Researchers in China have claimed to cloned a COVID-like virus that was tested on mice with a human protein inside of them.
In a report made by researchers from China and Mongolia working on a collaborative projected, which had scientist explain how the virus they discovered is a strain of Covid-19 found in pagolins. They explained after how they had cloned the virus to test it on mice.
In the report, the researchers wrote down what they had discovered after doing the test on the mice after cloning the virus stating “We found that the GX_P2V(short_3UTR) clone can infect hACE2 mice, with high viral loads detected in both lung and brain tissues.”
The mice’s posture were also hunched and their movement were sluggish. All the mice had passed away within 8 days after the test. The cause that the researchers came up with is that it had to do with a brain affection that occurred later on after the test were done.
Infectious disease expert and researcher Francois Balloux said via X that all of these studies that they have done are “useless,” writing “It’s a terrible study, scientifically totally pointless” and calling it a “weird breed of humanised mice with a random virus.”
Researchers provided more evidence to the test noting that their could be a “spillover to humans”.
“This underscores a spillover risk of GX_P2V into humans and provides a unique model for understanding the pathogenic mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2-related viruses,” researchers wrote.
This would connect with the experiment done on the mice because the mice they used had a protein in them that are found in humans.
Biologist Alex Washburne stated many things about this having doubts about the article. “ We also can’t verify anything about the pre-print. The structure ‘Dear Editor, …’ raises questions about the provenance of the document.” Washburne was having questions about the authors who wrote the article of the research done with their intentions as well. Was it really written by the listed authors? and the intentions of its release,” Washburne said.
