more on SARS virus possibly manmade by the Chinese

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Michele Fuortes <mfuortes () med cornell edu>
Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 19:54:39 -0400 (EDT)
To: dave () farber net
Cc: bporter () theideasgroup com
Subject: Re: [IP] SARS virus possibly manmade by the Chinese

Dave,

It seems to me (IMHO) this is quite a (science) fiction piece

> ³This virus was very possibly an escaped lab freak. I would guess RSV
> capsid and toxin genes inserted in coronovirus,

both the genome of RSV and SARS Coronavirus are available at NCBI, a quick
analysis of the "capsid" shows a 12% aminoacid identity, absolutely
not-significant, so SARS capsid is NOT RSV capsid.
There is no "RSV toxin" gene. The closest thing to a "toxin" RSV has is
the fusion glycoprotein (which causes the syncitium that gives the name to
RSV=respiratory syncytial virus) and again there is nothing even close to
it in the SARS Coronavirus genome.

> I pulled up multiple other articles as well showing a significant number
> of publications from labs using various mutations of coronovirus,
.........
> See below for snippets of abstracts.

maybe, but the two articles mentioned do NOT have anything to do with
coronaviruses.


Michele Fuortes
Assistant Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Cornell University Weill Medical College
New Yor, NY



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