Tiny COVID-19 Gene Sequence Raises Valid Question or “Quirky Observation?”
Biospace.com
https://www.biospace.com/article/ti...uestion-but-is-it-only-a-quirky-observation-/
The research was published in Frontiers in Virology
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fviro.2022.834808/full
"Fresh suspicion that Covid may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus's spike protein.
They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic."
"An international team of researchers led by the University of Oregon conducted a BLAST search comparing the genome of SARS-CoV-2 with genome sequences within databases of other genomes. They identified a 19-nucleotide-long RNA sequence found in the virus’s furin cleavage site that matched a 19-nucleotide sequence in a genetic segment owned by Moderna. Moderna filed a patent for a 3,300-segment nucleotide sequence in February 2016 as part of its cancer research division. The research was published in Frontiers in Virology.
This new report suggests that there is a one-in-three trillion chance Moderna’s sequence randomly showed up via natural evolution, at the very least “is highly unusual and requires further investigations.”
To counter the research;
"Lawrence Young, Ph.D., a virologist at the University of Warwick, said it was interesting but probably not significant enough to suggest the virus was manipulated in a laboratory. “We’re talking about a very, very, very small piece made up of 19 nucleotides. So it doesn’t mean very much to be frank, if you do these types of searches you can always find matches. Sometimes these things happen fortuitously, sometimes it’s the result of convergent evolution (when organisms evolve independently to have similar traits to adapt to their environment). It’s a quirky observation but I wouldn’t call it a smoking gun because it’s too small. It doesn’t get us any further with the debate about whether COVID was engineered.”
Simon Clarke, Ph.D., a microbiologist at Reading University, also questioned the one-in-three trillion statistics, saying, “There can only be a certain number of [genetic combinations within] furin cleavage sites. They function like a lock and key in the cell, and the two only fit together in a limited number of combinations. So it’s an interesting coincidence but this is surely entirely coincidental.”
We used to have a saying "Time to spare, go by air."
