On March 17, an international research team composed of scholars from the United States, Britain, Australia and other countries published an article in the scientific journal Nature Medicine, stating that the COVID-19 virus that caused the global pandemic was a product of natural evolution. The analysis of the evidence used in this article shows that the COVID-19 virus "is not constructed in the laboratory, nor is it a purposefully man-made virus."
Robert Gary, a professor at the Tulane University School of Medicine in the United States, is one of the authors of the paper. He believes that it is necessary to use the power of the entire team to explore the origin of this new coronavirus.
The researchers focused on two characteristics of the COVID-19 virus spike protein that play a role in invading cells: one is the "receptor binding domain", which acts like a hook that can stay in the host cell, and the other is cleavage The site, the molecular "opener" that allows the virus to open and enter the host cell.
They found that COVID-19 virus spike protein has high binding efficiency to human cells, which cannot be achieved through genetic engineering, and only natural selection can achieve it.
Dr. Christian Anderson of the Scripps Research Institute in the United States said in a statement that the COVID-19 virus-related characteristics, namely the variation in the "receptor binding domain" portion of the spike protein and the unique molecular architecture of the virus, all It excludes the possibility that it is synthesized in the laboratory.
In addition, if someone attempts to synthesize a virus that can act as a pathogen, they also need to build the virus based on a molecular structure of a virus that is known to cause disease. The researchers found that the molecular structure of the COVID-19 virus that caused the epidemic was significantly different from the molecular structure of other known coronaviruses, but was largely similar to related viruses found on bats and pangolins. This further confirms the idea that the COVID-19 virus comes from nature rather than man-made.
Regarding the way that the virus spreads to humans and caused a pandemic, the article proposes two possibilities. One is that the virus evolves to the current pathogenic state in non-human hosts through natural selection, and then "jumps" to humans. Another idea is that non-pathogenic versions of the virus jump from animal hosts to humans, and then evolve to the current pathogenic state in humans.
The director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, also supports the argument in this article. On March 26th, he published a blog post entitled "Gene Research Shows that COVID-19 Virus Originates from Nature", saying that research by international research teams proves that COVID-19 virus originates from nature and is very convincing. -2 There is a high probability that you can only evolve your ability to infect humans by your own efforts. The current level of humans cannot create spike proteins that are so different from the model. "
Robert Gary said in an interview with ABC News: "A mutation in the surface protein may be the trigger for this pandemic, but a weaker version of the virus is already in the population before it accumulates to the present situation. It has spread for years, even decades. "
At the same time, Gary emphasized that although many people think that the virus originated in a seafood market in Wuhan, China, this is a wrong view. "Our analysis and some other analyses point to earlier origins. There must be some in Wuhan. Cases, but by no means the source of the virus. "
The conclusions of the international research team are consistent with the previous statement issued by a multinational scholar jointly published in the international professional medical journal The Lancet. On February 19th, 27 medical experts from 8 different countries jointly issued a statement on The Lancet to fully support all scientific and medical personnel in China's fight against the COVID-19 epidemic, and strongly condemned the "COVID- 19 Viruses are not of natural origin "rumors and conspiracy theories.
The statement said researchers carried out a whole-genome analysis of the pathogens that caused the disease and came up with overwhelming results. The statement states that "Scientists from all over the world have analyzed the entire genome of the pathogen SARS-CoV-2, which has caused the disease, and published the results, which overwhelmingly proved the coronavirus and many other new pathogens. It is also derived from wildlife. The scientific conclusion is also supported by the dean of the National Science, Engineering, and Medical School and the scientific community he represents. "
At the same time, the statement emphasized that conspiracy theories are useless other than to create panic, rumors, prejudice, and undermine global efforts to fight the disease. We should support the World Health Organization's call for scientific argument and solidarity, not misinformation and conjecture.
0 Comments