
3. Professor Ron Taylor

This project started in May 1996 at the University of Virginia. Taylor and his colleagues developed a heteropolymer that functions on the one end to connect to the CR 1 site of the red blood cells, while the other end is tailored to the specific pathogen.
4. Mesenchymal Stem Cells

DARPA also funded research into mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) modified to have surface receptors designed for specific pathogens. When pathogen is detected, part of cell's DNA Is turned on to produce a gene protein product targeted to kill the pathogen
5. Strategy

To address specific Biological warfare agents, we will fund work at facilities such as USAMRIID, where actual bioagents are. kept. to determine If the therapeutics are effective In animal models.
6. Pharmaceutical Industry

DARPA will provide the thrust & the biotech industry & pharmaceutical industries will take over these products (clinical testing & development) to commercialize them for their own purposes.

DoD will then procure them via "normal" commercial routes
7. Unconventional Pathogen Countermeasures

"The most sinister offensive biological warfare scenario employs surprise, Immediate proximity &
rapidly lethal, persistent agents in overwhelming quantities"

BAA 97-23 Pathogen Countermeasures

Program Manager: CPR Shaun Jones, MD,USN
8. Advanced. Diagnostics

Program Manager: Dr. Stephen Morse

BAA 97-24 Advanced Diagnostics for Pathogens
9. Red Blood Cell Pathogen Decoy & Destruction
University of Virginia
Boston University - Mark Bitensky birensky@enra.bu.etlu
10. Sequential Auto Vaccination by Stem Cells

Daniel R. Marshak
dmarshak@osiristx.com
OSIRIS Therapeutics, Inc. .
Baltimore, MD
11. Too Radical for NIH? Try DARPA

@Peterdaszak #DEFUSE

You have a radically new idea for fighting pathogens that colleagues are dubious about
Where would you go for funding?
To the NIH?
NIH would ask a committee of peers to evaluate it who can be brutal about radical concepts
12. Scripps - DARPA - Lerner

Richard Lerner, president of The Scripps Research Institute, another DARPA adviser, notes that the agency needs to keep in mind that ''you never know what you want to discover until you discover it."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_L…
13. Dr. Chris Dickey

publichealth.nyu.edu/faculty/chris-… ?

DARPA was unable to locate any documents concerning "human cellular platforms used for biological warfare therapy," as you requested.

DARPA advises that this division does not exist, nor does DARPA have such a research program
14.Synthetic Polio

DARPA failed to inform anyone that one of its “unconventional” projects was $US300,000 ($393,939) to fund a trio of scientists who thought it would be a neat idea to synthesise polio.

gizmodo.com.au/2016/03/the-10…
15. DIY Polio @antonioregalado

They constructed the virus using its genome sequence, which was available on the Internet, and obtained the genetic material from companies that sell made-to-order DNA.

ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/cre…
16. Frightening the Public!

"I think this is irresponsible," says Craig Venter

He says the work carries an alarmist message that could frighten the public & prompt legislators to put more controls on basic research

"It has the chance to hurt the entire scientific community"
17. #DARPA's Secret

Dr. Wimmer's work was funded with $160K from DARPA, while he served as an adviser

DARPA didn't disclose this project among its grants under the Unconventional Pathogen Countermeasures program

Dr. Wimmer isn't sure why the agency kept the project secret...
18. #DARPA's unpublished projects

"A Darpa spokesman said not all the agency's work is posted on its Web site"

ROLF

darpa.mil
19. Dr. Cello's DNA Lego Building Blocks

But building up the long chain of DNA from smaller pieces proved frustratingly difficult. Eventually, Dr. Cello simply ordered most of the completed sequence from a scientific supply house, Integrated DNA Technologies of Coralville, Iowa
20. Interlude with Dr. Cello

21, More Dr. Cello!

22. Back to Synthetic Polio @DARPA

DARPA provided $300K over the last 3 years for the work

''Understanding the process of viral DNA production is key to identifying new ways to kill viruses & understand how viruses could change & escape from vaccines"

archive.ph/0G7rP
23. Mice Brains

The new virus, when injected into the brains of mice, gave them a paralytic disease equivalent to poliomyelitis.

Dr. Wimmer deliberately introduced mutations into it to distinguish it from the natural virus.

archive.ph/0G7rP By @AndrewPollackFL
24. A virus with a future?

2000-2025

Dr. Wimmer said polio could spread panic & that vaccines would have to be stockpiled if not routinely administered

"in 25 years, if a good percentage of the world is not immunized against polio virus, it would be a terrible terrorist agent"
25. Papers (Don't try at home)
1.
researchgate.net/publication/11…

2. Cell-free de novo synthesis of poliovirus
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1661029/

3. Recombination of poliovirus in cell-free system
pnas.org/content/94/25/…

4. Cell-free synthesis poliovirus (145 subunits)
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/downlo…
26. Reactions (1)

Reflections on the Synthetic production of Polio Virus

journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.296…

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists @BulletinAtomic
27. Reactions (2)

Congressional Research Service Report RS21369

Synthetic Poliovirus: Bioterrorism and Science Policy
Implications

Frank Gottron (December 13, 2002)

file.wikileaks.org/file/crs/RS213…
28. Synthetic Poliovirus & Other Designer Viruses

What Have We Learned from Them?

Eckard Wimmer: ewimmer@ms.cc.sunysb.edu
Aniko V. Paul: apaul@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

Stony Brook University

annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.114…

Non paywall PDF thanks to Sci Hub

sci-hub.ee/10.1146/annure…
29. Synthetic Biology Could Bring a Pox on Us All

wired.com/story/syntheti…
30. From Synthetic Polio to Horsepox

Biosecurity Implications for the Synthesis of Horsepox, an Orthopoxvirus

wmdcenter.ndu.edu/Portals/97/Doc…

Step-by-step horsepox study stokes dual-use controversy

cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspecti…
31. Synthetic horsepox viruses

the continuing debate about dual use research

journals.plos.org/plospathogens/…

Horsepox and the need for a new norm, more transparency, and stronger oversight for experiments that pose pandemic risks

journals.plos.org/plospathogens/…
32. Horsepox and Polio

unroll DARPA's secret Synthetic Polio Program

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More from @BillyBostickson

Apr 23
1. The Second Lab Leak

Turning and turning in the petri dish,
The scientists cannot hear the warnings;
Genes recombine; the barriers cannot hold,
Evil virology is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
2. The Second Lab Leak

The best lack critical thinking, while the professors
Are full of furious bias.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the cover up is now banned?
Lab Leak! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Human Folly
Troubles my sight:
3. Somewhere in Wuhan

somewhere in the cell lines of a Chinese laboratory
A shape with pangolin body and the head of a bat,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its long tongue, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant molested bats.
Read 6 tweets
Apr 22
🧵As promised, here is my counter critique & rebuttal of some points made by @gadboit about the Pangolin Papers Hypothesis.

His theory seems to be that SARS-COV-2 emerged like Aphrodite, from BANAL BAT viruses, possibly with some FCS tweaking & no Pangolins coronaviruses needed.
🧵1. Introduction

@gadboit claims BANAL-52’s 96.8% similarity and natural recombination outweigh my lab + PangolinCoV hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2’s origin.

However, my evidence shows PangolinCoV signatures, WIV lab work & recombination are stronger.

researchgate.net/publication/39…
@gadboit 🧵2. @gadboit claims BANAL-52’s 96.8% similarity & ACE2 binding make it closer to SARS-CoV-2 than PCoVs (~91%) & that PCoV features could come from bat CoVs.

But GD PCoV’s RBD (97% identity) needs no mutations for hACE2, unlike BANALs.

See Wrobel et al:

nature.com/articles/s4159…
Read 28 tweets
Apr 13
🧵 As promised, my final report is now published 🍾

1. Obviously this is not a tik tok video, although it would be great to make a tik tok version 🙂

So, you will need a few hours to read and digest the implications as the science is complex.

Links to the report in next tweet.
🧵2. Link to Report: Pangolin (Coronavirus) Papers

1. Researchgate:

researchgate.net/publication/39…

2. Zenodo:

zenodo.org/records/152063…
3, Well, it is a Pangolin Sunday, eh?

A. “The Pangolin Papers” presents a robust argument for the lab-mediated origin of SARS-CoV-2, particularly centered on experiments conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) during 2018 and 2019.
Read 48 tweets
Mar 24
A Swift🧵

1. A Modest Proposal for the Fair Imprisonment of Women and the Liberation of Men

By a Concerned Citizen of Reason,

Published in The Rational Gazette on X

March 24, 2025
2. Dire Injustice!

It is a lamentable truth, oft repeated in the progressive broadsheets and the sanctimonious halls of modern discourse, that the state of our prisons reveals a dire injustice.
3. Gaol'd Wretches

We are told, with furrowed brows and trembling voices, that Black men, comprising a mere 4% of the good people of England and Wales, yet numbering 13% of our gaol’d wretches, suffer under the cruel yoke of systemic discrimination.
Read 20 tweets
Feb 25
1🧵DECLASSIFICATION TASK FORCE - COVID 19

This Task force will be working to obtain the declassification and the release of Covid-19 origins files over the next 6 months.

This is GOOD NEWS!

2 🧵X GOP Member Handles

Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets

@GOPoversight
@realannapaulina
@RepLuna
@RepEliCrane
@NancyMace
@RepNancyMace
@timburchett
@RepTimBurchett
@RepBoebert
@laurenboebert
@RepEricBurlison
@RepBrandonGill
@realBrandonGill
@RepJamesComer
@GOPoversight @realannapaulina @RepLuna @RepEliCrane @NancyMace @RepNancyMace @timburchett @RepTimBurchett @RepBoebert @laurenboebert @RepEricBurlison @RepBrandonGill @realBrandonGill @RepJamesComer 3 🧵Video (1)

Luna Reveals What The Task Force On The Declassification Of Federal Secrets Will Investigate

“This will no longer be a task force that makes bold promises only to fade into irrelevance or send strongly worded letters”

youtube.com/watch?v=Hz3aZL…
Read 17 tweets
Jan 29
@Ticklicker56 @angie_rasmussen @Dissenting2020 @DrStrangeLovett @Rebecca21951651 @All_New_to_This @VaughnMises @R_H_Ebright @Florin_Uncovers @ban_epp_gofroc @MJnanostretch @Muller_Lab @SolidEvidence @ydeigin @ciukzwil @tgof137 @StavaRune @VBruttel @FondueMean @tom335363 @BioSRP @stevenemassey @jbloom_lab @BallouxFrancois @Ayjchan @mattwridley Not sure what they have done since Burgdorfer's "swiss agent" experiments, apart from building tick moats & annoying locals

bitterrootstar.com/2013/01/about-…

Dr. Rasmussen can tell us or she can ask Dr. Trout

hcn.org/articles/in-mo…
@Ticklicker56 @angie_rasmussen @Dissenting2020 @DrStrangeLovett @Rebecca21951651 @All_New_to_This @VaughnMises @R_H_Ebright @Florin_Uncovers @ban_epp_gofroc @MJnanostretch @Muller_Lab @SolidEvidence @ydeigin @ciukzwil @tgof137 @StavaRune @VBruttel @FondueMean @tom335363 @BioSRP @stevenemassey @jbloom_lab @BallouxFrancois @Ayjchan @mattwridley RML expertise in biodefense inlcudes tick & flea agents, so I doubt she would want to discuss how many ticks they have or what they inject them with.

federalregister.gov/documents/2004…

In the bad old days they injected them with yellow fever & other nasties for dispersal by planes.
@Ticklicker56 @angie_rasmussen @Dissenting2020 @DrStrangeLovett @Rebecca21951651 @All_New_to_This @VaughnMises @R_H_Ebright @Florin_Uncovers @ban_epp_gofroc @MJnanostretch @Muller_Lab @SolidEvidence @ydeigin @ciukzwil @tgof137 @StavaRune @VBruttel @FondueMean @tom335363 @BioSRP @stevenemassey @jbloom_lab @BallouxFrancois @Ayjchan @mattwridley Also work of Jeffrey M. Grabowski

Biology of Vector-Borne Viruses Section, Laboratory of Virology, RML

Work on tick-borne pathogens at the Virology Lab at RML is funded by the Intramural Research Program, NIAID, NIH

Not for long, I think! @DrJBhattacharya
Read 15 tweets

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