Moratorium on risky virology studies leaves work at 14 institutions in limbo
Jocelyn Kaiser
ScienceInsider
Under the Freedom of Information Act Jocelyn Kaiser obtained so-called stop orders issued by the NIAID. Dated October 21, 18 such orders affecting 14 institutions were issued covering influenza, MERS and SARS viruses. Somewhat surprisingly, a MERS coronavirus project with the aim to adapt it to mice was put on hold. The details of the project are unknown. Nonetheless it is plausible that this would involve physical inoculation of mice.
Personal opinion
This MERS virus experiment is not the GOF research most people have in mind. A small animal model of the MERS virus would be useful for testing of small molecule inhibitors and learning something of the physiopathology of the infection. Put it another way, we don’t have too many reagents for camels, which are rather large. The benefits are fairly easy to articulate.
Adapting a virus to the mouse is a goal for many researchers because there are huge numbers of markers, reagents and knock out mice that unquestionably help the scientist. Of course human and mouse genomes and physiology are different and so the mouse is “only” a model. But mouse model work invariably advances the field.
An experiment of concern is one that adapts a virus to humans and agriculturally important animals and crops. Equally increasing the virulence of an extant virus that infects humans, agriculturally important animals and crops would be of concern. Experiments of concern were first listed in the so called Fink report 2003.
