(Going entirely from Twitter etc and not having read the original papers or grant proposals myself)
I don’t think what the WIV did was central to “gain-of-function” research, at least according to Marc Lipsitch. My understanding is that Shi Zhengli (Obviously not an unbiased source) from WIV claims that their work isn’t gain-of-function because they were studying intermediate hosts, rather than deliberately trying to make pathogens more virulent or transmissible.*
My own opinion is that GoF has become ill-defined and quite political, especially these days, so we have to be really careful about precisely what we mean when we say “GoF”
I realize that this sound like splitting hairs, but the definitional limits are important, because Lipsitch’s 2014 paper(s) about the dangers of GoF were predicated on a narrow definition/limits of GoF (the clearest-cut cases/worst offenders), while the claims about lab escape, if true, comes from a broader model of GoF.
(Two caveats
1) I want to be clear that I personally think that whether it’s called GoF or not, studying transmission from intermediate hosts is likely a bad idea at current levels of lab safety. 2) I don’t feel particularly qualified to judge this ).
*I wanted to find the source but couldn’t after 3 minutes of digging. Sorry.
(Going entirely from Twitter etc and not having read the original papers or grant proposals myself)
I don’t think what the WIV did was central to “gain-of-function” research, at least according to Marc Lipsitch. My understanding is that Shi Zhengli (Obviously not an unbiased source) from WIV claims that their work isn’t gain-of-function because they were studying intermediate hosts, rather than deliberately trying to make pathogens more virulent or transmissible.*
My own opinion is that GoF has become ill-defined and quite political, especially these days, so we have to be really careful about precisely what we mean when we say “GoF”
I realize that this sound like splitting hairs, but the definitional limits are important, because Lipsitch’s 2014 paper(s) about the dangers of GoF were predicated on a narrow definition/limits of GoF (the clearest-cut cases/worst offenders), while the claims about lab escape, if true, comes from a broader model of GoF.
(Two caveats
1) I want to be clear that I personally think that whether it’s called GoF or not, studying transmission from intermediate hosts is likely a bad idea at current levels of lab safety.
2) I don’t feel particularly qualified to judge this ).
*I wanted to find the source but couldn’t after 3 minutes of digging. Sorry.