GAIN-OF-FUNCTION experiment: what does it mean and what has it to do with Covid-19? Let us explore the science, politics, and its ramifications in the current context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the outset of the Covid-19 outbreak, when news of mass infections and deaths in Wuhan caused by a virus that had crossed from bats to humans, I was sceptical that a virus of natural evolution could cause so much havoc.

Diseases are usually transmitted vertically, meaning within the same species; and not horizontally, meaning from one species to another like from bird or bat to human.

Horizontal transmission of disease is made possible when the genes of the pathogen have been artificially manipulated.

It takes elaborate adaptation at a micro-evolutionary scale over a long period of time to finally be able to cross species.

Along the way a genetic footprint is left in each small adaptive step, traceable to the whole evolutive process. A sudden jump of the virus that has cohabited the bats to overwhelm the human immunological protective mechanism just does not make sense.

French Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier was among the first to add his voice to the scepticism. He asserted that the virus had been designed by molecular biologists and insisted that its characteristics could not have arisen naturally.

Twelve months on, the mainstream media has now joined the discourse on the possibility that the virus might have originated and escaped from a laboratory. 

Science writer and editor of the influential Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Nicholas Wade’s article on May 5 – The origin of Covid: did people or nature open Pandora’s box in Wuhan? – started a worldwide discourse on the Covid-19 lab-origin theory.

Wade had argued that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was discretely conducting gain-of-function experiments on coronavirus led by Dr Shi Zheng-li, whose study was secretly funded by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) headed by Dr Anthony Fauci, and by the EcoHealth Alliance, a civil society group.

US law does not permit research in biological weapons for offensive purposes. The US has since 1972 ratified the international treaties outlawing biological warfare.

Outsourcing research to foreign laboratories working with individual scientists is a way to circumvent the law. 

While Wade has stated there is no direct proof of a lab-origin virus, he has made a compelling argument for it. The following are some of the reasons:

1. Eighteen months have elapsed since the outbreak and researchers are still unable to find the original bat population or the intermediate species from where the virus might have jumped. The World Health Organization international team on its mission to Wuhan from January 14 to February 10 failed to find the zoonotic source of the virus.

2. For 20 years, and unknown to the public, virologists had been playing a dangerous game creating viruses more lethal than those that exist in nature. With gain-of-function experiments, their stated intention was to understand how viruses mutate so that they could predict and prevent natural cross-over of viruses from animals to humans.

Viruses, generations of which where the genes were manipulated in minute steps to adapt to human proteins, were observed and their ability to make the cross-over. Only an accident leading to unintended consequences was awaiting such a dangerous manipulation of nature.

3. Laboratories working with viruses are categorised using four biosafety levels (BSL) 1 to 4. Of the four, BSL4 is the most restrictive and is used for work involving dangerous pathogens such as the Ebola virus. Scientists working in BSL4 labs have to wear spacesuit-type garments and conduct their research in closed confinement. Rules require scientists working on SARS1 and MERS be conducted in BSL3 standard.

According to Wade, research carried out at the WIV on gain-of-function in coronaviruses was in BSL2 safety conditions. As it turned out, there was an allegation that several Wuhan researchers fell ill, displaying symptoms similar to Covid-19 prior to the outbreak.

What if the SARS-CoV-2 had been a Pandora’s Box opened by people, as Wade put it, and what would be the ramifications? A genetically modified virus is bound to do much more damage than one that is natural.

Considering that we are now seeing scores of variants of concern that have mutated quickly and have escaped certain vaccines.

Some of the new viral strains appear to be more transmissible than the original strain. Considering that Covid-19 has now become more ferocious and children who previously almost never succumb to the disease now do so.

Many well-known scientists have warned of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) with the viral strain becoming more virulent with each mutation.

Montagnier and Swedish virologist Dr Geert Vanden Bossche had cautioned against the use of vaccines in the middle of a pandemic. 

Singaporean Dr Oon Chong Jin, a WHO consultant and inventor of five industrial patents on hepatitis B products, had also warned of vaccine escape, cautioning mutations on spike protein had altered the antigenicity, or the ability of the virus to circumvent the immunological process.

Oon asserted that mutated strains had passed through front-liners in hospitals, airport staff and children; and as such favoured the use of Sinovac’s vaccine instead.  

In view of all the latest terrifying scientific development, politicians, mainstream media editors, and health professionals who are over reliant on “official” reports should open their eyes and ears to the latest scientific arguments from all sides.

Those who shouted loudest about conspiracy theory and fake news might not realise fingers are pointing back at them. – June 9, 2021.

* Captain Dr Wong Ang Peng is a researcher with an interest in economics, politics, and health issues. He has a burning desire to do anything within his means to promote national harmony. Captain Wong is also a member of the National Patriots Association.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.