Scientists Worldwide Conducting Crucial Research on Covid Virus Variants
Amid debates and potential concerns surrounding their work, it is essential to recognize that scientific exploration and understanding of coronavirus strains is not solely restricted to Chinese scientists.
With the worst days of the pandemic hopefully behind us, there has been a surge in research endeavors directed towards genetically modifying Covid variants, cloning related pathogens, and studying viral behavior. England, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and the United States are among the countries where extensive research work is taking place.
Distinguished names in the field of virology are leading research efforts in the United Kingdom, backed by funding from the British government. Spearheaded by the G2P2-UK Consortium, housed in prestigious Imperial College in London, the primary goal is to thoroughly examine the adaptation of current and emerging Covid variants in humans and the mechanisms through which they become the dominant strains in a population.
The quest for a comprehensive understanding
The G2P2-UK Consortium aims to determine the influence of diverse mutations on key properties of a variant: its lethality, transmissibility, and capability to overcome vaccine-induced immunity. Professor Wendy Barclay, the head of the prestigious G2P2 Consortium, emphasizes the importance of identifying the specific mutations within the genetic makeup of these variants that are responsible for these distinctive characteristics.
The research process is typically initiated when a new Covid variant emerges, accumulating a range of mutations. The Consortium devotes significant attention to previously unseen mutations observed in these variants. By extracting the genetic coding related to these distinct mutations from the investigated Covid strain, scientists are able to insert this genetic material into the original Wuhan virus, originating in late 2019, or occasionally an alternative variant of concern, via a process known as ‘reverse genetics’.
These manipulations essentially modify the virus’s proteins responsible for vital functions such as infecting and replicating within human nasal cells, or evading antibodies and other defense mechanisms. Subsequently, laboratory experimentation involves exposing the modified virus to human cells grown in research settings, or in some instances, using hamsters as model organisms. This step helps scientists gauge whether the particular functions of the virus, as affected by the introduced mutations, become heightened or diminished.
