Biohazards News Tracker: Links for SARS-CoV-2 Origins, Biolabs & Gain of Function Research

Biohazards News Tracker: Best articles on SARS-CoV-2 origins, biolabs and gain of function research

By: Sainath Suryanarayanan

Here is a reading list about what is known and not known about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, accidents and leaks at biosafety and biowarfare laboratories, and the health risks of gain-of-function (GOF) research, which aims to increase the host range, transmissibility, infectivity or pathogenicity of potential pandemic pathogens. U.S. Right to Know is conducting research on these topics and posting the findings in our Biohazards Blog.

This reading list is a work in progress. We will update it. Please send readings we may have missed to Sainath Suryanarayanan at [email protected].

• Most recent articles
• What are the origins of SARS-CoV-2?
• Transparency failures and the suppression of evidence regarding COVID-19
• Accidents, leaks, transparency failures in biosafety facilities
• Networks of biodefense and biowarfare
• Debates on gain-of-function research
• Scientific papers on the origins of SARS-CoV-2
• Investigative blog articles on the origins of SARS-CoV-2
  

Most recent articles

• Wall Street Journal. Who Are the Covid Investigators? Members of a WHO origin probe have conflicts of interest. The Editorial Board. February 15, 2021.
• Wall Street Journal. China Refuses to Give WHO Raw Data on Early Covid-19 Cases. Jeremy Page and Drew Hinshaw. February 12, 2021.
• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. WHO: COVID-19 didn’t leak from a lab. Also WHO: Maybe it did. Filipa Lentzos. February 11, 2021.
• The Washington Post. As WHO coronavirus mission leaves empty-handed, China claims propaganda win. Gerry Shih. February 10, 2021.
• The Washington Post. After Wuhan mission on pandemic origins, WHO team dismisses lab leak theory. Gerry Shih and Emily Rauhala. February 9, 2021.
• The Telegraph. Did the Covid-19 virus really escape from a Wuhan lab?Matt Ridley and Alina Chan. February 6, 2021.
• The Washington Post. We’re still missing the origin story of this pandemic. China is sitting on the answers. The Editorial Board. February 5, 2021.
• Wall Street Journal. The Covid-19 Origin Investigation. The Editorial Board. January 23, 2021.
• Newsweek. Beijing Must Come Clean About COVID-19 Origins | Opinion. Jamie Metzl. January 22, 2021
• CNET. The twisted, messy hunt for COVID-19’s origin and the lab leak theory. Jackson Ryan. January 19, 2021.

What are the origins of SARS-CoV-2?

• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To stop the next pandemic, we need to unravel the origins of COVID-19. David A. Relman. November 3, 2020.
• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Did the SARS-CoV-2 virus arise from a bat coronavirus research program in a Chinese laboratory? Very possibly. Milton Leitenberg. June 4, 2020.
• Wall Street Journal. The World Needs a Real Investigation into the Origins of Covid-19. Alina Chan and Matt Ridley. January 15, 2021.
• New York Magazine. The lab-leak hypothesis. Nicholson Baker. January 4, 2021.
• Bloomberg. We Still Don’t Know Where Covid-19 Came From. Faye Flam. January 12, 2021.
• Nature Medicine. On the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Angela Rasmussen. January 13, 2021.
• The Times. Biological weapons lab leaked coronavirus, claims US official. Didi Tang. January 4, 2021.
• The Washington Post. State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses. Josh Rogin. April 14, 2020.
• BBC. Covid: Wuhan scientist would ‘welcome’ visit probing lab leak theory. John Sudworth. December 22, 2020.
• Houston Chronicle. UTMB scientist acknowledges safety risks at Chinese lab doing coronavirus research. Nick Powell. April 23, 2020.
• The Wall Street Journal. NIH presses U.S. nonprofit for information on Wuhan virology lab. Betsy McKay. August 19, 2020.
• The Wall Street Journal. So where did the virus come from? Matt Ridley. May 29, 2020.
• French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). The origin of SARS-CoV-2 is being seriously questioned. Yaroslav Pigenet. November 9, 2020.
• The Times. How did Covid-19 start? Hunt for patient zero has become caught in a clash of great powers. Tom Whipple. December 31, 2020.
• Boston Magazine. Could COVID-19 have escaped from a lab? Rowan Jacobsen. September 9, 2020.
• Nature. The biggest mystery: what it will take to trace the coronavirus source. David Cyranoski. June 5, 2020.
• Newsweek. The controversial experiments and Wuhan lab suspected of starting the coronavirus pandemic. Fred Guterl, Naveed Jamali and Tom O’Connor. April 27, 2020.
• The Washington Post. State Department releases cable that launched claims that coronavirus escaped from Chinese lab. John Hudson and Nate Jones. July 17, 2020.
• The Telegraph. Scientists to examine possibility Covid leaked from lab as part of investigation into virus origins. Paul Nuki. September 15, 2020.
• NBC News. Report says cellphone data suggests October shutdown at Wuhan lab, but experts are skeptical. Ken Dilanian, Ruaridh Arrow, Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee, Louise Jones and Lorand Bodo. May 9, 2020.
• Washington Post. How did covid-19 begin? Its initial origin story is shaky. David Ignatius. April 2, 2020.
• The Times. Revealed: Seven year coronavirus trail from mine deaths to a Wuhan lab. George Arbuthnott, Jonathan Calvert, and Philip Sherwell. July 4, 2020.
• South China Morning Post. WHO’s coronavirus detectives look to Wuhan market as undisclosed map surfaces. John Power and Simone McCarthy. December 15, 2020.
• South China Morning Post. Coronavirus: World Health Organization’s Wuhan probe not looking for ‘guilty’ parties. Agence France-Presse. December 24, 2020.
• BBC. Wuhan: City of silence; Looking for answers in the place where coronavirus started. John Sudworth. July 2020.
• The New York Times, 8 questions from a disease detective on the pandemic’s origins. William J. Broad. July 8, 2020.
• Science. A WHO-led mission may investigate the pandemic’s origin. Here are the key questions to ask. Jon Cohen. July 10, 2020.
• The New York Times. In Hunt for Virus Source, W.H.O. Let China Take Charge. Selam Gebrekidan, Matt Apuzzo, Amy Qin and Javier C. Hernández. November 2, 2020.
• The Washington Post. The coronavirus’s origins are still a mystery. We need a full investigation. The Editorial Board. November 14, 2020.
• Independent. Coronavirus: Former MI6 head claims pandemic ‘started as accident’ in Chinese laboratory. Andy Gregory. June 4, 2020.
• The Wall Street Journal. In rare move, U.S. intelligence agencies confirm investigating if coronavirus emerged from lab accident. Warren P. Strobel and Dustin Volz. April 30, 2020.
• The Wall Street Journal. China bat expert says her Wuhan lab wasn’t source of new coronavirus. James T. Areddy. April 21, 2020.
• ABC News. Sorry, conspiracy theorists. Study concludes COVID-19 ‘is not a laboratory construct’. Kate Holland. March 27, 2020.
• The Economist. The pieces of the puzzle of Covid-19’s origin are coming to light. May 2, 2020.
• The Wall Street Journal. The Wuhan lab theory. The Editorial Board. May 6, 2020.
• The Guardian. Ignore the conspiracy theories: Scientists know Covid-19 wasn’t created in a lab. Peter Daszak. June 9, 2020.
• The Daily Telegraph. Scientists say COVID-19 may have been cooked up in lab. Sharri Markson. June 1, 2020.
• Science. Trump ‘owes us an apology.’ Chinese scientist at the center of COVID-19 origin theories speaks out. Jon Cohen. July 24, 2020.
• Science. Reply to Science Magazine: Shi Zhengli Q&A. Shi Zhengli. July 15, 2020.
• Minerva. Contradicting statements cast doubts on Chinese raw data. Aksel Fridstrøm. September 10, 2020.
• Minerva. The most logical explanation is that it comes from a laboratory. Aksel Fridstrøm and Nils August Andresen. July 2, 2020.
• Newsweek. Dr. Fauci backed controversial Wuhan lab with U.S. dollars for risky coronavirus research. Fred Guterl. April 28, 2020.
• Independent Science News. The case is building that COVID-19 had a lab origin. Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson. June 5, 2020.
• Independent Science News. A proposed origin for SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson. July 15, 2020.
• The Federalist. Virologist explains his quest to track down the origin of COVID-19. Julian Vigo. September 2, 2020.
• Sam Husseini Blog. Questioning the CDC: Is it a complete coincidence that China’s only BSL4 is in Wuhan? Audio and video. Sam Husseini. April 17, 2020.
• GMWatch. Wuhan and US scientists used undetectable methods of genetic engineering on bat coronaviruses. Jonathan Matthews and Claire Robinson. May 20, 2020.
• Corporate Crime Reporter. Andrew Kimbrell on the origins of COVID-19. Russell Mokhiber. August 11, 2020.
• GMWatch. Was the COVID-19 virus genetically engineered? Jonathan Matthews. April 22, 2020.
• GMWatch. Why are the lab escape denialists telling such brazen lies? Jonathan Matthews. June 17, 2020.
• NBC News. Inside the Chinese lab central to the search for the coronavirus’ origin. Janis Mackey Frayer and Denise Chow. August 10, 2020.
• The Intercept. In Its Zeal to Blame China for Coronavirus, the Trump Administration Is Thwarting Investigations Into the Pandemic’s Origins. Mara Hvistendahl. May 19, 2020.
• South China Morning Post. WHO names line-up for international team looking into coronavirus origins. Simone McCarthy. November 25, 2020.
• Edizioni Cantagalli. Cina Covid 19. La chimera che ha cambiato il mondo(China COVID-19: The Chimera That Changed the World). Joseph Tritto. August 2020.

Transparency failures and the suppression of evidence regarding COVID-19

• Associated Press. China clamps down in hidden hunt for coronavirus origins. Dake Kang, Maria Cheng And Sam McNeil. December 30, 2020.
• The Wall Street Journal. On the ground in Wuhan, signs of China stalling probe of coronavirus origins. Jeremy Page and Natasha Khan. May 12, 2020.
• The New York Times. 25 Days That Changed the World: How Covid-19 Slipped China’s Grasp. Chris Buckley, David D. Kirkpatrick, Amy Qin and Javier C. Hernández. December 30, 2020.
• The New York Times. Chinese Citizen Journalist Sentenced to 4 Years for Covid Reporting. Vivian Wang. December 28, 2020.
• ProPublica. Leaked Documents Show How China’s Army of Paid Internet Trolls Helped Censor the Coronavirus. Raymond Zhong, Paul Mozur, Aaron Krolik and Jeff Kao. December 19, 2020.
• The New York Times. China peddles falsehoods to push the idea that the virus came from somewhere else. Javier C. Hernández. December 6, 2020.
• Bloomberg. China Is Making It Harder to Solve the Mystery of How Covid Began. December 30, 2020.
• Financial Times. Chinese media step up campaign to muddy probe into Covid origins. Christian Shepherd. November 26, 2020.
• Sky News Australia. Released emails reveal ‘no truth or transparency’ in letter regarding origin of COVID-19. Sharri Markson. November 22, 2020.

Accidents, leaks, containment failures, transparency failures in biosafety facilities

• The New Yorker. The risks of building too many bio labs. Elisabeth Eaves. March 18, 2020.
• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Human error in high-biocontainment labs: a likely pandemic threat. Lynn Klotz. February 25, 2019.
• James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. A Guide to Investigating Outbreak Origins: Nature versus the Laboratory. Richard Pilch, Miles Pomper, Jill Luster, and Filippa Lentzos. October 2020.
• ProPublica. Here are six accidents UNC researchers had with lab-created coronaviruses. Alison Young and Jessica Blake. August 17, 2020.
• CBC. Canadian scientist sent deadly viruses to Wuhan lab months before RCMP asked to investigate. June 16, 2020.
• The Frederick News-Post. CDC inspection findings reveal more about USAMRIID research suspension. Heather Mongilio. November 23, 2019.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Department of Agriculture. U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID): description of inspection findings definitions. August 2019.
• U.S. Government Accountability Office. High-containment laboratories: Comprehensive and up-to-date policies and stronger oversight mechanisms needed to improve safety. April 19, 2016. GAO-16-305.
• USA Today. 10 incidents discovered at the nation’s biolabs. Alison Young and Nick Penzenstadler. May 29, 2015.
• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Threatened pandemics and laboratory escapes: self-fulfilling prophecies. Martin Furmanski. March 31, 2014.
• Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. Laboratory Escapes and “Self-fulfilling prophecy” Epidemics. Martin Furmanski. February 17, 2014.
• National Research Council. Biosecurity challenges of the global expansion of high-containment biological laboratories: summary of a workshop. 2012. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/13315
• US House of Representatives. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Hearing on germs, viruses, and secrets: the silent proliferation of bio-laboratories in the United States, 110^th Congress. October 4, 2007.
• US House of Representatives. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Hearing on Federal Oversight Of High-Containment Biolaboratories, One Hundred Eleventh Congress. September 22, 2009.
• BMJ. Breaches of safety regulations are probable cause of recent SARS outbreak, WHO says. Jane Parry. May 22, 2004. doi: 10.1136/bmj.328.7450.1222-b
• Independent Science News. The long history of accidental laboratory releases of potential pandemic pathogens is being ignored in the COVID-19 media coverage. Sam Husseini. May 5, 2020.
• GMWatch. COVID-19: A wake-up call for biosafety. Jonathan Matthews. April 24, 2020.
• USA Today.CDC failed to disclose lab incidents with bioterror pathogens to Congress. Alison Young. June 24, 2016.
• Global Times. Biosafety guideline issued to fix chronic management loopholes at virus labs. Liu Caiyu and Leng Shumei. February 16, 2020.
• CBS News. Investigation: U.S. company bungled Ebola response. The Associated Press. March 7, 2016.
• GMWatch. Journals censor lab origin theory for SARS-CoV-2. Claire Robinson. July 16, 2020.
• Networks of biodefense and biowarfare
• Salon. Did this virus come from a lab? Maybe not — but it exposes the threat of a biowarfare arms race. Sam Husseini. April 24, 2020.
• Independent Science News. Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance Has Hidden Almost $40 Million In Pentagon Funding And Militarized Pandemic Science. Sam Husseini. December 16, 2020.
• Sam Husseini Blog. Averting our gaze from biowarfare: pandemics and self-fulfilling prophecies. Sam Husseini. May 2020.
• The Boston Globe. The lure of bio-weapons. Bernard Lown and Prasannan Parthasarathi. February 23, 2005.
• Monterey Institute of International Studies. Beijing on biohazards: Chinese experts on bioweapons nonproliferation issues. Amy E. Smithson, Editor. August 2007. The James Martin Center For Nonproliferation Studies.
• Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons since 1945. Mark Wheelis, Lajos Rózsa, and Malcolm Dando (Editors). Harvard University Press,2006.
• Biowarfare and Terrorism. Francis Boyle. 2005. Clarity Press, Inc.
• Preventing a Biological Arms Race. Susan Wright (Editor). The MIT Press,1990.
• Biohazard. Ken Alibek with Stephen Handelman. Random House: New York, 1999.

Debates on gain-of-function research

• The National Academies Press. Potential risks and benefits of gain-of-function research: summary of a workshop. 2015.
• Forbes. Should we allow scientists to create dangerous super-viruses? Steven Salzberg. October 20, 2014.
• The Cambridge Working Group. Cambridge Working Group consensus statement on the creation of potential pandemic pathogens (PPPs). July 14, 2014.
• mBio. Can limited scientific value of potential pandemic pathogen experiments justify the risks? Marc Lipsitch. October 14, 2014. doi: https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02008-14
• mBio. Research on Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Influenza Virus: The Way Forward. Anthony S. Fauci. September-October 2012, 3(5): e00359-12. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00359-12
• mBio. Falling down the rabbit hole: aTRIP toward lexiconic precision in the “gain-of-function” debate. W. Paul Duprex and Arturo Casadevall. vol. 5,6 e02421-14. 12 Dec. 2014, doi:10.1128/mBio.02421-14
• PLoS Medicine. Ethical alternatives to experiments with novel potential pandemic pathogens. Marc Lipsitch and Alison Galvani. 2014. 11(5): e1001646. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001646

Scientific papers on the origins of SARS-CoV-2

• The Lancet. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Chaolin Huang et al. January 30, 2020. Volume 395: 497–506.
• Nature. A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Peng Zhou, Xing-Lou Yang, Xian-Guang Wang, Ben Hu,…and Zheng-Li Shi. February 3, 2020. 579(7798): 270-273. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2012-7
• Nature. Addendum: A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Peng Zhou, Xing-Lou Yang, Xian-Guang Wang, Ben Hu,…and Zheng-Li Shi. November 17, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2951-z
• Nature Medicine. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, Robert F. Garry. April 2020. Volume 26, pages 450-455.
• Journal of Medical Virology. Questions concerning the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Murat Seyran, Damiano Pizzol, Parise Adadi…and Adam M. Brufsky. September 3, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.26478
• BioEssays. Might SARS‐CoV‐2 have arisen via serial passage through an animal host or cell culture? Karl Sirotkin and Dan Sirotkin. August 12, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202000091
• Frontiers in Public Health. Lethal pneumonia cases in Mojiang miners (2012) and the mineshaft could provide important clues to the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Monali Rahalkar and Rahul Bahulikar. September 17, 2020. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.581569
• BioEssays. The genetic structure of SARS‐CoV‐2 does not rule out a laboratory origin. Rossana Segreto and Yuri Deigin. November 17, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202000240
• bioRxiv. SARS-CoV-2 is well adapted for humans. What does this mean for re-emergence? Shing Hei Zhan, Benjamin E. Deverman, Yujia Alina Chan. May 2, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.01.073262
• Zenodo. Where Did the 2019 Coronavirus Pandemic Begin and How Did it Spread? The People’s Liberation Army Hospital in Wuhan China and Line 2 of the Wuhan Metro System Are Compelling Answers. Steven Carl Quay. October 28, 2020. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4119262
• Zenodo. A Bayesian analysis concludes beyond a reasonable doubt that SARS-CoV-2 is not a natural zoonosis but instead is laboratory derived. Dr. Steven Quay. January 29, 2021.
• Minerva. The evidence which suggests that this is no naturally evolved virus: A reconstructed historical aetiology of the SARS-CoV-2 spike. Birger Sørensen, Angus Dalgleish & Andres Susrud. July 1, 2020.
• ResearchGate. Is considering a genetic-manipulation origin for SARS-CoV-2 a conspiracy theory that must be censored? Rossana Segreto and Yuri Deigin. April 2020. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31358.13129/1
• Preprints. Major concerns on the identification of bat coronavirus strain RaTG13 and quality of related Nature paper. Xiaoxu Lin, Shizhong Chen. June 5, 2020. 2020060044. doi: 10.20944/preprints202006.0044.v1
• Preprints. The abnormal nature of the fecal swab sample used for NGS analysis of RaTG13 genome sequence imposes a question on the correctness of the RaTG13 sequence. Monali Rahalkar and Rahul Bahulikar. August 11, 2020. doi: 10.20944/preprints202008.0205.v1
• OSF Preprints. COVID-19, SARS and bats coronaviruses genomes unexpected exogeneous RNA sequences. Jean-Claude Perez and Luc Montagnier. April 25, 2020. doi:10.31219/osf.io/d9e5g
• Zenodo. HIV man-manipulated coronavirus genome evolution trends. Jean-Claude Perez and Luc Montagnier. August 2, 2020.
• Emerging Microbes & Infections. HIV-1 did not contribute to the 2019-nCoV genome. Xiao Chuan, Li Xiaojun, Liu Shuying, Sang Yongming, Gao Shou-Jiang and Gao Feng. 2020. 9(1): 378-381. doi: 10.1080/22221751.2020.1727299
• arXiv. In silico comparison of spike protein-ACE2 binding affinities across species; significance for the possible origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Sakshi Piplani, Puneet Kumar Singh, David A. Winkler, Nikolai Petrovsky. May 13, 2020.
• Nature. Identifying SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses in Malayan pangolins. Tommy Tsan-Yuk Lam, Na Jia, Ya-Wei Zhang, Marcus Ho-Hin Shum, Jia-Fu Jiang, Hua-Chen Zhu, Yi-Gang Tong, Yong-Xia Shi, Xue-Bing Ni, Yun-Shi Liao, Wen-Juan Li, Bao-Gui Jiang, Wei Wei, Ting-Ting Yuan, Kui Zheng, Xiao-Ming Cui, Jie Li, Guang-Qian Pei, Xin Qiang, William Yiu-Man Cheung, Lian-Feng Li, Fang-Fang Sun, Si Qin, Ji-Cheng Huang, Gabriel M. Leung, Edward C. Holmes, Yan-Ling Hu, Yi Guan & Wu-Chun Cao. March 26, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2169-0
• PLoS Pathogens. Are pangolins the intermediate host of the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)? Ping Liu, Jing-Zhe Jiang, Xiu-Feng Wan, Yan Hua, Linmiao Li, Jiabin Zhou, Xiaohu Wang, Fanghui Hou, Jing Chen, Jiejian Zou, Jinping Chen. May 14, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1008421
• Nature. Isolation of SARS-CoV-2-related coronavirus from Malayan pangolins. Kangpeng Xiao, Junqiong Zhai, Yaoyu Feng, Niu Zhou, Xu Zhang, Jie-Jian Zou, Na Li, Yaqiong Guo, Xiaobing Li, Xuejuan Shen, Zhipeng Zhang, Fanfan Shu, Wanyi Huang, Yu Li, Ziding Zhang, Rui-Ai Chen, Ya-Jiang Wu, Shi-Ming Peng, Mian Huang, Wei-Jun Xie, Qin-Hui Cai, Fang-Hui Hou, Wu Chen, Lihua Xiao & Yongyi She. May 7, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2313-x
• Current Biology. Probable Pangolin Origin of SARS-CoV-2 Associated with the COVID-19 Outbreak. Tao Zhang, Qunfu Wu, Zhigang Zhang. March 19, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.03.022
• bioRxiv. Single source of pangolin CoVs with a near identical Spike RBD to SARS-CoV-2. Yujia Alina Chan and Shing Hei Zhan. October 23, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.07.184374
• Infection, Genetics and Evolution. COVID-19: Time to exonerate the pangolin from the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans. Roger Frutos, Jordi Serra-Cobo, Tianmu Chen and Christian A. Devaux. Volume 84, October 2020, 104493. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meegid.2020.104493
• bioRxiv. No evidence of coronaviruses or other potentially zoonotic viruses in Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) entering the wildlife trade via Malaysia. Jimmy Lee, Tom Hughes, Mei-Ho Lee, Hume Field, Jeffrine Japning Rovie-Ryan, Frankie Thomas Sitam, Symphorosa Sipangkui, Senthilvel K.S.S. Nathan, Diana Ramirez, Subbiah Vijay Kumar, Helen Lasimbang, Jonathan H. Epstein, Peter Daszak. June 19, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.19.158717
• Archives of Virology. ApalindromicRNA sequence as a common breakpoint contributor to copy-choice recombination in SARS-CoV-2. William R. Gallaher. July 31, 2020.
• Cell. A genomic perspective on the origin and emergence of SARS-CoV-2. Yong-Zhen Zhang, Edward C. Holmes. April 2020 181(2):223-227. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.03.035.
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Superantigenic character of an insert unique to SARS-CoV-2 spike supported by skewed TCR repertoire in patients with hyperinflammation. Mary Hongying Cheng, She Zhang, Rebecca A. Porritt, Magali Noval Rivas, Lisa Paschold, Edith Willscher, Mascha Binder, Moshe Arditi, and Ivet Bahar. September 28, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2010722117
• Current Biology. A novel bat coronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV-2 contains natural insertions at the S1/S2 cleavage site of the spike protein. Hong Zhou, Xing Chen, Tao Hu, Juan Li, Hao Song, Yanran Liu, Peihan Wang, Di Liu, Jing Yang, Edward C. Holmes, Alice C. Hughes, Yuhai Bi, and Weifeng Shi. June 8, 2020. 30: 2196-2203. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.023
• aRxiv. The bat coronavirus RmYN02 is characterized by a 6-nucleotide deletion at the S1/S2 junction, and its claimed PAA insertion is highly doubtful. Yuri Deigin and Rossana Segreto. December 1, 2020.
• bioRxiv. Furin cleavage site is key to SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. Bryan A. Johnson,…Kari Debbink, Pei Yong Shi, Alexander Freiberg and Vineet Menachery. August 26, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.26.268854
• bioRxiv.The furin cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is a key determinant for transmission due to enhanced replication in airway cells. Thomas Peacock, Daniel H. Goldhill, Jie Zhou,…and Wendy S. Barclay. September 30, 2020. doi. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.30.318311
• Zenodo. Unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome suggesting sophisticated laboratory modification rather than natural evolution and delineation of its probable synthetic route. Li-Meng Yan, Shu Kang, Jie Guan, and Shanchang Hu. September 14, 2020. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4028829
• Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. In Response: Yan et al Preprint Examinations of the Origin of SARS-CoV-2. Kelsey Lane Warmbrod, Rachel M. West, Nancy D. Connell and Gigi Kwik Gronvall. September 21, 2020.
• Zenodo. Proposed SARS-CoV-2 Spillover During 2019 Review of Samples from a Mineshaft in Mojiang, Yunnan Province, China. Anonymous. September 14, 2020. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4029544

Investigative blog articles on the origins of SARS-CoV-2

• Medium. Lab-made? SARS-CoV-2 genealogy through the lens of gain-of-function research. Yuri Deigin. April 22, 2020.
• Medium. Fearsome viruses and where to find them. Moreno Colaiacovo. November 15, 2020.
• Medium. Rushed data collection of suspected early Covid-19 cases in Wuhan. Gilles Demaneuf. October 15, 2020.