Gain-of-function virus research

One of the conspiracy theories about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is that the pandemic started from a lab that was engineering a gain-of-function coronavirus. None of the data on the virus genome sequence supports this theory, but lack of evidence rarely extinguishes conspiracy mongering.

I haven’t thought seriously about gain-of-function research in a while, but I was just watching a podcast that made me realize that I’ve known about this field for decades. A virologist at Saint Louis University School of Medicine (now deceased) had engineered a human adenovirus that targeted and killed cancer cells. He patented this gain-of-function virus but he was never able to get a company to produce enough to do a clinical trial using his virus. Oncolytic gain-of-function viruses remain subjects of active research world-wide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncolytic_adenovirus

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