The Proximal Origin is a reference to a scientific correspondence titled "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" and the events of scientific and political controversies arising from it. [1] [2] The letter, published in the journal Nature Medicine on 17 March 2020, was written by a group of virologists including Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes and Robert F. Garry. The authors examined possibilities of an accidental leak of a natural or manipulated virus from a laboratory, and concluded that genomic analyses indicated that "SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus." [3] [4] [5]
The letter was highly influential in establishing the natural origin of COVID-19 in the early stages of the pandemic and generated controversy over the arguments it made against any lab-based origin scenario, and the link later drawn between its authors and public health officials alleged to have funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the pandemic. [6] [7] [8] In 2023, three years after the publication, Republicans in the United States raised an allegation that the scientific paper was a coverup to suppress the COVID-19 lab leak theory. [9] [10]
The private deliberations of the authors (during the writing of the paper) accidentally became public, [11] and also became a topic of discussion and debate. [12] [13]
From the early outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, rumors and speculation arose about the possible lab origins of SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of the COVID-19 disease. Different versions of the lab origin hypothesis present different scenarios in which a bat-borne progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 may have spilled over to humans, including a laboratory-acquired infection of a natural or engineered virus. Some early rumors focused on the deliberate leak of a virus as a bioweapon or accidental leak of an engineered virus. In an earlier email obtained by public records request, Proximal Origins lead author Kristian G. Andersen said they were focused on dispelling these rumors, saying "the main crackpot theories going around at the moment relate to this virus being somehow engineered with intent." [14]
According to emails obtained by BuzzFeed News and the Washington Post through FOIA, in the weeks before the publication of the paper, the authors held a teleconference with Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins organized by Jeremy Farrar, with 11 other scientists, including coronavirologists Marion Koopmans and Ron Fouchier. [15] [16] [17]
On 17 March 2020, Nature Medicine published a correspondence article titled "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" that discussed the origin of the coronavirus that caused COVID-19 pandemic from genetic perspective. The article focused on analysing SARS-CoV-2's genome, and the sites that enable it to bind to human cells. [3] It was reported by Kristian G. Andersen (The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla), Andrew Rambaut (University of Edinburgh), W. Ian Lipkin (Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University, New York), Edward C. Holmes (The University of Sydney, Australia) and Robert F. Garry (Tulane University, New Orleans). [18] The scientists stated: "We offer a perspective on the notable features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and discuss scenarios by which they could have arisen. Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus." [3] It was the first scientific report to "firmly determine" that SARS-CoV-2 was not a human-made infection that came from a laboratory. [19]
The report concluded with a statement:
The genomic features described here may explain in part the infectiousness and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible. [3]
The theories postulated in the report were that the coronavirus could only had come by biological evolution in either of two ways: [20]
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.
EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) is a US-based non-governmental organization with a stated mission of protecting people, animals, and the environment from emerging infectious diseases. The nonprofit organization focuses on research aimed at preventing pandemics and promoting conservation in hotspot regions worldwide.
Nicholas Michael Landon Wade is a British author and journalist. He is the author of numerous books, and has served as staff writer and editor for Nature, Science, and the science section of The New York Times.
Angus George Dalgleish is a professor of oncology at St George's, University of London, best known for his contributions to HIV/AIDS research. Dalgleish stood in 2015 for Parliament as a UKIP candidate.
Walter Ian Lipkin is the John Snow Professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and a professor of Neurology and Pathology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. He is also director of the Center for Infection and Immunity, an academic laboratory for microbe hunting in acute and chronic diseases. Lipkin is internationally recognized for his work with West Nile virus, SARS and COVID-19.
Richard High Ebright is an American molecular biologist. He is the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology.
Edward Charles Holmes is a British evolutionary biologist and virologist. Since 2012, he has been a fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in Australia and professor at the University of Sydney. He was an honorary visiting professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, from 2019-2021.
Shi Zhengli is a Chinese virologist who researches SARS-like coronaviruses of bat origin. Shi directs the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). In 2017, Shi and her colleague Cui Jie discovered that the SARS coronavirus likely originated in a population of cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in Xiyang Yi Ethnic Township, Yunnan. She came to prominence in the popular press as "Batwoman" during the COVID-19 pandemic for her work with bat coronaviruses. Shi was included in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the respiratory illness responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had the provisional name 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), and has also been called human coronavirus 2019. First identified in the city of Wuhan, Hubei, China, the World Health Organization designated the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern from January 30, 2020, to May 5, 2023. SARS‑CoV‑2 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus that is contagious in humans.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences is a research institute on virology administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which reports to the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The institute is one of nine independent organisations in the Wuhan Branch of the CAS. Located in Jiangxia District, Wuhan, Hubei, it was founded in 1956 and opened mainland China's first biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory in 2018. The institute has collaborated with the Galveston National Laboratory in the United States, the Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie in France, and the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The institute has been an active premier research center for the study of coronaviruses.
False information, including intentional disinformation and conspiracy theories, about the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and the origin, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease has been spread through social media, text messaging, and mass media. False information has been propagated by celebrities, politicians, and other prominent public figures. Many countries have passed laws against "fake news", and thousands of people have been arrested for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. The spread of COVID-19 misinformation by governments has also been significant.
Peter Daszak is a British zoologist, consultant and public expert on disease ecology, in particular on zoonosis. He is at the heart of the COVID lab leak theory for his work on gain of function research in Wuhan, China. He was the president of EcoHealth Alliance until he was terminated January 6th, 2025, a nonprofit non-governmental organization that supports various programs related to global health and pandemic prevention.
Andrew Rambaut is a British evolutionary biologist, as of 2020 professor of molecular evolution at the University of Edinburgh.
Bat coronavirus RaTG13 is a SARS-like betacoronavirus identified in the droppings of the horseshoe bat Rhinolophus affinis. It was discovered in 2013 in bat droppings from a mining cave near the town of Tongguan in Mojiang county in Yunnan, China. In February 2020, it was identified as the closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, sharing 96.1% nucleotide identity. However, in 2022, scientists found three closer matches in bats found 530 km south, in Feuang, Laos, designated as BANAL-52, BANAL-103 and BANAL-236.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been efforts by scientists, governments, and others to determine the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Similar to other outbreaks, the virus was derived from a bat-borne virus and most likely was transmitted to humans via another animal in nature, or during wildlife bushmeat trade such as that in food markets. While other explanations, such as speculations that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a laboratory have been proposed, such explanations are not supported by evidence. Conspiracy theories about the virus's origin have also proliferated.
The COVID-19 lab leak theory, or lab leak hypothesis, is the idea that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, came from a laboratory. This claim is highly controversial; most scientists believe the virus spilled into human populations through natural zoonosis, similar to the SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV outbreaks, and consistent with other pandemics in human history. Available evidence suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was originally harbored by bats, and spread to humans from infected wild animals, functioning as an intermediate host, at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019. Several candidate animal species have been identified as potential intermediate hosts. There is no evidence SARS-CoV-2 existed in any laboratory prior to the pandemic, or that any suspicious biosecurity incidents happened in any laboratory.
Yujia Alina Chan is a Canadian molecular biologist specializing in gene therapy and cell engineering at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she is a postdoctoral fellow. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she became known for supporting the hypothesis that the SARS-CoV-2 virus escaped from a lab, contrary to the prevailing consensus regarding the origins of the virus.
The Lancet letter was a statement made in support of scientists and medical professionals in China fighting the outbreak of COVID-19, and condemning theories suggesting that the virus does not have a natural origin, which it referred to as "conspiracy theories". The letter was published in The Lancet on February 19, 2020, and signed by 27 prominent scientists, gaining a further 20,000 signatures in a Change.org petition. The letter generated significant controversy over the alleged conflicts of interest of its authors, and the chilling effect it had on scientists proposing that the COVID-19 lab leak theory be investigated.
Kristian G. Andersen is a Danish evolutionary biologist and professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.
SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, was first introduced to humans through zoonosis, and a zoonotic spillover event is the origin of SARS-CoV-2 that is considered most plausible by the scientific community. Human coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2 are zoonotic diseases that are often acquired through spillover infection from animals.