Ancestral 'frozen' SARS2 genomes generated from UNC Hospital patients in 2020/21 indicate potential lab acquired infections

3 genomes have non-natural mutation R685G, a strong signature of engineering

The UNC response to the alert has been one of suppression 🧵 @pricklyresearch @UNC @Baric_Lab @alisonannyoung @BiosafetyNow 1/ @quay_dr and myself have released an updated preprint that explores 9 anomalous GISAID sequences generated by the Dr Dirk Dittmer's UNC Medical School's Vironomics Core from samples collected from patients from UNC Hospital May 2020 - Jan 2021

doi.org/10.5281/zenodo…

Update on the 2025 Spanish African Swine Fever outbreak

Lab escape is not ruled out, no evidence of natural zoonosis

Biased 'official' reports can poison LLMs, beware 🧵 1/ On 25–26 Nov 2025 2 boar infected with African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) were found within 1 km of each other in Catalonia, one a few hundred meters from BSL3 facility IRTA-CReSA (Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries - Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal)

I've posted a preprint that proposes enhancing the traceability of infectious clones by incorporating sequence signatures, to reduce biosafety risk

The method is technically feasible, cryptographically secure, and shouldn't disrupt virus biology 🧵

zenodo.org/records/196994… @RepHarshbarger @SenJoniErnst 1/ Infectious clones (ICs) are synthetic viruses produced by transfecting a cell line with a plasmid construct that contains the virus genome

The cell line expresses the virus, which can then be recovered

(from ZLS's 2016 WIV1 IC paper):

Immortalization of sensitive scientific research

I've inscribed my preprint that links the WIV to a leaked dGOF MERS chimera, onto censor-resistant bitcoin following @Kevin_McKernan 's #DeSci method 🧵

Tx ID b14860b04d16ec1a90b8c701da0889b49e17efbb819f85eafe99954270bf7322 @JesslovesMJK @MartyBent @TFTC21 @JonnieSparkles 1/ The pandemic saw the rise of gatekeeping of inconvenient research on C19 origin and vaccines, and other pandemic topics, by centralized preprint servers

This is a classic signaling game with a jammer :

Zhengli Shi of the WIV constructed a dangerous Gain of Function MERS chimera that contaminated pre-pandemic rice sequence datasets from Wuhan

Potential violation of the Biological Weapons Convention

NIAID + USAID provided funding Parallels with SARS2 🧵 #DRASTIC @RepBradWenstrup @DrJBhattacharya @joniernst 1/ In this thread, I'll show that a dangerous Gain of Function chimera, involving insertion of MERS spike into a novel merbecovirus backbone, can be positively attributed to Zhengli Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that NIAID + USAID funds contributed to its creation

Great critique by Billy of a preprint purporting to show a "FCS" in a novel coronavirus from Brazil

I would add that

1) no evidence is presented that the cleavage site is cleaved by furin.. 🧵

https://x.com/BillyBostickson/status/1983865782649155881

In addition, cleavage occurs after secretion into the culture medium, which seems inconsistent with furin as responsible for cleavage during infection

Whether it actually undergoes cleavage as part of its cell entry mechanism is unclear

A link between MERS-CoV pathogenicity and epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) was described in a 2016 proposal by Luis Enjuanes, collaborator of Baric h/t @USRightToKnow

Coincidentally, the human α-ENaC furin cleavage site (FCS) is identical to that of SARS2 🧵

https://twitter.com/jhas5/status/1975400184042402120

2/ As far back as 2009 it was known that SARS1 spike and E proteins interacted with human ENaC, modulating its activity leading to fluid buildup in the lungs

Fluid buildup (pulmonary edema) is a key symptom of both SARS1 and SARS2

journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.11…

The GOF Executive Order includes no clear ban on US-based GOF research, but kicks the can down the road

Weak gruel unfortunately at this stage, vested interests seem to have inserted themselves 🧵
whitehouse.gov/presidential-a… @thackerpd @emilyakopp @HansMahncke @ban_epp_gofroc @lewiskamb 2/ While executive focus on GOF is to be welcomed, unfortunately this Executive Order (EO) does not deliver a ban on US GOF research. While it bans funding of dangerous GOF in countries of concern, why does it not do the same in the US ? Why not a blanket ban ?

We received an (indirect) response from UNC regarding our preprint outlining evidence for a potential lab leak of SARS2 at UNC

UNC asked GISAID to tell us to remove our preprint

We did this, but have now put up an updated version 🧵
zenodo.org/records/151721… 2/ @quay_dr uploaded our original preprint on March 26

We identified 7 'frozen' SARS2 sequences from UNC, that were basal to other sequences generated at the same time. These could represent early SARS2 strains that had escaped from a research facility

https://x.com/stevenemassey/status/1904619032151810403

Steve Quay @quay_dr and myself have published evidence for a potential lab leak of SARS2 at the University of North Carolina (UNC)

7 genome sequences collected by UNC in 2020-21 are basal (ie 'frozen') indicating a potential lab origin 🧵
zenodo.org/records/150833… 2/ The 7 sequences were collected from Jun 2020 to Jan 2021 and submitted by Dr Dirk Dittmer of the Clinical Molecular Microbiology Laboratory, UNC Hospital

Puzzlingly, they show strong similarities to the SARS2 reference sequence Hu-1, sampled in Dec 2019

I've published a paper on the emerging phenomenon of 'frozen' virus genome sequences, and how they can indicate lab leaks

"Frozen' virus genome sequences are generated from recent outbreaks, but show surprising similarity to historic strains 🧵
mdpi.com/2076-2607/12/1… 2/ The classic example is 1977 'Russian' H1N1 Flu, which re-emerged after having gone extinct in the 50s. Genomic sequences were identical to strains from the 50s, indicating it had been stored for > 20 years before release
nature.com/articles/27433…

It has been reported German Intel has assessed that COVID19 originated via a lab leak

Swiss paper NZZ reports that our discovery of a MERS-related infectious clone with a chimeric spike from Wuhan sequencing datasets was considered by German Intel 🧵 2/ The study by @humblesci @Daoyu15 @BiophysicsFL @ydeigin @quay_dr and myself was published last year and demonstrated unreported GOF experimentation on novel MERS-related coronaviruses in Wuhan prior to the pandemic
fortunejournals.com/articles/disco…

Pekar et al have published a paper claiming that 2 SARS2 A/B intermediates from Feb 2020 are derived rather than ancestral

The existence of ancestral intermediates would falsify Pekar et al's earlier claim of 2 independent spillovers of lineages A and B at the Huanan Market 🧵 2/ Hence Pekar et al undergo extraordinary convolutions in order to try and claim the 2 A/B intermediates, identified by Lv et al 2024, are late arrivals rather than the original intermediates that led to the evolution of lineage B from lineage A

academic.oup.com/ve/article/10/…

'Conincidentally' we showed pUC57 was also used to clone a genome fragment from an unpublished pangolin-related SARS2r-CoV from China 🧵

h/t @humblesci @Daoyu15 @ydeigin @quay_dr

mdpi.com/2673-8007/2/4/…

x.com/Engineer2The/s… 2/ This striking conincidence indicates that the novel pangolin-related coronavirus we identified from contaminated datasets (GX_ZX45r-CoV) was likely part of an infectious clone (IC), given that one of the reads was ligated to pUC57

From our paper:

I have published a paper on my analysis of the RaTG13 dataset

RaTG13 is the closest phylogenomic relative of SARS2

Transcriptome and GO enrichment analysis indicates the likely source of the dataset is a bat mating plug, rather than a fecal swab 🧵

mdpi.com/2036-7481/15/3… A mating plug provenance resolves the long standing conundrum over the low amounts of bacteria in the RaTG13 sample, noted by @MonaRahalkar and others, which is inconsistent with a fecal swab as reported by the WIV, who collected the sample

A leak of polio from a research facility is indicated by a poliovirus genome sequence generated from a sample collected in 2014 in China by the Wuhan Institute of Virology

The sequence is 99 % identical to that of a polio strain from 1954 🧵
academic.oup.com/ve/article/10/… 2/ Chesnais et al sequenced 3 poliovirus genomes recovered from 60 year old historic samples generated by Albert Sabin at the Pasteur Institute, Paris

Sabin is the father of the oral polio vaccine, created from attenuated polio strains

Why are virologists freely allowed to anonymize lethal synthetic viruses, but developers are put in jail for writing code that anonymize bitcoin transactions ?

Genetically enhanced infectious clones present a much higher risk than anonymous monetary transactions 🧵 @R_H_Ebright @SenGaryPeters @COVIDSelect @BiosafetyNow @CharlesRixey @HSGAC_GOP @RepBradWenstrup @RepRaulRuizMD Virologists often synthesize infectious clones (ICs), which are used to produce live infectious viruses

To make an IC of a coronavirus, due to its large size constituent fragments need to be synthesized, and then ligated together to form a complete genome

Unravelling the RaTG13 Dataset's Origin

The RaTG13 dataset has overexpressed transcripts which indicate it was mis-sampled from a bat mating plug

This provides a reasonable explanation for anomalies in the dataset, described as a 'fecal swab' 🧵 2/ RaTG13 is (still) phylogenomically the closest coronavirus backbone to SARS2

There has been a longstanding controversy regarding the origin of the RaTG13 dataset

RaTG13 is described as being generated from a Rhinolophus affinis (Intermediate Horseshoe bat) fecal swab

Re-watching this video, it becomes clear why virologists have lobbied so hard to detach the names of novel pathogens / strains from the location where they arise

"the disease is the same name as the lab" 😆

https://twitter.com/stclairashley/status/1803952107902456202

Detaching regional / place names from pathogens is a form of anonymization eg delta, omega etc

Why would virologists want to use names which are arbitrary and non-informative ? geographic information is an important part of epidemiology and helps understand origin and spread

Some further insights into the SARS2 spike sequences found in Pseudomonas aeruginosa datasets, recorded as being sampled in 2019 🧵 2/ Complete SARS2 spike gene sequences were found in contigs generated from Pseudomonas aeruginosa cultures sampled in 2019, by @iximeno

The spike sequence displayed codon optimization and lacked the furin cleavage site

Differential gene expression analysis of the controversial RaTG13 dataset reveals strong similarity to the RaTG15 dataset, also described as generated from a Rhinolophus affinis 'rectal swab' from the Mojiang Mine

This indicates they have a common, undefined source 🧵 2/ The source of the RaTG13 dataset has been a key puzzle of the C19 Origin debate

RaTG13 was sequenced by the Wuhan Institute of Virology prepandemic in 2017/2018 and remains the closest related CoV backbone to SARS2