“Here, we report the largest, artificially synthesized, and replicable life form.” A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2008 wrote in the abstract with pride: This study completed the de novo design, synthesis and activation of a SARS-like coronavirus with a full length of 29.7kb.
The paper records in detail the method of designing, synthesizing and activating SARS-like coronaviruses from scratch, and in particular verifies that this artificial virus can not only infect mice, but also invade human airway epithelial cells!
The corresponding author of the paper is Ralph S. Baric, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, known as the “Father of Coronavirus.”
“Now we have the ability to design and synthesize various SARS-like coronaviruses.” Ralph Baric introduced the strength of his team when he published his paper.
30 years of polishing before SARS-like coronavirus was designed and synthesized
The new coronavirus is a type of SARS-like coronavirus. Ralph Baric has the ability to design and synthesize various SARS-like coronaviruses.
It is mentioned in the paper that “design and synthesis” mean that a virus can be created without the need for viruses in nature, but only by using commercially synthesized DNA “fragments”.
This is like assembling with general-purpose “Lego blocks”. Not only does it need to splice huge 30,000 pieces of genetic sequence (the new coronavirus nucleic acid sequence is longer, about 30KB), after assembly, it must be “live” and have the ability to invade cells. (Note: The production of RNA viruses also requires the process of reverse transcription, rebirth, and harvest)
It took Ralph Baric nearly 30 years of research to break the boundary between life and non-life. In 1989, Ralph Baric published his research on viral gene recombination. Since then, he has been exploring the use of molecular biology to analyze, manipulate, and create coronaviruses, and carry out recombination, cloning, modification, and transformation on different viruses.
Data show that since 1983, Ralph Baric has published more than 400 papers in his own name or as an instructor, including 268 papers on coronavirus.
In 2002, Ralph Baric led the team to establish the world’s first reverse genetic system of murine hepatitis virus based on fragment assembly. Relying on this system, scientists can conduct research on viruses in vivo. By changing the genes or structure of the virus, they can understand the role of each gene in the interaction between the virus and the host.
Viruses do not have the “head”, “arms” and “torso” in the macro world, and they cannot know their functions at a glance. This system gives Ralph Baric the ability to “freeze cattle”.
These work are extremely groundbreaking, so Ralph S. Baric has a whole set of the technical system of “decomposing the cows” and then reassembled into “live cows”. He can even constantly replace the “components” of the virus. The virus in the hands of others “can’t live if you change the heart, liver, spleen, and lungs”, but Ralph Baric has mastered the mystery of the coronavirus genome, and he can create whatever virus he wants. In combination, live viruses can be obtained.
Ralph Baric’s funding constraints improved as coronavirus became lethal
However, the coronaviruses before 2003 rarely caused zoonotic diseases, and even infected people only had mild cold symptoms. For example, the mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) studied by Ralph Baric cannot infect humans. This makes the research of Ralph Baric coronavirus difficult, and efforts to apply for funding have been repeatedly rejected.
Ralph Baric once recalled the despair of research without funding: crying without tears, sitting in the office and thinking about the future career path, if he had to give up his beloved scientific research career, he would consider becoming a lifeguard or swimming coach.
Until the emergence of SARS in 2003. SARS proved that the coronavirus can be deadly and cause great harm to humans, which brought new life to Ralph Baric’s research.
After the SARS outbreak, the research funding of Ralph Baric’s laboratory has increased significantly. It has successively published many related studies on the mechanism and treatment of SARS and MERS viruses, and has also obtained a large number of patent authorizations for virus manufacturing technologies.
The ups and downs of funding have made Ralph S. Baric understand that it is not enough to solve the problems created by the coronavirus from scratch. Only by allowing the coronavirus to have sustained infectivity, transmission, and disease-causing capabilities, can he receive continuous support for his research.
With funding, Ralph Baric’s team used genetic recombination technology to cultivate a large number of coronaviruses that are constantly mutating during the passage. In August 2006, after an apparently targeted culture of an unknown number of generations of viruses, a mutation that can successfully lead to rapid death of mice appeared, and this new type of virus can infect humans and cause pneumonia and high mortality rate.
With funding, Ralph Baric conducted more extensive research in the following years, such as using animal samples from the Maryland Wildlife Refuge and Zoo to study the mechanism of infection in order to obtain a wider range of infection capabilities.
Ralph Baric’s research shared with Fort Detrick
In 2006, Ralph Baric wrote his own article warning that the technology of synthesizing virus sequences has the potential to be used to make biological weapons of mass destruction.
But such an article is a warning in the eyes of peace-loving people, and for the war mongers, such a “warning” undoubtedly serves as an “advertising”.
Ralph Baric may have used his research results for military purposes. Among the inventors of many of his granted patents, researchers from Fort Detrick (located in Frederick, Maryland, USA) appeared. For example, this patent in the U.S. Patent Search System (see the figure below) lists the personnel of Fort Detrick, Maryland, the U.S. as co-inventors. This practice is more conducive to the covert sharing of patents, which makes the staff of Fort Detrick Lab no longer have to pay patent fees for this virus preparation in the future.
Whether the “Father of Coronavirus” has any other viral weapons is to be investigated
In November 2008, the first-mentioned paper “Synthetic recombinant bat SARS-like coronavirus is infectious in cultured cells and mice” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which recorded the entire new coronavirus from design, creation to resurrection, from the construction of the spike protein to the infection test, the entire process was reproduced in the laboratory of the production and infection process of a new coronavirus. This paper attracted attention at the time and was reported in many media as “U.S. scientists’ lab successfully reconstructs SARS virus”.
Over the years, Ralph S. Baric under the banner of the “SARS virus” has been practicing the reality of “creation and transformation of coronavirus.” The research recorded in the paper has long been a routine operation in Ralph Baric’s laboratory. Thinking carefully, what kind of virus weapons are still in the hands of Ralph Baric, known as the “Father of Coronavirus,” that endangers human health? This requires urgent investigation!
In 2008, Ralph Baric explained when he published the paper: This research is an important step in preventing and controlling SARS in the future. In order to prevent and treat the virus, he deliberately created a virus. This explanation made people at that time deeply confused. In the global disaster of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ralph Baric and the US government may have made a lot of money through the export of vaccines and drugs.