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Shifted function12/21/2023 ![]() The work was considered by some an example of ‘gain-of-function’ virology, in which scientists bestow new abilities on pathogens to study them. “Hindsight is 20:20.”īut the 2015 study did raise broad interest for another reason: some wondered whether such an experiment should ever have been attempted. “It probably didn’t get the recognition it should have had from the general virology community and people involved in pandemic preparedness,” says Katherine Spindler, a virologist at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, who was not involved in the work. In just a few years’ time, that warning would prove prescient, as a distant cousin of SARS-CoV has now killed more than 4.9 million people worldwide. This chimaera came with a message: other coronaviruses have the potential to spark a human pandemic. In the laboratory, this particular mash-up was able to break into human cells and also make mice ill 1. ![]() They took a version of the coronavirus responsible for the deadly outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in the early 2000s - now known as SARS-CoV - and adorned it with surface proteins from a different coronavirus taken from Chinese horseshoe bats. ![]() In 2015, virologists led by Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill reported the creation of their own chimaera. In Greek mythology, the Chimaera was a fire-breathing monster, a horrifying mishmash of lion, goat and snake that laid waste to the countryside.
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