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Coronavirus researcher shut down by U.S. funding agency avoids frustrations

 


Peter Daszak and others visit a cave at Seven Star Park in Guilin, China, where visitors are likely to encounter bats.Credit: EcoHealth Alliance

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) reinstated a multi-million dollar grant to a research organization to study how coronaviruses pass from bats to people it controversially canceled this year. But as Peter Daszak, head of this small nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance in New York City discovered in early July, the funding can only be used if the organization meets what he considers absurd conditions. The demands, detailed in a letter from the NIH, are politically motivated, he said.

To carry out its research, EcoHealth Alliance is partnering with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, which has been at the center of unfounded rumors that the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a released coronavirus from his laboratory. The NIH canceled the EcoHealth Alliances grant in April, days after US President Donald Trump told a reporter the United States would stop funding WIV’s work.

EcoHealth Alliance and Dazsak have worked with Shi Zhengli, virologist at WIV, for over 15 years. Since 2014, an NIH grant has funded EcoHealths research in China, which involves collecting feces and other samples from bats, and blood samples from people at risk of infection with native viruses. bat. Scientific studies broadly suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus likely originated in bats, and research on the subject could be crucial in identifying other viruses that could cause future pandemics. WIV is a sub-recipient of the grant.

The NIH is making seven requests for EcoHealth, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal this week and viewed by Nature. The agency is asking EcoHealth to obtain a vial of the SARS-CoV-2 sample used by WIV to determine the genetic sequence of the virus. Another request is to arrange for an inspection of the WIV by US federal officials.

Daszak calls the NIH’s demands heinous and fears that the funding freeze will delay critical work to identify and prevent the next pandemic. The NIH declined to comment, saying the agency had not disclosed internal deliberations on a specific grant.

In an email to Nature, Shi calls the NIH demands outrageous and echoes Daszaks ‘claims that the agencies’ demands are unrelated to WIV’s collaboration with EcoHealth.

Nature spoke with Daszak about being caught in the political crosshairs.

Peter Daszak on the roof of his New York office.Credit: EcoHealth Alliance

How have you been since your scholarship was suspended?

It is just a very difficult, disappointing and worrying time. I have lost people I know to COVID-19. It is a coronavirus of bat origin. We should have tried to find out why this thing arose. And right now, I’m sitting in my house, looking out the window, unable to do this job, because the NIH told us it wasn’t appropriate. It is extremely frustrating.

What is the aim of the project concerned?

We have specific goals: to go to rural China and find bat-borne coronaviruses and determine which are at high risk, then work with local communities in rural China in five provinces. We target communities at high risk of viral contagion and see if they are infected, then finally see if people are getting sick from new coronaviruses.

How did you respond to the NIH letter?

We wrote to the NIH and said: We believe this is inappropriate and false for the following reasons. Please allow us to continue this work. I doubt they do now.

How do you plan to continue your work?

The NIH told us not to work on this project. Obviously, they weren’t going to break NIH rules. But we have an ongoing collaboration, we have data that we have put together over 15 years of work in China 5 years under a previous NIH grant that has not yet been released. We must therefore continue this work.

How is your work relevant to the pandemic today?

We estimate that every day a person in China or Southeast Asia is infected with a novel bat coronavirus. Right now, someone is walking around and may develop the first signs of a cough from the next COVID. We fully intend to be that organization that will help prevent the next pandemic. This is our mission.

NIH has asked you to obtain a vial of SARS-CoV-2 isolated from WIV. Did you work on the new coronavirus during your project?

The grant does not work on SARS-CoV-2. Our organization has not published data on SARS-CoV-2. We’re working on the bat coronaviruses that are out there in the wild and trying to predict what will be next. We are not working on the sequencing of SARS-CoV-2.

This is absurd because it is absolutely outside the work that we do.

Daszak teams up with Shi Zhengli, shown here in a biosafety lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.Credit: Johannes Eisle / AFP via Getty

Your grant has garnered a lot of attention in recent months. How did that happen?

Conspiracy theory outlets and politically motivated organizations have made Freedom of Information Act demands on our grants and all of our letters and emails that go to NIH. We don’t think it’s fair that we have to reveal everything we do. When you submit a grant, you put in all your best ideas. We don’t want to just hand this over to conspiracy theorists to publish, ruin, and mock them.

What are you most worried about?

Were not a political organization. We were just trying to do a good job of preventing pandemics.

We felt the pressure of a very aggressive administration in the United States fighting with a country where we collaborate. And it turns out that they have decided on this issue and our work is going to be one of the angles of attack. It is extremely unfortunate. The winner in all of this is the virus and not just this SARS-CoV-2 virus but all the other viruses.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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