A paradigm yet. I'm following

I started a discussion on this last week, here https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_nCoV-2019_bioenginnered_a_weapon_gone_rogue.

In brief, one cannot rule out genetic engineering by a skilled group taking appropriate measures to cover its tracks. Methods such as scarless assembly, deliberate codon matching, and random mutagenesis would not necessarily leave tracks that can be identified at the sequence level alone. It is possible nowadays to synthesize a sequence that would look indistinguishable from a naturally evolved sequence.

But it is certainly possible for an inexperienced group, or a group unconcerned with covering its tracks, to leave obvious giveaways in the sequence, such as vector sequences, or substantial identities with other organisms. There are no such features present in any COVID-19 genome, published by either the US or Chinese governments. All sequences from both governments agree with each other precisely.

There were some claims to the contrary. But the suspicious sequences shown in the claimants' publications are either not particularly suspicious, or are absent from any COVID-19 genome published by the US or China.

Dear John Schloendorn.

Thank you for the answer.

John Schloendorn It is great answer?

There is a recent study on using CRISPR in a pig CoV and the resulting change in virulence:

Wang G, Liang R, Liu Z, Shen Z, Shi J, et al. (2019) The n-terminal domain of spike protein is not

the enteric tropism determinant for transmissible gastroenteritis virus in piglets. Viruses 11: 313

as referenced here in here:

https://osf.io/6vd54/

While I have no opinion regarding the origin of nCoV, it is significant to note that this paper claims to represent the first instance of CRISPR editing of a coronavirus in the literature (published 2019).

Dear John Schloendorn

If you could provide the links supportive to your statement given below, It is highly appreciated.

"All sequences from both governments agree with each other precisely."

The point of the exercise was not to take any trusted authority's word for it, but to see with my own eyes. You can do it too. It takes only 5 minutes if you know where to click:

I downloaded the sequences from NCBI here in the USA and from China's equivalent, NGDC. They had about 5 different isolates each, when I did it a few days ago. You can go to their websites and search any of its common names like nCoV or COVID-19. I used Clustal Omega (UK) to align the sequences. It shows you exactly on which base pairs the sequences agree and where they disagree.

Methods is very careless assembly and matching codon very difficult to identify in shot duration...it is long time research i hope scientist will identified the sequence level as soon as in animal model research (Mammals).

Deivasigamani Balaraman

You mean that "animal model research" is required to identity the impacts of genetically engineered virus ?

Hi, reverse genetics is available for coronaviruses, no problem with that, including SARS.

1. Engineering the largest RNA virus genome as an infectious bacterial artificial chromosome. Almazán F, González JM, Pénzes Z, Izeta A, Calvo E, Plana-Durán J, Enjuanes L.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000 May 9;97(10):5516-21.).

2. Construction of a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus infectious cDNA clone and a replicon to study coronavirus RNA synthesis. Almazán F, Dediego ML, Galán C, Escors D, Alvarez E, Ortego J, Sola I, Zuñiga S, Alonso S, Moreno JL, Nogales A, Capiscol C, Enjuanes L. J Virol. 2006 Nov;80(21):10900-6.

You can insert genes, but most of the times they lead to unstable genomes and they are lost with time. The resulting virus is attenuated. By reverse genetics you can generated attenuated strains that cannot propagate and can be used as a vaccine. The SARS-Co-2 (Covid19) is similar to the SARS-Co-1, a group 2 coronavirus related to murine hepatitis coronavirus, bovine coronavirus and the SARS-like isolates found in nature in bats. Theres is nothing special about this coronavirus, it is just that the human population is not immune against it, for the moment.

Dear David Escors ,

Thank you for sharing important information.

Further, Is it possible to create coronations like SARS-Co-2 by genetic engineering ?

Yes, but not only for coronaviruses. I remember that a whole picornavirus infectious cDNA was generated by chemical synthesis, basically from scratch. But this is nothing new.... Retroviral and lentiviral vectors were generated from infectious cDNA clones in the early 80s, and now they are used in gene therapy, for example. It does not mean that this particular lentivector was engineered by any means. Any virologist from the CDC could tell you that every year there are dozens of unknown viruses that jump to the human population, some of them belonging to families such as poxviridae, very similar to small pox. In several places in Africa this is not uncommon (monkey pox, ebola, many unknown viruses), in America (Zika virus, Hataviruses). Here in Europe we worked with an unkown virus associated to Balkan Nephropathy. It was not a coronavirus, and we could only identify it by electron microscopy. But we do not have its sequence yet. You only need a combination of good spreading capacities and some incubation time to get the "perfect storm". For example pandemic flu (not the same as common human flu).

yes but I dont know shift to left or shift to right

A paradigm yet. I'm following

This corona is a natural virus, we are just suitable hosts

Theoretically, this is possible with the involvement of large funds. But who would care to take such a high risk of causing a global epidemic. Considering the estimation of potential profits and losses, the rational analysis shows that the risk is too great.

Have a nice day. Regards.

Dariusz Prokopowicz

The experiments of incorporation of genes in viral genome by genetic engineering may produce a virulent pathogen that can kill the human being within days.

Each virus has a weak point that can be exploited and working on its basis. One of the most important points is that its outer surface is fat and fat. There are ways to remove it. Within the virus, there is a protein substance and in the center of its genes RNA, which also has weaknesses. I think his problem did not last long. But the initial preparations to confront it were not up to standard.

This one is a natural virus strain

The truth is we don't know enough about all the genes to design one that is more virulent or transmissible. There are over 380 point mutations - we don't know what they do. Any one could alter virulence or transmissibility. if you look at all the amino acid changes in the receptor binding domain, you see no one could have predicted that! It's a natural virus. Evolution is better than our genetic engineering.

Thanks Rachel, it is indeed a natural virus. Sometimes we forget that we humans are very vulnerable to many pathogens

One hypothesis is actually that a bat CoV infected Malayan Pangolins which not only acted as an amplifier host but where both bat and pangoline CoV also recombined. Alternatively, pangoline CoV might have crossed the species barrier in wet markets. However the authors pointed out that the current data cannot rule out either scenario. (Lam et al., 2020 Identifying SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses in Malayan pangolins)

Statistics have shown that the death rate for women is lower in the sense of immunity more than men, as well as people who eat immune food and India are less affected by the virus, just as people who previously had taken a vaccine against tuberculosis also were not affected by the epidemic.

Dear Rachel L Roper,

Thank you for comment. Yes, Evolution is the most probable way.

But we have think about present genetic engineering capability.

Torsten Wurm,

Thank you for the comment. Now, This Virus has trannserd to cats and dogs.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200406-why-smart-people-believe-coronavirus-myths

Dear Anton, from the article you cited: "Even the simple repetition of a statement – whether the same text, or over multiple messages – can increase the “truthiness” by increasing feelings of familiarity, which we mistake for factual accuracy. So, the more often we see something in our news feed, the more likely we are to think that it’s true – even if we were originally sceptical."

It sounds familiar, perhaps the mind conditioning exercised by the daily pounding of advertising messages (advertising is the soul of commerce) acts on the behavior even when it should not? The same communication strategies are also used in other contexts. So, who do we blame? I would just like to point out that science is not made of dogmas, and that the scientific community is not an ecclesiastical community that must stick to pre-established truths. The disorientation caused by this coronavirus has exposed the fact that uncertainties far outweigh certainties, even in science. Treating those who express doubts, uncertainties, or put forward hypotheses or ask questions different from those officially allowed by invoking their stake, is not less blameworthy than the behavior to which the article is addressed.

Best regards,

Claudio

It was reported that the virus was genetically modified in Wu Han Research Lab by Shi ZengLi

I have looked inyo the sequence and it is natural to me. It is a standard SARS natural isolate

Dear David Escors,

What about the uncertainity you statement (it is natural).

Dear Meng Au Khan,

Is that a scintific report ?

Can you share the link with us.

Dear Meng Au Khan,

Please go through paper mentiond by

Yuan-Yeu Yau, avilable at the link below. Can you build up A comparison with your report.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_nCoV-2019_bioenginnered_a_weapon_gone_rogue

Means it is a natural isolate with the expected mutation rates with other SARS, and not containing heterologous genes or sequences