Gain of Function Experiments. 2021-08-06. JormaJyrkkanen

GENETICALLY MANIPULATED Many studies have reported that bats are natural reservoirs for a broad diversity of potentially pathogenic SARS-like CoVs.[15, 16] Some of these viruses can potentially directly infect humans[17], whereas others need to mutate their spike protein in order to effectively bind to the human angiotensin 1-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) receptor and mediate virus entry.[18] In order to evaluate the emergence potential of novel CoVs, researchers have created a number of chimeric CoVs, consisting of bat CoV backbones, normally unable to infect human cells, whose spike proteins were replaced by those from CoVs compatible with human ACE2. These chimeras were meant to simulate recombination events that might occur in nature.[19, 20] Such gain-of-function experiments have raised a number of biosafety concerns and stirred controversy among researchers and the general public. One of the main arguments in favor of gain-of-function studies is the need to be prepared with an arsenal of drugs and vaccines for the next pandemic.[21] By contrast, one of the main arguments against them is that the next pandemic itself could be caused by those experiments, due to the risk of lab escape.[22, 23]