Professor Kawaoka has already come under fire for carrying out previous studies to enhance the transmissibility of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu — which is highly lethal to humans but does not pass easily from one person to another — by repeatedly exposing ferrets to the engineered virus.
Their arguments in favour of such work, i. The risk of escape is small but non-zero. I do not see such benefits, so on balance we are worse off. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Unfortunately, obtaining viral RNA sequences from samples that old is technically fraught. Even obtaining samples is hard, preprint coauthor Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, tells Science.
Still, the team was able to secure a total of 13 lung tissue samples from people who died between and from specimens that were being housed in the Berlin Museum of Medical History and the pathology collection of the Natural History Museum in Vienna; three of them, all from , contained influenza RNA.
CDC researchers and their colleagues successfully reconstructed the influenza virus that caused the flu pandemic, which killed as many as 50 million people worldwide. The following questions and answers describe this important research and related issues. Note: For a detailed historical summary of this work, including how it was conducted, the people involved, and the lessons learned from it, see The Deadliest Flu: The Complete Story of the Discovery and Reconstruction of the Pandemic Virus.
Read more on how an expert group of researchers and virus hunters located the lost virus, sequenced its genome, and reconstructed the virus in a highly safe and regulated laboratory setting at CDC to study its secrets and better prepare for future pandemics. This information is critical to evaluating the effectiveness of current and future public health interventions, which could be used in the event that a like virus reemerges. The knowledge from this work may also shed light on the pathogenesis of contemporary human influenza viruses with pandemic potential.
The natural emergence of another pandemic virus is considered highly likely by many experts, and therefore insights into pathogenic mechanisms can and are contributing to the development of prophylactic and therapeutic interventions needed to prepare for future pandemic viruses.
The influenza pandemic of killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, many more than the subsequent pandemics of the 20th century.
The biological properties that confer virulence to pandemic influenza viruses have not traditionally been well understood and warranted further study. Research to better understand how the individual genes of the pandemic influenza virus contribute to the disease process provide important insights into the basis of virulence.
This kind of information has helped health officials to devise appropriate strategies for early diagnosis, treatment, and prevention, should a similar pandemic virus emerge. Additionally, such research informs the development of general principles with which we can better design antiviral drugs and other interventions against all influenza viruses with enhanced virulence.
Work with the reconstructed virus was conducted at and supported by CDC. The U. CDC studies of the influenza virus were begun in with the initiation of testing of viruses containing subsets of the eight genes of the virus.
Previous articles describing the properties of such viruses were published before Reconstruction of the entire virus was begun in August Top of Page. It is impossible to predict with certainty the emergence of a future pandemic, including a like virus. Are there alternative ways to achieve the same scientific or humanitarian goals? How big the added value is, that is, to what extent does a particular experimental approach increase the knowledge and the likelihood of reaching a specific goal?
If applied to the Spanish flu work, a rather mixed picture emerges. Influenza pandemics are, without doubt, a very important public health problem.
But it is less obvious that a reconstructed virus from is crucial for increasing our understanding of the genesis, prevention and management of influenza pandemics. Hundreds of influenza strains from the past five decades, including some pandemic strains, are available to researchers and are indeed used by initiatives such as the Influenza Genome Sequencing Project to investigate genetic virulence factors. The added value of one additional strain, even one with an exceptional high mortality rate, is limited, given that strains with varying degree of contagiousness and pathogenicity are already available and provide a wealth of research resources for comparative studies.
Thus, the tangible societal benefits of sequencing and reconstructing the pandemic influenza virus remain poorly defined. Considering the high risk of abuse, the availability of alternative research avenues and its limited added value to public health, this particular research project appears to be one of the few cases in which the risks outweigh the benefits and which should not have proceeded over the course of 10 years.
Kolata G The story of the great influenza pandemic of and the search for the virus that caused it. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York. Google Scholar. Characterization of the influenza virus polymerase genes. Nature : — Characterization of the reconstructed Spanish influenza pandemic virus.
Science : 77— The flu virus is resurrected. Article Google Scholar. Knell RJ Evolution of virulence: New gene, new disease. Heredity Advance Online Publication, doi
0コメント