Resurrection of 1918 Flu Strain Continues to Evoke Fear, Debate

Is there a point at which cutting-edge research becomes so risky to human well-being that the end no longer justifies the means? It has been a topic of debate for decades as science reaches farther and farther beyond what was once considered mere fantasy

It’s a debate that has grown even more intense now that scientists have acquired what historically has been considered the Holy Grail of biological research: The ability to manipulate gene sequences, the very building blocks of life.

One particularly contentious debate centers around ongoing research into the 1918 flu strain --- considered the deadliest virus in human history, killing between 20 million and 50 million people across the globe. In a scientific feat eerily reminiscent of Jurassic Park, researchers extracted the strain from the lung tissue of a victim preserved in the Alaskan permafrost and resurrected it within a laboratory almost a century after it mysteriously vanished. Since then, scientists, to their utter amazement, have watched one lab mouse after another succumb to the deadly virus.

The findings of this research could go a long way helping us understand how flu viruses ultimately mutate into virulent, deadly strains. Skeptics, on the other hand, worry about the risk of terrorists using this knowledge for all sorts of nefarious ends, including an intentional reintroduction of the 1918 pandemic.

Flu researchers are openly exploring the merits of combining traits of the 1918 flu strain with that of the more recent H5N1 strain, creating the sort of horrific flu virus scientists fear ultimately will occur in nature.

What is certain is that the genetic code of the 1918 strain is now in public databases, available for downloading by researchers interested in conducting their own experiments. In fact, scientists from the University of Wisconsin and the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada have collaborated to reconstruct the virus from its publicly available sequence.

As writer Jamie Shreeve asks in a recent New York Times Magazine article, “How easy would it be for a bioterrorist to exploit the same information for malevolent ends?”

Posted by Jim Langcuster at February 3, 2006 03:51 PM | TrackBack