Scientists genetically altered a flu virus to make it more contagious - WickedFire - Affiliate Marketing Forum

jacky8 · 01-02-2012, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Recent reports that two teams of scientists had genetically altered a deadly flu virus to make it more contagious have provoked fear, even outrage, in some quarters.

Biosecurity advisers to the American government, which paid for the research, have urged that full details not be published for fear that terrorists could make use of them. The World Health Organization warned Friday that while such studies were important, they could have deadly consequences.

Some scientists argue that the research should not even have been done, since the modified virus could slip out of a lab and set off a lethal epidemic. Others contend that such experiments are essential to learning what naturally occurring changes in flu viruses are the most dangerous. The results could help inform efforts to predict epidemics, they say, and to develop antiviral drugs and vaccines.

There is one point on which the factions agree: The ability of a virus to spread easily from person to person is the key to determining whether it can cause a pandemic. There is much scientists do not know about what makes a virus transmissible — and much they must learn before they are able to prevent another flu pandemic. Contagion depends on a complex interplay between a virus and its victim, including where it enters the body, the types of cells in which it can reproduce and whether it can then escape to reach another human.

The virus that scientists made more contagious was the A(H5N1) avian flu. In its natural form, it is known to have infected only about 600 people since its discovery in 1997, but it killed more than half of them. Humans almost never transmit it to one another. But if that ever were to change, bird flu could become one of history’s worst pandemics.

The work to make the virus more transmissible was done by two separate groups, one at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and the other at the University of Wisconsin. The experiments were performed on ferrets, because flu behaves in them almost exactly as it does in humans.

In Rotterdam, a team led by Dr. Ron Fouchier made a strain of bird flu that could drift through the air into nearby cages and infect other ferrets.

Although that result has set off worldwide concern, some researchers say the modified virus might not behave the same way in people, because ferrets are not a perfect model for human transmission.

The new virus does not seem as contagious as either the 1918 Spanish flu or the 2009 swine flu, Dr. Fouchier said. To become airborne, the virus required a range of genetic modifications — “a combination of everything,” he said.

In humans, bird flu viruses live best in the lower lungs, he said, which makes it harder for them to escape in sneezes and coughs. If one could replicate in the upper airways, it would be more likely to be released as an aerosol and might be more transmissible.

If the virus were shed, or expelled, as individual particles instead of in clumps, said Dr. Fouchier, it would be more easily spewed out in the tiny droplets of a cough.

“It also may help if the virus induces coughing or sneezing,” Dr. Fouchier added.

Modifications to any of these viral traits may help make the bird flu virus more contagious. And in fact, it took only a few mutations to make the new virus, he said.

Dr. Fouchier declined to describe them in detail. But other scientists said increased transmissibility usually depends on changes in at least two of eight genes: one that helps the virus invade cells, and one that helps it copy itself.

In birds, flu is primarily a gut disease, shed in feces, whereas in people it is primarily a nose, throat and lung disease, shed in saliva and mucus.
Researchers have found that a small change in a gene called PB2 helps make a type of bird flu contagious in ferrets by enabling the virus to copy itself at the temperatures found in a mammal’s nose, which is 4 degrees Celsius cooler than a bird’s intestines.

Ram Sasisekharan, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher on a team that did a 2009 study that made a bird flu more transmissible in ferrets, said another crucial mutation was in the HA gene, which codes for the hemagglutinin spike that attaches the virus to cells. The mutation slightly changed the shape of the spike, making the virus more transmissible. Dr. Sasisekharan’s study did not involve A(H5N1) bird flu.

Instead, the researchers started with a type of duck flu and spliced in genes from the highly contagious 1918 Spanish flu.

Taken from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/he...u-spreads.html

A Zimbabwe senator has also died due to this (I thought this would concern HBWA)

inb4 shit gets real. take care, bros

Hale.Pane · 01-02-2012, 05:41 PM

inb4 Dec 2012

Kiopa_Matt · 01-02-2012, 06:28 PM

So the US government has been working on biological weapons / experiments?

Who would have thought...

If you think that article is scary, just think about what the US military biological warfare scientists have in their labs.

subigo · 01-02-2012, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jacky8

Taken from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/he...u-spreads.html

A Zimbabwe senator has also died due to this (I thought this would concern HBWA)

inb4 shit gets real. take care, bros

Research labs alter the flu virus all the time. That Zimbabwe senator didn't die of the altered virus. People get the bird flu every year.

lukep · 01-02-2012, 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by subigo

Research labs alter the flu virus all the time. That Zimbabwe senator didn't die of the altered virus. People get the bird flu every year.

^That.

jacky8 · 01-02-2012, 07:12 PM

I'm aware that they've probably pulled this shit a lot of times before. Here, a popular news outlet is actually blaming the US (and Dutch scientists) for making a flu virus contagious.

Avian flu could be a mass killer if it starts transmitting easily among humans. The US government has instructed scientific journals to not publish details of the virus altering studies because it is feared that the 'terrorists' may misuse the information.

From wikipedia:

Quote:

Epidemiologists are afraid the next time such a virus mutates, it could pass from human to human; however, the current A/H5N1 virus does not transmit easily from human to human. If this form of transmission occurs, another pandemic could result. Thus, disease-control centers around the world are making avian flu a top priority.

I wonder whether these so-called disease-contol centers actually do the opposite of what they are supposed to do?

Andrey · 01-02-2012, 07:31 PM

I wouldnt be surprised if they are developing a super strong flu to wipe the fuck out a couple billion ppl.

stickyicky · 01-02-2012, 07:35 PM

>disposable FEMA caskets

01-02-2012, 05:41 PM	#2 (permalink)
Hale.Pane Deutsche Bahn Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 424 iTrader: 12 / 100%	inb4 Dec 2012 Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter __________________

01-02-2012, 06:28 PM	#3 (permalink)
Kiopa_Matt Senior Member Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 1,292 iTrader: 6 / 100%	So the US government has been working on biological weapons / experiments? Who would have thought... If you think that article is scary, just think about what the US military biological warfare scientists have in their labs. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter __________________ xMarkPro -- Ultimate Blog Network Management Streamline your marketing operations. Centralize management of domains, pages, Wordpress blogs, sponsors, link codes, media items, sales and traffic statistics, plus more!

01-02-2012, 07:31 PM	#7 (permalink)
Andrey Peasant ;) Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Home :) Posts: 2,142 iTrader: 297 / 100%	I wouldnt be surprised if they are developing a super strong flu to wipe the fuck out a couple billion ppl. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter __________________

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