by Jon Fleetwood, Jon Fleetwood:
Those genetic traits later coronavirology largely took for granted began as interpretations of laboratory measurements in Michael Lai’s taxpayer-funded 1978 paper.
For decades, U.S. taxpayer-funded coronavirologist Ralph Baric developed increasingly sophisticated methods for reconstructing, modifying, and engineering coronaviruses.
Before 2019, his work claimed to explain down to the molecular level how to build coronaviruses with the defining properties (here) of the purported COVID-19 pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2 (having six segments separated by five restriction sites and a spike protein with optimized furin cleavage sites, receptor-binding domains, and two-proline vaccine constructs).
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But Baric’s work depended on an earlier generation of coronavirus research.
Before coronavirus could be said to be cloned, manipulated, or engineered, researchers first had to establish what coronavirus was understood to be at the molecular level.
One of the earliest papers attempting to answer that question was Michael M. C. Lai’s 1978 paper, RNA of Mouse Hepatitis Virus, funded by the U.S. government under grants 1F32-NS-05410 and RO1-NS-12967.
Rather than directly observing what it ultimately described as the coronavirus genome, the paper used a series of laboratory measurements to infer conclusions about coronavirus’s molecular and genetic properties.
That’s important because Baric spent much of the early 1980s co-authoring coronavirus molecular genetics papers with Lai, helping develop the molecular framework that Baric’s later engineering work would build upon.
If the molecular and genetic properties of coronavirus were originally established through interpretation of laboratory measurements rather than direct observation, how many later conclusions about the coronavirus genome ultimately rest on inherited inferences rather than direct observation?
The Paper Began With Laboratory Measurements
According to the paper, the researchers collected biological material from treated cell cultures.
They then separated portions of that material through repeated centrifugation, chemically processed selected portions, and subjected the recovered material to multiple laboratory tests.
Those procedures produced measurements.
Not genes.
Not genomes.
Measurements.
Among them were:
- sedimentation behavior during centrifugation,
- migration patterns during electrophoresis,
- sensitivity to RNase,
- and binding in a poly(A) assay.
The instruments produced peaks, bands, enzyme reactions, and binding results.
They did not directly observe what the paper ultimately described as coronavirus genetic material.
The Paper Then Attributed Genetic Properties to Coronavirus
After presenting those laboratory measurements, the paper drew broader conclusions.
The authors concluded that coronavirus possessed:
- one large RNA molecule,
- a particular estimated molecular weight,
- a single-stranded structure,
- was “probably” positive stranded,
- and possessed the genetic coding capacity discussed throughout the paper.
Those statements are not instrument outputs.
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