Can the genome of covid-19 rule in or out it being made iartificially?

[repoman]

I know almost nothing about viruses, but there are lots of professionals that do.

By artificial I mean a whole range from low level having different viruses in a lab that can cross genes in a slow and random way all up to pinpoint insertion of code.

Are we at the point of even being able to make designer viruses yet?

I am not trying to be conspiratorial with this question.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

P.Z. Meyers debunks the paranoid claim covid-19 was created in a lab somewhere.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2020/03/28/where-did-sars-cov-2-come-from/

 

[repoman]

Thanks for the link.

 

[barbos]

Whoever designed this virus certainly deserves Nobel Prize and then summary execution.

 

[repoman]

This is for plague bacteria, but it seems applicable with how they are tinkering with the genes

 

[repoman]

Can a researcher some what push a virus into acquring new traits (gain of function) without using molecular scissors for precise cut and paste jobs?



Put virus strains A and B (close or distant genetically) through a series of different environments to do that?

Put A and B into the same live animal or cell culture and wait for genes to transfer.

Or what about putting virus A through various species in various orders and seeing what happens.

No human made cuts, no proof of 'engineering'.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Can a researcher some what push a virus into acquring new traits (gain of function) without using molecular scissors for precise cut and paste jobs?



Put virus strains A and B (close or distant genetically) through a series of different environments to do that?

Put A and B into the same live animal or cell culture and wait for genes to transfer.

Or what about putting virus A through various species in various orders and seeing what happens.

No human made cuts, no proof of 'engineering'.

View attachment 27452

The point is SARS-Cov-2 is very similar to SARS. It's a slight change, not a whole new gene included. Genetic editing is normally done by pasting in a gene that does what you want (or cutting out one that does something you don't want.) If this was from a lab they took the existing gene and edited it--which would be a major nightmare to get right. To use it as a bioweapon would also require testing on a lot of human subjects--and even China can't disappear people willy nilly without questions being asked.

 

[repoman]

Scary stuff.

Since then, several other influenza GOF studies have been published. For example, last month scientists from the University of Maryland reported that they serially infected ferrets with an avian H7N1 virus, which led to mutations that conferred airborne transmissibility. The study prompted a special "dual-use research of concern" (DURC) review, which included federal officials, before it was published. DURC refers to research yielding findings that could be used to do either good or harm.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/05/experts-call-alternatives-gain-function-flu-studies

Pardon my French, but that is fucking defacto genetic engineering.