Fuck this shit, Metacelsus! How bad is this? This is not a realm where I have much knowledge or smarts. Can you give an estimate of probability that stoopit or evil amateurs will turn something dangerous loose on the world using this recipe? If the probability is not high, what is keeping it from being, like, 85%, which is where my unhapppy imagination is currently placing it?
It seems to me the difficulty an evil genius would run into with engineering a new, super-lethal virus variant would be getting the "super-lethal" part, not the actual technical challenge of making the virus. Finding the right way to mutate the virus in order to make it more lethal without compromising the function/structure of the proteins seems extremely difficult to me.
Fellow scientist here: I'm all for better and more detailed methods but were the details of 70% EtOH preparation really necessary? Etc. I don't recall ever reading Nature Protocols; is that standard for this journal?
Don't worry Metacelsus, the authors filed a patent "X.X., V.D.M. and P.-Y.S. have filed a patent on the reverse genetic system of SARS-CoV-2 and reporter SARS-CoV-2. The remining authors declare no competing interests." Nobody could do this without breaking patent law! :)
Fuck this shit, Metacelsus! How bad is this? This is not a realm where I have much knowledge or smarts. Can you give an estimate of probability that stoopit or evil amateurs will turn something dangerous loose on the world using this recipe? If the probability is not high, what is keeping it from being, like, 85%, which is where my unhapppy imagination is currently placing it?
It seems to me the difficulty an evil genius would run into with engineering a new, super-lethal virus variant would be getting the "super-lethal" part, not the actual technical challenge of making the virus. Finding the right way to mutate the virus in order to make it more lethal without compromising the function/structure of the proteins seems extremely difficult to me.
Fellow scientist here: I'm all for better and more detailed methods but were the details of 70% EtOH preparation really necessary? Etc. I don't recall ever reading Nature Protocols; is that standard for this journal?
Troubleshooting section. ha! I want to call the authors "Hello, I was making my own variant and ran into an issue with step 3. Could you help me"
Don't worry Metacelsus, the authors filed a patent "X.X., V.D.M. and P.-Y.S. have filed a patent on the reverse genetic system of SARS-CoV-2 and reporter SARS-CoV-2. The remining authors declare no competing interests." Nobody could do this without breaking patent law! :)