Going viral

Readers of Britain's biggest newspaper, the Daily Mail, were confronted with a spine-chilling headline. "Boston University CREATES a new COVID strain that has an 80% kill rate." 

It is enough to make anyone want to go straight back to bed. The tabloid reported that scientists working in a biolab at a US university had engineered a new variant of the coronavirus which would combine the more deadly earlier strain with the more contagious omicronAn extremely contagious variant of Covid-19 first reported in November 2021. strain. The result? A "supervirus" with a refined ability to spread and kill.

The lab published its results last week, proudly announcing that the engineered virus (called the "omicron S-bearing virus") had succeeded in combining infectiousness with a high mortality rate.¹

Today, "gain-of-function" research is actually far from uncommon. It is used to understand how a virus might mutate in the future and often involves increasing both transmissibility and virulence and immunogenicity. The aim is to better understand existing viruses or create treatments for potential new ones.

It might sound crazy. We already live shrouded in fear of nuclear war and full climate breakdown. Why add the risk of brewing a potential biological weapon to the mix?

In reality, the research is heavily regulated. Researchers have to report their plans in full to relevant authorities, and also have to abide by a long list of biosafety rules. The virus strain they engineer cannot be more deadly than the original strain, although critics say this can be hard to measure.

Some say that the criticism of gain-of-function research is mere fearmongeringDeliberately causing public fear or alarm about a certain thing. . The far scarier prospect is allowing fatal pathogensAn organism that causes disease to its host. to go unstudied. We only know and understand 1,400 known human pathogens, but the world has more than a trillion species of microorganisms, leaving much beyond our understanding.

Scientists working in biolabs are currently researching HantavirusesA group of viruses normally carried by rodents that can cause both mild flu-like symptoms and serious illness. , the Zika virus, the Nipah virus and dengue to prevent these fatal viruses from affecting the global population. If you have not heard of these hazardous illnesses yet, say some, you might have those scientists to thank.

Others are sceptical. Even with a robust health and safety regime, lab-engineered viruses can spread. In Taiwan last year, a lab assistant working with Covid-infected mice was bitten and caught the disease, exposing 110 people outside of the lab.

Nor would it be the first time that a fatal disease has escaped the lab. In the 1960s and 1970s, smallpoxA disease estimated to have killed 300 million people in the 20th Century. was released on three separate occasions in Britain due to lab malpractice. It was linked to at least 80 deaths.²

The question at hand is one of risk versus gain. Is it worth risking human life for the sake of science? Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living" - that we should seek knowledge above all else. Others argue that pathogen research is no more than a risky game, taking us closer every day to manufacturing our own demise.

Yes: Scientists do not undertake experiments like this for fun. These experiments help to prevent the spread of diseases and create treatments and will ultimately save far more lives than they risk. Outbreaks linked to lab malpractice are rare.

No: We are readily giving scientists the tools to create a biological weapon which could wipe out life on earth, without sufficient regulation. If the Boston strain of the coronavirus had escaped the lab, it could have wiped out millions of people.

Or... There needs to be more consistent regulation of these labs in the wake of the pandemic. Labs in Europe and the US are subject to far tighter regulations than those in Asia, for example.