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How to Maintain Lab Safety While Making Viruses Deadlier

Posted by timothy on from the this-one-goes-to-11 dept.

Lasrick (2629253) writes "A scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison published an article in June revealing that he had taken genes from the deadly human 1918 Spanish Flu and inserted them into the H5N1 avian flu to make a new virus—one which was both far deadlier and far more capable of spreading than the original avian strain. In July it was revealed that the same scientist was conducting another study in which he genetically altered the 2009 strain of flu to enable it to evade immune responses, 'effectively making the human population defenseless against re-emergence.' In the U.S. alone, biosafety incidents involving pathogens happen more than twice per week. These 'gain-of-function' experiments are accidents waiting to happen, with the possibility of starting deadly pandemics that could kill millions. It isn't as if it hasn't happened before: in 2009, a group of Chinese scientists created a viral strain of flu virus that escaped the lab and created a pandemic, killing thousands of people. 'Against this backdrop, the growing use of gain-of-function approaches for research requires more careful examination. And the potential consequences keep getting more catastrophic.' This article explores the history of lab-created pandemics and outlines recommendations for a safer approach to this type of research."

3 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Homeland security would like a word... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Someone put this scientist on the no fly list. That's some Twelve Monkeys shit he's pulling right there.

  2. So ... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They essentially are making biological weapons in violation of international treaties, but they're saying it's all OK because it's for research?

    Sorry, but what? If someone in Iran was doing this people would be calling for airstrikes.

    The hubris of thinking "it's OK, I'm a trained professional, nothing bad can happen" is mind boggling.

    How is it even legal to be making deadlier strains of viruses?

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:So ... by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes that has to be it. It couldn't possibly be because biological research is amazingly difficult, and of the tools we have to study cells (few) we have even fewer to study viruses.

      The entire point of gain-of-function studies is that you need to do them in order to confirm a hypothesis about what genes in a virus are actually doing. If you don't do them, you can't know. Knock-out studies aren't enough - you can easily break a certain system, but it doesn't tell you that you actually understand how it functions.

      Sensationalist articles like this are incredibly stupid and dangerous to boot. We only have the slim number of effective anti-viral drugs we do because of research like this. How else do you think they figure out which biological pathways are worth targeting to shutdown a virus?

      And that's not all: the other side of gain-of-function is of course to try and predict future vectors. Since treating the common flu is usually a losing prospect at the moment, and it takes time to manufacture things, its important to determine if any given species could trivially gain extra functionality which would make it dangerous - since that affects decisions about what strains to grow up for the yearly flu vaccine.