Covid originated in China’s Wuhan lab? There’s now ‘smoking gun’ evidence, says Rutgers scientist Richard Ebright

From the onset, one feature of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 disease, stood out. The virus had a furin cleavage site (FCS) that allowed it to infect humans. In the family of coronaviruses to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs, the SARS-CoV-2 is only one of more than 800 viruses with FCS.

In nature, such an occurrence is extremely rare.

There is, however, now ‘smoking gun’ evidence that such a feature was developed in a laboratory, says Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University.

Tracing research proposals by Chinese scientists and their US collaborators and highlighting the fact that exactly the same kind of virus emerged a year later next door to their lab in China’s Wuhan, Ebright explains the case for the lab-origin of the Covid-19 pandemic in an interview with Firstpost’s Madhur Sharma.

Ebright, the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, also discusses the gain of function research, the risky research in which scientists give characteristics to pathogens that they do not naturally have, and says such work has no practical civilian usage. Edited excerpts:

Five years after the Covid-19 outbreak, we know that Chinese scientists had the closest-known ancestor of SARS-CoV-2 with them and had worked on coronaviruses right up to the outbreak in 2019. We are also aware of the DEFUSE proposal under which Wuhan-based scientists and their US collaborators sought to insert furin-cleavage sites into coronaviruses. 

Do you believe the DEFUSE proposal is the ‘smoking gun’ evidence that we are looking for regarding the origin of Covid-19?

In 2017-2018, with National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) constructed genetically modified SARS coronaviruses that combined the spike gene from one bat SARS-related coronavirus with the rest of the genetic information from another bat SARS-related coronavirus, obtaining new viruses that efficiently infected and replicated in human cells, and obtaining at least one new virus that exhibited 10,000 times enhanced viral growth in lungs, 1,000,000 times enhanced viral growth in brains, and three times enhanced lethality in humanized mice.

In 2018, just one year before the pandemic, in an NIH grant proposal, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its collaborators proposed to construct additional genetically modified SARS-coronaviruses, proposing to construct viruses with spikes having higher binding affinities for human SARS receptors, hypothesising that such viruses would have enhanced pandemic potential.

Moreover, in 2018, just one year before the pandemic, in a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant proposal, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its collaborators proposed to construct genetically modified SARS coronaviruses having a “furin cleavage site” a feature associated with increased viral growth and increased transmissibility — inserted at the spike ‘S1-S2’ border and to construct these viruses by synthesising six nucleic-acid building blocks and assembling the six nucleic-acid building blocks using the reagent ‘BsmBI’.

In 2019, a novel SARS-related coronavirus having a spike with extremely high binding affinity for human SARS receptors, a furin cleavage site at the spike S1-S2 border, and a genome sequence with features enabling assembly from six synthetic nucleic-acid building blocks using BsmBI as a reagent for assembly —a virus having the exact features proposed in the 2018 NIH and DARPA proposals—emerged on the doorstep of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

[READ MORE: ‘Made in Wuhan, shipped by Beijing’: A story of how Communist Party of China gave world Covid-19 pandemic]

SARS-CoV-2 is the only one of more than 800 known SARS-related coronaviruses that possesses a furin cleavage site. Mathematically, this fact by itself implies that the probability of encountering a natural SARS-related coronavirus possessing a furin cleavage site is less than 1 in 800.

The furin cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 has codon usage —the pattern of preferences among synonymous three nucleotide sequences encoding amino acids in the genetic code— that is highly unusual for a natural SARS-related coronavirus, but that is as expected for a sequence engineered to function in humans.

Taken together, the presence of a spike having an extremely high affinity for human SARS receptors, the presence of a furin cleavage site at the spike S1-S2 border, the unusual codon usage of the furin cleavage site, the sequence features enabling assembly from six synthetic nucleic-acid building blocks with BsmBI as reagent for assembly, and the one-for-one match between these features and the features proposed in the 2018 NIH and DARPA proposals, make an extremely strong case —a ‘smoking gun’ for a research related origin.

The gain of function (GoF) research has been central to the lab-origin discourse of Covid-19. How do you look at the insistence of some scientists that GoF research should continue and is essential? Do you believe a middle ground is needed on GoF research or whether it needs to be shut down or reduced greatly as risks far outweigh potential benefits?

The gain-of-function research of concern involves the creation of new health threats — health threats that did not exist previously and that might not come to exist by natural means for tens, hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of years.

The gain-of-function research of concern poses high —existential—risks. The gain-of-function research of concern poses both material risks and information risks.

The gain-of-function research of concern poses material risks by creating new or enhanced potential pandemic pathogens. If a resulting new potential pandemic pathogen is released into humans, either by accident or deliberately, this can cause a pandemic.

The gain-of-function research of concern poses information risks by providing information on the construction and properties of new potential pandemic pathogens. The publication of research provides instructions —step-by-step ‘recipes’— that can be used by a rogue nation, organisation, or individual to construct a new potential pandemic pathogen and release it to cause a pandemic.

The gain-of-function research likely caused the Covid-19 pandemic and surely could cause the next pandemic.

The gain-of-function research of concern provides limited benefits.

The Gain-of-function research of concern has no civilian practical applications. In particular, the gain of-function research of concern is not needed for, and does not contribute to, the development of vaccines and drugs — companies develop vaccines and drugs against pathogens that exist and circulate in humans and not against pathogens that do not yet exist and do not yet circulate in humans.

The gain-of-function research of concern is a small part of biomedical research — less than 0.1 per cent of all biomedical research and less than 1 per cent of virology.

As the gain-of-function research of concern poses high —potentially existential— risks and provides limited benefits, the risk-benefit ratio for the research almost always is extremely unfavourable.

The gain-of-function research of concern should be banned or, at absolute minimum, should be subject to independent and transparent national- or international-level oversight that ensures that, before research is started, risk-benefit assessment is performed, risk-benefit profiles are acceptable, and mitigable risks are mitigated.

How do you look at biodefence programmes so far, such as PREDICT? Do you believe such programmes, along with activities like GoF research, started with the idea of identifying and preparing for pandemic-causing pathogens have worked well so far or the idea itself is misplaced?

The PREDICT and its successor programmes have been absolute failures. They generated no —zero— information useful for preventing pandemics or responding to pandemics. They caused the Covid-19 pandemic — killing 20+ million and costing $25+ trillion. They are poised to cause future pandemics.

One scientist, Steven Quay, calculated that the chance of SARS-CoV-2 developing furin cleavage sites at the exact spot that it did in nature is one in 1.2 billion. Do you agree with the assessment that an ancestor virus evolving into SARS-CoV-2 naturally —with furin cleave sites in the spike protein— is so narrow that it’s next to impossible as Mr Quay noted?

The SARS-CoV-2 is the only one of more than 800 known SARS-related coronaviruses —sarbecoviruses— that possesses a furin cleavage site (FCS). Mathematically, this finding by itself implies that the probability of encountering a natural SARS-related coronavirus possessing an FCS is less than 1 in 800 (P  <  0.005).

The FCS of SARS-CoV-2 has codon usage —the pattern of preferences among synonymous three nucleotide sequences encoding amino acids in the genetic code— that is highly unusual for a bat SARS-related coronavirus. The FCS of SARS-CoV-2 contains two consecutive CGG codons where CGG is one of six synonymous codons for the amino acid arginine, and is used rarely —as less than 1 in 30 codons for arginine— in bat SARS-related coronaviruses, but is used frequently in humans (58).

Mathematically, the probability of encountering a natural SARS-related coronavirus having two consecutive CGG codons is less than 1 in 30 —P  <  0.05; assuming non-independent codon selection for the two codon positions— to less than 1 in 9,000 — P < 0.005; assuming independent codon selection for the two codon positions.

Mathematically, the combined probabilities of encountering a natural SARS-related coronavirus possessing an FCS and having two consecutive CGG codons is less than 1 in 24,000 to less than 1 in 720,000.

This leads me to another question which I have thought of numerous times while reading about this virus. For my benefit and that of our readers, most of whom are not scientists, please tell us your assessment that if this virus did not have furin cleavage sites, do you think the virus would still have the potential to cause a worldwide pandemic?

Unlikely.

What is the importance of knowing conclusively about the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic? Is it just the question of accountability here or the search for answers or is there something bigger at stake?

In the wake of any disaster —a train derailment, a plane crash, a rocket explosion, a reactor meltdown, a terror attack or a war— the causes of the disaster are investigated and the findings are used to inform policy changes to reduce the risks and the impacts of future disasters.

The same needs to be done in the wake of the Covid-19 disaster.

As a scientist, what pushed you to look into the possibility of the laboratory-origin of SARS-CoV-2? Considering that most of the scientists trusted their fellow scientists advocating the natural-origin view, such as those who published the infamous ‘Proximal Origin’ paper, how did you start pursuing a different trail? Did you start as a skeptic or did you suspect lab-leak from the onset?

All informed persons —without exception— knew by early 2020 that a laboratory origin of Covid-19 was more likely than not, but most chose to lie for five years.

Had Chinese researchers and their US collaborators been completely transparent regarding the coronavirus outbreak, such as sharing relevant information from databases and making the genome public at once, do you believe the world could have responded to Covid-19 pandemic much better?

Yes. Especially if, as appears likely, they knew before January 2020 that lab release had occurred.

Do you believe the trust in science and scientists has fallen considerably since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic?

Yes. Absolutely.

In the past five years, we have seen how not just Chinese scientists but Western scientists misled the public about the reality of the outbreak. Even as they privately suspected lab-accident or lab-engineering, they publicly pushed for the natural-origin narrative. Moreover, the public guidance issued by scientists and the way the World Health Organization (WHO) shared the Chinese narrative made people question if the experts know any better than the average person on the street. 

Do you believe scientists and institutions like the WHO have lost the stature they once had?

Yes. Absolutely.

As for the Covid-origin, we have had numerous investigations, such as the Biden administration’s intelligence review and Congressional investigations. However, several experts, such as Robert Moffit of the Heritage Foundation in a previous interview with me, have said that there needs to be a 9/11 Commission-type bipartisan inquiry into Covid-origin. Do you agree?

Yes. However, attention must be paid to the composition of such a commission. It cannot include those who defrauded the public on the subject.

Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic, do you believe the world is better prepared to deal with another pandemic-potential outbreak in the future?

No, no one has been held accountable for the Covid-19 pandemic and no actions —none— have been taken to reduce the risks of the next lab-generated pandemic.