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A biosafety level (BSL), or pathogen/protection level, is a set of biocontainment precautions required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed laboratory facility. The levels of containment range from the lowest biosafety level 1 (BSL-1) to the highest at level 4 (BSL-4). In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have specified these levels. In the European Union, the same biosafety levels are defined in a directive. In Canada the four levels are known as Containment Levels. Facilities with these designations are also sometimes given as P1 through P4, as in the term P3 laboratory.
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Harbin Institute of Technology is a public research university and a member of China's elite C9 League. HIT is a Chinese Ministry of Education Class A Double First Class University. It has three campuses, spanning the country from north to south: the Harbin campus in Heilongjiang Province, the Weihai campus in Shandong Province and the Shenzhen campus in Guangdong Province.
Luc Montagnier was a French virologist and joint recipient, with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Harald zur Hausen, of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). He worked as a researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and as a full-time professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 (A/H5N1) is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species. A bird-adapted strain of H5N1, called HPAI A(H5N1) for highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of type A of subtype H5N1, is the highly pathogenic causative agent of H5N1 flu, commonly known as avian influenza. It is enzootic in many bird populations, especially in Southeast Asia. One strain of HPAI A(H5N1) is spreading globally after first appearing in Asia. It is epizootic and panzootic, killing tens of millions of birds and spurring the culling of hundreds of millions of others to stem its spread. Many references to "bird flu" and H5N1 in the popular media refer to this strain.
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Gain-of-function research is medical research that genetically alters an organism in a way that may enhance the biological functions of gene products. This may include an altered pathogenesis, transmissibility, or host range, i.e. the types of hosts that a microorganism can infect. This research is intended to reveal targets to better predict emerging infectious diseases and to develop vaccines and therapeutics. For example, influenza B can infect only humans and harbor seals. Introducing a mutation that would allow influenza B to infect rabbits in a controlled laboratory situation would be considered a gain-of-function experiment, as the virus did not previously have that function. That type of experiment could then help reveal which parts of the virus are responsible for its host range, enabling the creation of antiviral medicines which block this function.
The COVID-19 lab leak theory is the proposal that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. Central to the idea is the fact that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is in the same city as the pandemic's earliest known outbreak. The theory gained support because of suspicions about the secrecy of the Chinese government's response. Scientists from WIV had previously collected SARS-related coronaviruses from bats; allegations that they also performed undisclosed risky work on such viruses is central to some versions of the idea. Some versions, particularly those alleging alteration of the SARS-CoV-2 genome, are based on speculation, misinformation, or misrepresentations of scientific evidence.
References
- ↑ Yong, Ed (2 May 2013). "Scientists create hybrid flu that can go airborne". Nature. doi:10.1038/nature.2013.12925. S2CID 181077199.
- ↑ Steve Connor (2013-05-02). "'Appalling irresponsibility': Senior scientists attack Chinese researchers for creating new strains of influenza virus in veterinary laboratory - Science - News" . The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-05-09. Retrieved 2013-05-06.
- ↑ "China launches high-level biosafety lab". XinhuaNet. 2018-08-07. Archived from the original on August 7, 2018. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
