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Among the thousands of pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails recently obtained by The Washington Post and BuzzFeed News, a short note from Christian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, has received a lot of attention.
Over the past year, Andersen has been one of the most vocal proponents of the theory that the coronavirus arose from natural spread from an animal to humans outside a laboratory. But in an email to Fauci in January 2020, Andersen has yet to come to that conclusion. Some features of the virus made him wonder if it had been engineered, said Lafauci, the government’s chief infectious disease expert, and noted that he and his colleagues plan to investigate further by analyzing the virus’ genome.
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The researchers published these findings in a research paper in the scientific journal Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020, and concluded that the tested origin is highly unlikely. Andersen has reiterated that view in interviews and on Twitter over the past year, putting him at the center of the ongoing debate over whether the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory.
When his early email to Fauci was released, the media storm around Andersen intensified, and he deactivated his Twitter account. He answered written questions from The New York Times about the email and the brawl. The exchange has been edited slightly for length.
Q: Much of your email was sent to Fauci in late January 2020, shortly after the coronavirus genome was sequenced. I said, “The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%), so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (likely) appear to be engineered." Can you explain what you meant?
A: At that time, based on limited data and preliminary analyzes, we observed features that appear to be unique to SARS-CoV-2. We had not seen these features in other related viruses from natural sources, and thus were exploring whether they were engineered into the virus.
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These features included a structure known as the furin cleavage site that allows the SARS-CoV-2 protein to be cleaved by furin, an enzyme found in human cells, and another structure, known as the receptor-binding domain, which allowed the virus to anchor to the outer surface of human cells via a cell surface protein Known as ACE2.
Q: You also said that you found the virus genome to be “inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory”.
A: This was a reference to features of SARS-CoV-2 that we identified based on early analyzes that do not appear to have a clear immediate evolutionary premise. We have not yet done more in-depth analyzes to arrive at a conclusion, but rather have been sharing our preliminary observations.
I warned in the same email that we would need to look at the question more closely and that our opinions could change in a few days based on new data and analysis – which they did.
Q: In March, you and other scientists published a Nature Medicine paper saying, “We don’t think any kind of lab-based scenario is acceptable.” Can you explain how the research changed your view?
A: Features in SARS-CoV-2 that initially suggested a possible architecture were identified in related coronaviruses, meaning that the features that initially seemed unusual to us were not.
Many of these analyzes were completed in a matter of days, while we worked around the clock, allowing us to reject our initial hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 may have been engineered, while other “lab-based” scenarios are still under the table. .
However, more comprehensive analyzes, important additional data, and comprehensive investigations comparing genetic diversity more broadly across coronaviruses led to a peer-reviewed study published in Nature Medicine. For example, we looked at data from coronaviruses found in other species, such as bats and pangolins, which showed that features that first appeared unique to SARS-CoV-2 were in fact present in other related viruses.
In general, this is a textbook example of a scientific method where an initial hypothesis is rejected in favor of a competing hypothesis after more data are available and the analyzes are completed.
Q: Some people, including virologist David Baltimore, say the presence of the furin cleavage site could be a sign of human manipulation of the virus, while you and other virus experts have said it evolved naturally. Can you explain to readers why you don’t think it’s evidence of an engineering virus?
A: Furin cleavage sites have been found throughout the coronavirus family, including the beta coronavirus genus to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs. There has been much speculation that the patterns in the virus’s RNA responsible for certain parts of the furin cleavage site are evidence of engineering. Specifically, people point to two “CGG” sequences encoding the amino acid arginine at the furin cleavage site as strong evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory. Such statements are not factually correct.
While it is true that CGG is less common than other isotypes that code for arginine, the CGG codon is located elsewhere in the SARS-CoV-2 genome and genetic sequence.[s] which includes the CGG codon found in SARS-CoV-2 is also present in other coronaviruses. These results, along with many other technical features of the site, strongly suggest that it evolved naturally and that there is very little chance of it being designed by someone.
Q: Do you still think all laboratory scenarios are implausible? If it’s not a synthetic virus, how about an accidental leak from a Wuhan lab?
A: As we mentioned in our article back in March, it is currently impossible to prove or refute certain hypotheses regarding the origin of SARS-CoV-2. However, while both laboratory and natural scenarios are possible, they are not equal in probability – precedence, data and other evidence strongly favor natural emergence as a highly probable scientific theory of SARS-CoV-2 emergence, while laboratory leakage remains only a guesswork hypothesis based on conjecture. .
Based on detailed analyzes of the virus conducted by researchers around the world thus far, it is unlikely that the virus was a designer. The scenario in which the virus is found in nature, brought to a laboratory and then released by mistake[d] Likewise unlikely, based on current evidence.
In contrast, the scientific theory about the natural emergence of SARS-CoV-2 presents a much simpler and more probable scenario. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 is very similar to that of SARS-CoV-1, including its seasonal timing, location, and association with the human food chain.
Q: Some people have referred to your email to Fauci, suggesting that it raises questions about whether scientists and government officials gave more credence to the lab leak theory than they allowed the public. Some recent reports have suggested that some government officials do not want to talk about the lab dropout theory because it would draw attention to government support for so-called job-earning research. What is your response to these suggestions? Were you worried in the spring of 2020 about the public’s adherence to the lab leak theory?
A: My primary concern last spring, which applies to this day, was to conduct research to characterize exactly how SARS-CoV-2 emerged in humans.
I won’t talk to other government officials and scientists or what they haven’t said or thought. My comments and conclusions are driven strictly by scholarly inquiry, and I strongly believe that accurate and well-supported public messages on complex topics are critical.
Q: Several scientists are now open to the possibility of a lab leak. Looking back over the past year, do you have any regrets about the way you or the broader scientific community communicated to the public about the idea of infusion in the lab?
A: First, it is important to say that the scientific community has made tremendous advances in understanding COVID-19 in a remarkably short period of time. The heated debate is part and parcel of science and that’s what we’ve seen regarding the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
I think it can sometimes be difficult for the audience to observe the debate and discern the possibility of different hypotheses. This is especially true where science is politicized, and the current slander of scientists and experts on the subject sets a dangerous precedent. We’ve seen it through the debate on climate change, and now we’re seeing it through the debate on different aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout this pandemic, I have done my best to help explain what the scientific evidence is and what it suggests, and I have no regrets about it.
Q: Do you support President Joe Biden’s call for US intelligence agencies to further investigate these various possibilities? Can they find anything that changes your mind?
A: I have always supported more inquiries about the origin of SARS-CoV-2, including President Biden’s recent call, as it is important to fully understand how the virus came to be.
As with any scientific process, there are many things that would lend credence to the hypothesis of a lab leak that would make me change my mind. For example, any credible evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the epidemic – whether in freezer, in tissue culture or in animals, or epidemiological evidence of very early confirmed COVID-19 cases associated with the institute.
Other evidence, if it appears, can give more weight to the hypothesis of natural origin. Includes select intermediate [animal] Host (if any). Also, now that we know that live animals have been sold in markets across Wuhan, more understanding of the flow of animals and their connected supply lines could lend additional credibility to the natural emergence.
Q: It looks like you have closed your Twitter account. why? Will it return?
A: I have always seen Twitter as a way to interact with other scientists and the general public to encourage open and transparent dialogue about science.
However, it has increasingly found that the information and comments it has posted have been taken out of context or misrepresented to advance false narratives, particularly about the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Daily attacks against scientists and the scientific method have also become commonplace, and much of the conversation has moved away from science.
For these reasons, I felt that for now, I could no longer contribute productively to the platform, and decided that it would be more productive for me to invest more of my time in our research on infectious diseases, including that of COVID-19.
This article originally appeared in the New York Times.
© 2021 The New York Times Company
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