U.S. to create a bird flu virus mutation

[AlaskaDenise]

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050324-030452-8400r.htm

Atlanta, GA, Mar. 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has begun a series of experiments to see how likely the bird flu virus could result in a human pandemic.
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The six-month series of experiments seeks to simulate the mixing and matching of genes from the H5N1 avian flu virus that has plagued Asia and a common human flu virus that public-health experts fear could turn avian flu into a pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

CDC scientists inside an ultra-secure laboratory have started swapping the genes of the H5N1 avian virus with the genes of an H3N2 virus, the strain behind most recent human flu outbreaks.

The goal is to substitute the eight genes of each virus, one by one, with the eight genes from the other virus to see which of more than 250 possible combinations create flu viruses that could spread easily among humans.

The work responds to fears by global public health experts that the bird flu virus could mutate to form one that could spawn a global outbreak of the disease.

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This makes me very uncomfortable. Do we really need homegrown pandemic strains? I notice they aren't planning any recombinations with swine H1N1 or mallard HxNx, etc.

What happens if they find a high path franken-virus, make a VAX, vaccinate millions, and (you-guessed it) the H2H is a combo of H5N1 and something other than the precise strain of H3N2 used for the VAX? How many years have they guessed wrong on the annual VAX?

Conspiracy theorists will really spin this event.

But I hope it works.

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[AlaskaDenise]

Re: U.S. to create a bird flu virus mutation

I wonder to what extent they will utilize newly released sequences?

The companion question - which H5N1 are they using?

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[HenryN]

Re: U.S. to create a bird flu virus mutation

This is a re-run of failed experiments with the 1997 H5N1. They are probably using the 2004 Vietnam strain and they won't get any reassortants. Failed before and will fail again

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/122704/CDC_WHO_Experiment.html

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/122804/CDC_WHO_Experiment_Fails.html

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: U.S. to create a bird flu virus mutation

in http://www.recombinomics.com/News/122804/CDC_WHO_Experiment_Fails.html

The statement.......

A broader transmissibility requires recombination, not reassortment.

If the viruses fail to recombine, it will likely just mean that the co-infection experiments did not include appropriate selection pressures.

.....makes sense to me. I don't see how "random" lab experiments could mimic nature's selection pressure. The comments about the contributions from other animals has certainly been shown with the sequence data being released.

I'd love to see their VAX offer even a small measure of protection....we need all the help we can get.

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