TWN Info Service on Biosafety
7 January 2022
Third World Network
www.twn.my
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Risky research eroding norms on release of GM self-spreading viruses
There is a general consensus that laboratory modifications of self-spreading viruses are genetically too unstable to be used safely and predictably outside contained facilities.
However, a new publication warns that this decades-old evidence-based norm is being eroded, opening the door to risky research (Item 1). A range of recent proposals on the release of genetically modified (GM) viruses that retain the capacity to spread between individual vertebrate hosts raise biosafety, ethical and biosecurity concerns. In agriculture, for example, self-spreading viruses have been proposed as insecticides, or as vectors to modify planted crops. In health care, self-spreading viruses have been promoted as vaccines.
The self-spreading dynamics of a virus repeatedly passing from host-to-host give it substantial potential to alter its biological properties once released into the environment, with potentially disastorous unintended consequences. The authors call for a concerted, global governance effort with coherent regional, national, and local implementation, in order to avoid the possibility that the first regulatory approval for a limited field trial could turn into an unapproved international release. In addition, they call on developers and funders to commit to address needs within their own borders, rather than continue to propose developing countries for field-testing (Item 2).
Further information, including an open-access link to the article, is available at: http://web.evolbio.mpg.de/HEVIMAs/
With best wishes,
Third World Network
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Item 1
ERODING NORMS OVER RELEASE OF SELF-SPREADING VIRUSES
Filippa Lentzos, Edward P.Rybicki, Margret Engelhard, Pauline Paterson, Wayne Arthur Sandholtz, and R.Guy Reeves
SCIENCE • 6 Jan 2022 • Vol 375, Issue 6576 • pp. 31-33 • DOI: 10.1126/science.abj5593
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj5593
Abstract
An evidence-based norm collectively established and reinforced through the work of generations of virologists is that laboratory modifications of self-spreading viruses are genetically too unstable to be used safely and predictably outside contained facilities. That norm now seems to be challenged. A range of transformational self-spreading applications have been put forward in recent years. In agriculture, for example, self-spreading viruses have been proposed as insecticides, or as vectors to modify planted crops. In health care, self-spreading viruses have been promoted as vaccines (1, 2). Yet, glossed over by these proposals is that the self-spreading dynamics of a virus repeatedly passing from host-to-host (passaging) give it substantial potential to alter its biological properties once released into the environment (see the box). We explore the consequences of this apparent norm erosion in the context of recent proposals to develop self-spreading genetically modified viruses, in wildlife management and in self-spreading vaccines.
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Item 2
ANIMAL VACCINES WITH SELF-SPREADING VIRUSES
Vaccines for animals based on viruses that spread on their own are being developed in Europe and the U.S
January 6, 2022
https://www.mpg.de/18106890/animal-viral-vaccines?c=2249
Since the first lab-modified virus capable of replication was generated in 1974, an evidence-based consensus has emerged that many changes introduced into viral genomes are likely to prove unstable if released into the environment. On this basis, many virologists would question the release of genetically modified viruses that retain the capacity to spread between individual vertebrate hosts. Researchers from Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States now point out in a policy piece that despite these concerns, self-spreading vaccines for animals are being researched in Europe and the US. They are intended to limit the spread of animal diseases or disease spillover to humans.
Non-spreading lab-modified viral vaccines are already in use today, for example as vaccines for wild animals against rabies or for humans against polio. However, in all modified virus applications to date, rigorous efforts have been made to eliminate (or, if this is not possible, minimize) the capacity of viruses to spread in the environment between host individuals.
The molecular tools necessary to generate viral vaccines that retain their capacity to be self-spreading have existed for some time. In 2000, researchers demonstrated the transmission of a self-spreading rabbit vaccine in a field trial on a Spanish island. However, the European Medicines Agency declined to grant marketing approval for the vaccine. “No new technologies are needed to produce self-spreading vaccines; they can be developed using methods that already exist today,” says Filippa Lentzos of King’s College London.
Viral vaccine against swine fever
In Spain scientists are currently vaccinating pigs with self-spreading viruses (that have not been modified in a laboratory) against African swine fever as part of contained experiments. In the U.S., a four-year research project has just ended that sought to mathematically identify strategies for deploying self-spreading vaccines. The U.S. Department of Defense’s research agency, DARPA, is also funding experimentation to determine if lab-modified self-spreading animal vaccines can prevent the spillover of pathogens to U.S. military personnel in areas where they operate.
“If, as is argued, self-spreading vaccines are potentially transformational in a wide array of agricultural, medical and conservation uses, then developers and funders should commit to address needs within their own borders, rather than continue to propose equatorial nations for field testing.” says Guy Reeves of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany. “This will maximise the chances of a robust debate among fellow citizens and nations about the wisdom of self-spreading viral approaches in the environment. In this respect the EU funded project to address a serious pig disease within its own territories could be viewed as a step in this direction.”