South Korea combines three bird flu viruses into a single engineered mutant, increasing viral stability, altering host targeting, and enhancing human cell entry.
South Korean researchers have created a Frankenstein lab-modified bird flu virus using hallmark gain-of-function (GOF) techniques, according to a new study published today in Virology Journal.
The paper reveals scientists constructed a chimeric virus with altered heat resistance, receptor binding, and cell entry capabilities by combining gene segments from three distinct influenza viruses and applying directed mutations to increase replication and stability.
Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses require BSL-3 containment due to their potential for aerosol transmission and serious health risks.
The experiments come as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration recently announced a $500 million “next-generation” pandemic vaccine initiative focused on avian influenza bird flu.
The timing raises alarm over the use of high-risk virological techniques to create brand new, pandemic-level viruses under the guise of vaccine development, especially as the White House has confirmed that the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a virus engineered with the same kind of experiments.
Why? Is Korea getting Chinese money for this?
That's so f'd up. AI better hurry if it wants to be the destroyer of human civilization.
ReplyDeleteThere is a reason scientists do gain-of-function studies: to better understand viruses in order to combat possible mutations, etc. in the future. So I get the logic... but at the same time, it seems pretty messed up to be creating the worst possible mutation of a virus without waiting for nature to get around to it. I suppose the idea is that it is done in a controlled environment as opposed to happening in the wild, but there's a reason that so many disaster plots begin with scientists creating some crazy abomination of nature in a lab.
ReplyDeleteIt's like with AI, I guess... if we don't do it, someone else will, and they'll end up with an advantage. This whole up-ratcheting, keep-up-with-the-Joneses tendency of the human race is insane. I guess there's a reason why not coveting is a commandment.
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