A multimillion-dollar bat coronavirus research grant, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), revealed that researchers based in Wuhan, China had manipulated coronaviruses that led to increased severity of infection, employing platforms that tested the ability of bat coronaviruses to use human receptors, US RTK reports.
Information disclosed in Grant Proposal
The grant documents underscore the perils of the collection of and experimentation on potentially pathogenic viruses and shed new light on U.S.-funded coronavirus experiments in Wuhan, China for five years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new information disclosed in the grant proposal and its interim reports does not establish that the research led to the pandemic.
The documents show that the NIH grant was for $3.1 million, of which $599,000 went to the WIV and to researcher Zhengli Shi, who specialized in the study of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-1 (SARS-CoV-1) and similar viruses, called SARS related (SARSr)-CoVs.
Scientists’ prediction
Many scientists have posited a possible lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 and suggested the WIV as a possible source for the origin of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.
Coronaviruses (CoVs) emerging from wildlife are a “significant threat to global health,” the grant claims, with bats considered a “natural reservoir of these viruses.”
With that in mind, the authors said that the purpose of their research was to “examine the risk of future coronavirus…emergence from wildlife” using a range of research techniques and to understand “what factors increase the risk of the next CoV emerging in people.”
About the procedure
The work involved screening more than 30 species of bats for CoVs and then developing strategies for assessing the potential spillover of coronaviruses from bats to humans, according to the grant documents.
But it is possible that, in seeking to learn how to avoid spillover events, the work caused one.
The Occurrence
How might the EcoHealth Alliance grant have caused, or contributed to, the pandemic? Here are some possible scenarios based on a close reading of the grant.
- During fieldwork, collection, and containment of bat SARSr-CoV samples, people could have been accidentally infected.
- There is evidence of lax bat-handling practices and minimal use of personal protective equipment (PPE) at WIV and Wuhan University, where parts of the research were conducted.
- During lab experimentation with the bat coronaviruses, possibly that a novel virus was produced with greater similarity to SARS-CoV-2 than those reported in the NIH grant. The researchers stated in the grant that they developed an in vivo model, that is, mice genetically engineered to carry human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE-2), the receptor for SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2.In this way, the researchers created three chimeric viruses, each with a different spike protein, from bats.
- The research described in the grant established a platform that could have easily been used to study other chimeric viruses more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than those mentioned in the grant.
- While results from infection of hACE-2 mice with three chimeric viruses were presented, the researchers wrote in the grant, “we cannot anticipate exactly how many viruses we will find that are candidates for experimental models…and that we will identify approximately 20 viruses that will be used for mouse infection experiments.”
The researchers possibly generated a novel chimeric virus with more similarity to SARS-CoV-2 than those reported.
Experiments and Outlines
The NIH grant describes important research on mice with human ACE-2 receptors.
The researchers infected the hACE-2 mice with the chimeric SARS-like bat coronaviruses to see how sick they would get, and whether they would shed infectious virus compared to the original viral strain.
This research resulted in chimeric viruses that gained infectious and pathogenic properties.
“We’ll infect them [hACE-2 mice] with cultured bat coronaviruses and determine which organs become infected and whether these mice are capable of shedding infectious virus”, the grant proposed.
The grant outlines, “We will perform in vivo infection experiments in humanized mice modified to carry human ACE2…gene in the Wuhan Institute of Virology BSL-3 animal facility…this work will provide information about viral pathogenicity, tissue tropism, transmission route, and infection symptom.”
Difference in Opinion
Some scientists who have argued against a lab origin for SARS-CoV-2 contend that the virus has a signature of it being adapted in an animal host with an intact immune system, for which no such appropriate laboratory model has been described.
One of these arguments against a lab origin of SARS-CoV-2, advanced by scientist Kristian Andersen and colleagues, and published as an influential correspondence in Nature Medicine, was “Subsequent generation of a polybasic cleavage site would have then required repeated passage in cell culture or animals with ACE2 receptors similar to those of humans, but such work has also not previously been described.”
However, the grant shows this is not correct.
The final Decision
In addition to searching for spillover events, the research outlined in the grant had the potential to generate a spillover event. It is also noteworthy that EcoHealth Alliance has received nearly $40 million in multiple grants from the Department of Defense, and DOD grant data is often considered classified and withheld from the public.
And though the 5-year bat coronavirus research grant was only renewed for one additional year, a $7.5 million NIH grant, titled “Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Virus Emergence in EID Hotspots of Southeast Asia,” was awarded to EHA in 2020 to expand on the platforms established in the 2014 grant.
This newer grant, with Daszak again as principal investigator, was also made public last week by the Intercept.
The new grant is a consortium grant that adds more collaborators and lab sites where the research will be performed, including a BSL-4 facility in Boston.
But the EcoHealth Alliance and WIV collection and storage of SARS-related bat coronaviruses, and the creation and use of chimeric novel bat coronaviruses with human ACE-2 expressing mouse platforms, could have sparked the pandemic.
Congress should launch an investigation into U.S. government funding of this type of risky research as part of a full and thorough investigation of the origins of the pandemic.
U.S. Right to Know believes transparency in science is essential to the protection of public health, including preventing future pandemics.
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Source: US RTK
