Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

[Celvin11]

Published 26 Nov 2009
source : http://www.siste.no/Innenriks/helse/article4726428.ece (Norwegian)

Google translator; translation slightly improved :

Will make the fatal virus

Oslo (ANB): Swine Influenza and Avian Influenza. Taken together, it can be an unpleasant cocktail.

ESTER NORDLAND
Published 26/11/2009 at 07:16 Updated 26/11/2009 at 07:25

On one of the most secure laboratories in the world scientists want to mix one of the most contagious viruses that exists with one of the deadliest. The goal is to determine whether swine flu and bird flu can be a dangerous mix.

Swine flu (H1N1) infected easily, but only takes the life of a fraction of those who are infected. Bird flu (H5N1) takes the lives of more than 60 percent of its human victims, but rarely transmitted from person to person. Should these two mixed up, or mutate, a new type of horror virus see the light of day: A virus with a mortality rate of avian influenza virus and infectious of the swine influenza virus, Dagsavisen daily writes.

By Inserm-lab biosafety level 4 in Lyon in France is deadly viruses, such as Ebola, Marburg and Hendra locked in safes. The lab is located in a building that will withstand both earthquakes and explosions. Researchers are moving around in the protective equipment that is reminiscent of spacesuits with its own oxygen supply. Inserm is the French national institute for public health and medical research.


Mutate

Now, research group in Lyon to try to determine if the H1N1 virus will mix with its more deadly cousin H5N1 and become a virus with the worst features of both. If you find out what kind of mute ring that can take place and what type of flu that can occur, it may be the key to predicting how future pandemics will evolve.

They have now studied how H1N1 can become resistant to medication Tamiflu. Now we hope the research group's leader, Bruno Lina, to get the green light to start trying to mix the two viruses.

- It is a controversial study, but it is basic research that needs to be done, "says Lina of the magazine Nature.

- If you find out which parts of the H5H1 virus that are most vulnerable to shuffle about, so you can be extra careful if the virus is changing there," says Lina.

Olav Hungnes is the coordinator for influenza surveillance at the Norwegian Institute for Public Health in Norway. He said that the possibility exists that the swine flu virus may change. Hungnes explains that the virus' genetic characteristics can be rearranged so that it takes up in the genes from another virus. In order for the swine influenza virus and the avian flu virus is mixed into a new dangerous viruses is that they meet. There are so few cases of bird flu in humans, the chances are small, "says Hungnes.

Mixing pot

Bird flu has the highest prevalence in Southeast Asia.

- It has been thought that the pig could act as a 'mixing pot' for the two types of influenza. Der reviewed pigs, geese and people freely. But so far this has not happened, "said Dr. Bjørn Iversen at the NIPH.

- If it's going to happen, no one knows. What you think of this question depends on whether you are an optimist or pessimist. Optimist would say that since it has not happened yet, it will not happen at all. Pessimist would say that now it has held for so long that it is right before it can do it. Although I think the likelihood that it will occur is low. Now the bird flu virus circulating since 1987. It came back in 2003, and despite the fact that it has been very much normal seasonal influenza, there have not been able to mix with this, "says Iversen.

Bjørn Iversen says that there is research on this around the world. On a U.S. laboratory have researcher Jeffrey Taube Berger managed to reconstruct the Spanish sickness virus that ravaged the early 1900's. His research team has cultivated a new live virus. (ANB News Agency)

 

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

I hope they post the results for the public.

 

[Celvin11]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

Indeed !

However, green light for this mixing has yet not been given (as of ultimo November)

Quote from article

Now we hope the research group's leader, Bruno Lina [says], to get the green light to start trying to mix the two viruses.

 

[tropical]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

#1:
year 2006?
2009
"On one of the most secure laboratories in the world scientists want to mix one of the most contagious viruses that exists with one of the deadliest. The goal is to determine whether swine flu and bird flu can be a dangerous mix."
"Bjørn Iversen says that there is research on this around the world."
somebody maybe already mixed those scam toghether in a lab (Lina apart) ... because of best cure/vaccine searching reasons,
but actualy, no universal safe vaccines global stocks were safely produced to cover the anti-bf-pandemic potential global world needs

do we need additional arguments for doom dangers flags ?
are the freezers frozen enaugh ?

there will be probably never the case of any obscure scientific tec possibility which will be not experimented on by human beings, if it will be possible to be scientificaly done

an humans no-limits curse or what

 

[Celvin11]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

2006 is a typo. article is written 6 DAYS ago, as stated a few lines below published 26/11/2009

thanks for detecting; typo has now been corrected

 

[tropical]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

Thanks Celvin11.


#1: "... scientists want to mix one of the most contagious viruses that exists with one of the deadliest. The goal is to determine whether swine flu and bird flu can be a dangerous mix."


It could be formulated an answer for the above question of the mixers, without experimenting:
It can.

No further live experiments to solve better the above question are probably needed :yinyang:

But now we could aspect zilion permutations of franken mutants breedings at such labs, to determinate why the sky is blue ...
and miss the zilion+1 permutation which could emerge naturaly.

 

[Celvin11]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

Related

Homeland Security Today:

Concerns Grow Over Possible H1N1-H5N1 'Reassortment', Other Mutations


http://www.hstoday.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11277&Itemid=149

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

They did something like this with H5N1 + ?virus. They couldn't get it to mix into a viable virus, and concluded it couldn't happen. BUT - we all know nature is superior to a lab tube.

.

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

In the meantime, other avian / animal influenza viruses such as A/H5N2, A/H5N3, A/H7N2, A/H7N3, A/H7N7, A/H3N8, A/H3N2, A/H2N2, A/H9N2 and more other will continue to circulate among poultry and swine farms around the world unnoticed to mainstream media, infecting subclinically workers and relatives of them.

These viruses seem apparently harmless but ''combined'' / ''reassorted'' with a pandemic strain (for example H1N1 2009) the result may be ''interesting''.

Also, a lot of anti-pandemic vaccines are being thrown out because unused and the cold chain interruption, thousands of third world individuals continue to have close contacts with poultry and swine and other animals, well recognized to be influenza virus reservoir.

Nobody suggests an inoculation for these people, notably in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Nigeria and more other regions.

 

[Celvin11]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

Yes, the development of this should be closely monitored. I both feel and think there are enough reasons around to be concerned

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

.....thousands of third world individuals continue to have close contacts with poultry and swine and other animals, well recognized to be influenza virus reservoir.

Nobody suggests an inoculation for these people, notably in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Nigeria and more other regions.

Is anyone proposing to fund this worthwhile effort?

How many vaccines would that be? How much production time is needed, or are production facilities going to switch back to seasonal production? Might some of these countries refuse a foreign-produced vaccine, as happened with polio?

I believe China is attempting to do what you propose, within their own country, yet they're still expressing concern about possible dangerous reassortments. That speaks volumes about what our concern should be for other countries.

.

 

[Celvin11]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

Reported from Vietnam :

Vietnam's Home-made A /H1N1 Antiviral Drug To Be Made Early 2010

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=458723

HANOI, Nov 30 (Bernama) -- Vietnam is expected to put locally-made antiviral drug to treat A/H1N1 and H5N1 influenza on sale in early 2010 at a price being 4.5 times lower than that of the current medication - Tamiflu, Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported Monday.

The information has been confirmed by the Hanoi University of Pharmacy on Sunday after it announced that research work on the stability of and the production process for the antiviral drug with a scientific name of Arbidol (Fludon H1) had been completed.

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

They did something like this with H5N1 + ?virus. They couldn't get it to mix into a viable virus, and concluded it couldn't happen. BUT - we all know nature is superior to a lab tube.

.

Something similar was done in 2004:

CDC to conduct avian flu pandemic experiments

The alarm now sounds with increasing frequency and urgency: the world could be on the brink of an influenza pandemic sparked by the highly virulent avian flu strain ravaging poultry stocks in Southeast Asia, experts fear.

But can that strain -- known as H5N1 -- actually acquire the ability to spread easily to and among people? And if it can, how likely is that dreaded event to occur?

Early in the new year, U.S. scientists will begin experiments that should provide some answers to those questions. In the process, they hope to learn more about why a virus that nature designed to infect migratory water birds has the astonishing capacity to kill mammal species ranging from house cats to tigers to humans.

The work won?t indicate how soon a pandemic might start. And the findings can?t be taken as a guarantee the virus will evolve as the science predicts.

"Like a lot of science, it?s an imitation of nature,?? explains Dr. Frank Plummer, scientific director of Canada?s National Microbiology Laboratory.

"It doesn?t replicate exactly what happens. But I think it gives you an idea of the propensity of the H5N1 virus to do this thing.??

The researchers, from the influenza branch of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, will mate H5N1 and human flu viruses in a process known as reassortment. Viable offspring will be tested in animals thought to be good surrogates for humans, to see if the viruses can infect, can be transmitted easily from infected animals to healthy ones and to note the severity of disease each provokes.

In other words, the CDC researchers will be deliberately engineering viruses of pandemic potential. It?s high-risk but crucial work, the influenza community insists.

"It?s a dangerous experiment,?? admits Dr. Robert Webster, a world-renowned expert on influenza based at St. Jude Children?s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

Still, Webster has no doubt the work needs doing. Science must gain a better understanding of the menacing H5N1 virus.

"These experiments are fully justified, knowing what we know,?? he stresses, using a scatological adjective to describe how scared influenza experts are of H5N1.

"This is the worst virus I?ve ever met in my long career.??

The World Health Organization has been pleading for months for qualified research facilities -- of which there are few -- to undertake this work.

The Geneva-based agency would like to be able to put some kind of odds on how likely H5N1 is to become a pandemic strain and how deadly -- or not -- H5N1 reassortment viruses might be in humans.

If none of the hybrids cause severe disease, the organization might feel comfortable with stepping down its current high level of alert, explains Dr. Klaus Stohr, director of the WHO?s global influenza program.

On the other hand, if CDC researchers easily produce highly transmissible and lethal hybrids, "that would certainly add to our concern.??

It?s about quantifying risk.

"Currently we do risk-speculation, but we want to do risk-assessment. And that will give us scientific evidence on the possible outcome on the emergence of a pandemic virus,?? Stohr says.

"It will give us an opportunity to predict the probability because we will have an understanding on the number of reassortment viruses which are viable, the percentage of those that are viable which are then transmissible -- and also on the percentage of those which are viable, transmissible and pathogenic. And how pathogenic they are.??

The CDC researchers will work in high containment level 3-enhanced labs, says Dr. Nancy Cox, the leading influenza authority who heads the agency?s flu branch. The labs have special features designed to protect both the health of the workers and the world against a viral escape.

"It?s not typical level 3,?? Cox says, adding the lab workers are "extremely cognizant of the danger of the H5 viruses.??

"And of course we know we can autoclave these viruses,?? she adds, referring to a process that kills using high pressure and heat. "So if you find something that is particularly worrisome, you can get rid of it.??

Still, lab accidents happen. Since SARS was contained in mid-2003, four lab workers in Asia have infected themselves with the potentially deadly disease and one spread it beyond the walls of the laboratory. Earlier this year, a Russian lab worker died after accidentally infecting herself with Ebola virus.

Given that reality, some groups have raised concern that work like this should not be done. But a top virologist from the Netherlands insists it must be, expressing confidence in the CDC?s ability to do the job safely.

"If it?s being done by CDC, then the good thing about that is that safety measures will properly be in place,?? said Dr. Albert Osterhaus, of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam.

The CDC researchers will mix genes from H5N1 with genes from circulating strains of human flu to see which combinations produce viruses that grow and infect. Cox says H3N2 -- the strain that has been responsible for most human flu in recent years -- will be the first priority.

However, Southeast Asia has recently seen activity with H1N1, the mild modern descendant of the strain that caused the Spanish flu of 1918. So the CDC has been sequencing H1N1 viruses recently isolated in Thailand to be able to work with it as well.

"We?re really keeping our minds open. But as long as H3N2 viruses continue to predominate, that will be our first target,?? Cox says.

Reassortment studies can be performed two ways, she explains. Scientists can use reverse genetics, a procedure that allows them to custom tailor a virus with a predetermined constellation of genes from each parent virus.

The other alternative is what Cox describes as the classical way -- simultaneously infecting tissue culture with H5N1 and H3N2 viruses and seeing what results. That approach is more time-consuming and laborious, but more closely mimics evolution of influenza viruses in nature.

"We will probably be using a combination of the two different methods. I think there are advantages and disadvantages to each,?? says Cox, who believes her team may have some preliminary results within a couple of months of beginning the work.

Some skeptics have pointed to the fact H5N1 hasn?t yet reassorted to argue it may not be able to do so outside of the artificial confines of a laboratory.

Webster thinks that optimism is misplaced. He calls H5N1 "one of the most promiscuous viruses that we?ve ever seen. It would amaze me if it wouldn?t mate with a human virus, given the opportunity.??

CDC researchers have already made hybrid viruses with H5N1, using versions of the virus isolated after it first caused human infections in 1997 in Hong Kong.

"Some gene combinations could be produced and others were not,?? is all Cox will reveal of that as-yet unpublished work.

Even if, in this new round of experiments, CDC?s researchers fail to produce a single viable hybrid virus, that doesn?t prove H5N1 won?t reassort in nature, experts say.

For one thing, flu viruses are constantly evolving. The viruses that the CDC will work with now -- isolated in 2004 -- are not identical to those from the 1997 outbreak. A combination that fails with the 1997 virus might work with a 2004 virus -- or a 2005 version.

"Things in nature can happen that you can?t replicate in the lab necessarily,?? stresses Plummer, whose lab is working on producing reassortments of H7N3, the strain behind last spring?s avian flu outbreak in British Columbia.

"Can you be sure that all possible virus reassortments have occurred? No. And fairly minor changes in viruses can make really huge differences in their biologic properties.??

http://www.flu.org.cn/en/news-7402.html

 

[JimO]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

I once studied various methods to dispose of high-level nuclear waste. As one would expect, the criteria for containment included timeframes in the tens of thousands of years and other very stringent requirements. This is why we still don't have a permanent nuclear repository in the U.S. There was even a study done to evaluate the benefits and risks of concentrating the radioactive isotopes to remove any inert material and then launching the concentrate into space. Although the statistical odds of an accident were remote, the consequences of such an accident would be locally catastrohic in the vicinity of the fallout. Thus, the researchers concluded that with the uncertainties involved with potential human error, and natural phenomena, such as weather, sunspots, etc., there would never be a low enough risk possible to consider such an approach viable.

I would argue that the same would apply to creating a highly virulent/highly transmissible virus in the laboratory capable of wiping out a large percentage of the population. No matter how secure the laboratory is or how many precautions are taken, human error must be factored into the risk analysis. Since the consequences would potentially be far worse for the human race than any nuclear accident, I cannot see how this type of experimentation can be justified. After all, it is unlikely to produce the makings of a vaccine or allow a unique opportunity for testing new antivirals, since we don't know if the laboratory version would even closely resemble any naturally recombined virus. It seems that the only justification is to see if it can happen. If that would truly help us prevent a pandemic, then it might be worthwhile, but I don't see how it could help.

This makes me very uneasy.

 

[Jojo]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

Will they announce which lab will chosen?

I live fairly close to a level 4 Bio lab---so I'm very un-easy myself as it is:nuke:

 

[tropical]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

Thanks AD.

Microbiological proliferation.
I remember somebody already tampering with.


#13:
"CDC´s researchers fail to produce a single viable hybrid virus, that doesn´t prove H5N1 won´t reassort in nature"



is it supposed that we must believe to the above ...

in that case we are safe

___

#14:
"I cannot see how this type of experimentation can be justified. After all, it is unlikely to produce the makings of a vaccine or allow a unique opportunity for testing new antivirals, since we don't know if the laboratory version would even closely resemble any naturally recombined virus. It seems that the only justification is to see if it can happen."


Obviously true JimO.

___

#15: un-easy

Hi Jojo, true,
but you can calm yourself by looking at the folks actualy near the BSL-3 facilities (or the once some folks wanted relaxed 2+ doing similar tasks) ...
That's "on the edge"

 

[Celvin11]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

Jojo : 'tough' neighbourhood with Lab 4 and CERN nearby ...

 

[Emily]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

They'd have no problem getting clearance to do that in the US. 1918 H1N1 + H5N1 seems just as dangerous to work with.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 Mar 18;105(11):4381-6. Epub 2008 Mar 11.
A new influenza virus virulence determinant: the NS1 protein four C-terminal residues modulate pathogenicity.

Jackson D, Hossain MJ, Hickman D, Perez DR, Lamb RA.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.

The virulence of influenza virus is a multigenic trait. One determinant of virulence is the multifunctional NS1 protein that functions in several ways to defeat the cellular innate immune response. Recent large-scale genome sequence analysis of avian influenza virus isolates indicated that four C-terminal residues of the NS1 protein is a PDZ ligand domain of the X-S/T-X-V type and it was speculated that it may represent a virulence determinant. To test this hypothesis, by using mice as a model system, the four C-terminal amino acid residues of a number of influenza virus strains were engineered into the A/WSN/33 virus NS1 protein by reverse genetics and the pathogenicity of the viruses determined. Viruses containing NS1 sequences from the 1918 H1N1 and H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses demonstrated increased virulence in infected mice compared with wt A/WSN/33 virus, as characterized by rapid loss of body weight, decreased survival time, and decreased mean lethal dose. Histopathological analysis of infected mouse lung tissues demonstrated severe alveolitis, hemorrhaging, and spread of the virus throughout the entire lung. The increase in pathogenicity was not caused by the overproduction of IFN, suggesting the NS1 protein C terminus may interact with PDZ-binding protein(s) and modulate pathogenicity through alternative mechanisms.

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

1918 H1N1 + H5N1 seems just as dangerous to work with.

I'm not sure they were combining 1918+H5N1, but rather making the true statement that both contain the virulent NS1/92 mutation.

.

 

[tropical]

Re: Researchers will mix H1N1 swine flu virus with H5N1 bird flu virus

#18:
"by using mice as a model system, ...
of a number of influenza virus strains ...were engineered ...
...
Viruses containing NS1 sequences from the 1918 H1N1 and H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses demonstrated increased virulence in infected mice compared with wt A/WSN/33 virus, as ...
Histopathological analysis of infected mouse lung tissues demonstrated severe alveolitis, hemorrhaging, and spread of the virus throughout the entire lung."


From the above, they infected the mice, so that must be real new viruses used there.
And such viruses contained 1918 and bird flu qualities, as reported.
The results were similar as now in humans in deadly pandemic cases.


The mouse/rat/.../.../animals continuous horror - lab induced infections/ mutations/...sections/.../ experiments,
and after immense pains, death.

Is it all that ethical, if it is done "to see if that is possible"?
Did anybody care about, or we trespassed any limit as a specie ...

If the limits were already trespassed, and because such wide overwhelming human specie autolesionistic artifitial harming biological potential was never designed on the globe before the last 60 (100) years, plus it were now further amplified by bright new technological possibilities, where will all that gone ...

we could see the path clearly now ...