Thread by @Ayjchan

Lots of buzz about the new preprint about rare furin cleavage sites in the spikes of European bat SARS-like viruses. Difficult to say much until the spike sequences obtained within this study are deposited in GenBank and released.
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

It is likely that scientists on the other side of the world had encountered similar rare furin cleavage sites in the SARS-like viruses they had found, which led them to write the following in the 2018 DEFUSE proposal:

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1470158419428618241

"We will also review deep sequence data for low abundant high risk SARSr-CoV that encode functional proteolytic cleavage sites, and if so, introduce these changes into the appropriate high abundant, low risk parental strain."

This is why we should ask the @EcoHealthNYC to immediately release all communications, data, and documents that led to their DEFUSE proposal and anything related to the detection and genetic engineering of rare cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses.

I see the @jbloom_lab has already beaten me to the punch in evaluating the new rare FCS preprint.

https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1471573160654880769

@jbloom_lab After reading @jbloom_lab's thread, I'm even more interested to see @EcoHealthNYC's exchanges with the Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists who had access to deep sequence data... what types of rare "potential furin cleavage sites" had they detected?

@jbloom_lab @EcoHealthNYC Did scientists also observe these almost functional furin cleavage sites in SARSrCoVs in China/SE Asia and decide to do as they said in their grant:

"Where clear mismatches occur, we will introduce appropriate human-specific cleavage sites..."

https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1471573175829811200?s=20

I want to be clear. None of this is remotely conspiratorial.

Scientists wrote this plan in 2018. I'm asking if they followed through. It's knowable. @EcoHealthNYC & collaborators can show us how they came to write FCS insertion in the DEFUSE proposal.

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1470158419428618241

Is there anyone who still thinks the EcoHealth Alliance should continue to withhold communications, documents and data that can shed light on the SARS-like virus and cleavage site insertion research occurring as part of their projects or in their collaborators' labs?

In any case, if I had been called to peer review this manuscript - authors said the journal couldn't find peer reviewers (what!?) - I would've asked for the sequence data to be shared first. How can one peer review this paper without seeing the data?

https://twitter.com/c_drosten/status/1471441861046939648

Also very curious what is this journal that can't find peer reviewers.

Is this a new excuse that editors have come up with to tactfully decline a manuscript from prominent authors?

h/t @Muller_Lab

https://twitter.com/Muller_Lab/status/1471477056194203649