Temo ci sia il rischio non saprà mai: occorre puntare a evitare che dubbi di questo tipo si presentino in futuro. Dobbiamo garantire che le attività umane sul genoma portino la firma di chi le fa, proprio per evitare che le responsabilità possano essere eluse. Una specie di targa, di marchio di fabbrica, o di green pass, se vogliamo. I laboratori BSL4 o comunque quelli che modificano organismi pericolosi dovrebbero aggiungere il watermark sul genoma che conservano, manipolano e usano. In caso di leak accidentale si potrà risalire al laboratorio di origine. Le tecnologie per farlo apparentemente ci sono, si chiamano "DNA watermarking" anche se sono concepite prevalentemente per l'attribuzione di proprietà, ad esempio per la protezione di brevetti su DNA modificato. Nel nostro caso la tecnologia dovrebbe garantire il non ripudio, quindi per evitare che un laboratorio possa negare l'autenticità del watermark e respingere l'attribuzione. Mi pare ci sia già del lavoro fatto in tale direzione [1] da parte di team interdisciplinari di informatici e biologi. Alberto [1] Kar, D. M., Ray, I., Gallegos, J., & Peccoud, J. (2018). Digital Signatures to Ensure the Authenticity and Integrity of Synthetic DNA Molecules. Proceedings of the New Security Paradigms Workshop on - NSPW ’18. doi:10.1145/3285002.3285007 <https://sci-hub.se/https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3285002.3285007> On 20/09/21 13:32, 380° wrote:
Buongiorno,
so che è un palese off-topic per questa lista, anche se /vagamente/ tratta di fake-news e disinformazione diffusa anche per mezzo del web.
Ovviamente tratta sì di tecnologia, la tecnologia delle ricerche di laboratorio sugli agenti patogeni, editing genetico incluso.
Secondo voi che SARS-CoV-2 sia zoonotico o no fa davvero la differenza, sapendo quello che (non) sappiamo dei centri di ricerca che trattano questi agenti patogeni?
«An appeal for an objective, open, and transparent scientific debate about the origin of SARS-CoV-2»
Published:September 17, 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02019-5
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02019-5/f...
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[...] There is so far no scientifically validated evidence that directly supports a natural origin. [...] The fact that the causative agent of COVID-19 descends from a natural virus is widely accepted, but this does not explain how it came to infect humans.
[...] supports the natural origin hypothesis, but suffers from a logical fallacy: it opposes two hypotheses—laboratory engineering versus zoonosis—wrongly implying that there are no other possible scenarios. [...] the absence of traces of reverse-engineering systems does not preclude genome editing, which is performed with so-called seamless techniques.
Finally, the absence of a previously known backbone is not a proof, since researchers can work for several years on viruses before publishing their full genome (this was the case for RaTG13, the closest known virus, which was collected in 2013 and published in 2020).
[...] documented cases of laboratory escapes of SARS-CoV [...]
Although considerable evidence supports the natural origins of other outbreaks (eg, Nipah, MERS, and the 2002–04 SARS outbreak) direct evidence for a natural origin for SARS-CoV-2 is missing. After 19 months of investigations, the proximal progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 is still lacking. Neither the host pathway from bats to humans, nor the geographical route from Yunnan (where the viruses most closely related to SARS-CoV-2 have been sampled) to Wuhan (where the pandemic emerged) have been identified.
[...] the international research community has no access to the sites, samples, or raw data.
[...] A research-related origin is plausible. Two questions need to be addressed: virus evolution and introduction into the human population.
[...] Some unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence suggest that they may have resulted from genetic engineering, an approach widely used in some virology labs. Alternatively, adaptation to humans might result from undirected laboratory selection during serial passage in cell cultures or laboratory animals, including humanised mice. Mice genetically modified to display the human receptor for entry of SARS-CoV-2 (ACE2) were used in research projects funded before the pandemic, to test the infectivity of different virus strains. Laboratory research also includes more targeted approaches such as gain-of-function experiments relying on chimeric viruses to test their potential to cross species barriers.
A research-related contamination could result from contact with a natural virus during field collection, transportation from the field to a laboratory, characterisation of bats and bat viruses in a laboratory, or from a non-natural virus modified in a laboratory. There are well-documented cases of pathogen escapes from laboratories. Field collection, field survey, and in-laboratory research on potential pandemic pathogens require high-safety protections and a strong and transparent safety culture. However, experiments on SARS-related coronaviruses are routinely performed at biosafety level 2, which complies with the recommendations for viruses infecting non-human animals, but is inappropriate for experiments that might produce human-adapted viruses by effects of selection or oriented mutations.
[...] Beyond this issue, it is important to continue debating about the risk–benefit balance of current practices of field and laboratory research, including gain-of-function experiments, as well as the human activities contributing to zoonotic events.
[...]
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«This time you've gone too far, I told you, I told you, I told you, I told you» [Digging In The Dirt by Peter Gabriel, 1992]
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