
The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015) - medymed
https://mbio.asm.org/content/6/4/e01013-15
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cgb223
As someone who had the 2009 H1N1 strain I wish the authors would have spoken
more about whether that strain as well could have come from a lab accident or
was just natural.

Has anyone heard anything to that end or was it just random probability that
caused it?

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SpicyLemonZest
It's pretty much known to have been natural; researchers were able to trace
out a likely history in the pig populations it's believed to have come from.
([https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08182](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08182))

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fastaguy88
This is a spectacularly misleading paper in a non-biological journal that
assumes, without any explanation, that somehow scientists thawed out a 1950
H1N1 strain and somehow, through some gain of function process, made the 1977
version.

The obvious question is, How?

In 1977 (or 1976, to produce something that would have infected people in
1977), recombinant DNA technology was new; cloning had just begun. There were
very few restriction enzymes, oligonucleotide synthesis was done by hand
(literally) and PCR had not been invented yet. Today, GOF studies are easy
because we can synthesize virtually any piece of DNA. But in 1977, graduate
students got rich because they could synthesize a dozen-ish residues of DNA
and sell them (for stock) to Genentech.

What people were not doing was engineering new forms of flu virus.

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medymed
I don’t think you parsed the paper quite accurately. It was just the same
virus as the 50s. There was no gain of function. The mention of gain of
function regards debated policy issues in 2015 when the paper was published.

~~~
fastaguy88
The paper says that the 1977 H1N1 is not identical to the 1950's strains, but
very similar, and that a tree build from sequences suggests the 1977 strain is
most closely related to the 1950's strains. So there are differences, and the
question is, are they natural or synthetic. I do not think the technology was
available to make synthetic changes.

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nairboon
An interesting relevant precedent for this argument:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23875758](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23875758)

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medymed
While there isn’t too much clamorous mainstream debate about the current
strain (SARS-CoV-2), the first SARS escaped the lab several times:

“SARS has not re-emerged naturally, but there have been six escapes from
virology labs: one each in Singapore and Taiwan, and four separate escapes at
the same laboratory in Beijing.”

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/a-brief-t...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/a-brief-
terrifying-history-of-viruses-escaping-from-labs-70s-chinese-pandemic-was-a-
lab-mistake/wcm/d66182f3-8080-445f-9bb2-5ae107940d22/amp/)

~~~
svd4anything
Exactly so clearly if you even are willing to consider the possibility that
SARS-Cov-2 escaped, you are crazy and a right wing nut ok. See how that works.

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mwcampbell
Reminds me of Rob Reid's 2017 novel After On, which included a subplot
featuring a man-made virus.

