[Note: I am a microbiologist with over 30 years of experience in the field. I am not a virologist and am not an expert in this field. I can read a scientific paper, and I do understand the research in the field. Look at the information I present and make up your own mind.]
The source of the COVID-19 pandemic is in the news again with the release of the diary of Dr. Anthony Fauci by Ran Paul’s office. Multiple news organizations and politicians have latched onto key phrases in these diaries to assert that Dr. Fauci knew there was a strong possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was a genetically engineered virus released by the Wuhan lab. After looking at the diaries written by Dr. Fauci myself, not just reading news reports about it, I am skeptical of this claim. The salient part of the diary is reproduced here:
Feb 1, 2020 – There was not total agreement about the likelihood of deliberate insertion. Ron Fouchier said he was sure that this could occur naturally and we should not waste our time and divert effort to pursue this. This is expected of him since he was the original GOF person with Yoshi Kawaoka. Also, Christian Drosten was with Ron; the rest felt that deliberate insertion was possible and given the fact that Dr. Zheng-Li Shi at the University of Wuhan has been working for years in GOF in coronaviruses to allow adaptation of the spike protein to bind to the human ACE2 receptor, we could not let this go. We decided to have Jeremy with Francis to contact Tedros with Stewart Simonson’s help (I arranged this) to see if Tedros would convene experts. — Page 682 of the pdf released by Ron Paul’s office . (https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf)
By deliberate insertion, they are wondering about gain-of-function research on SARS viruses. I think they refer to the presence of a furin-cleavage site in the spike protein, which was not found in the closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2. The reasoning went: Since it is present in SARS-CoV-2 and not present in close relatives, it must have been placed there experimentally. So, that was the debate at the time. Given the amount of information at the time, it’s not surprising to me that the committee was split on this issue. Two were positive that SARS-CoV-2 being an engineered virus was not possible and that investigating it would be a waste of resources. The others didn’t know for sure. Note: they didn’t say they were positive it was engineered; they said they would not rule out the possibility, and it should be investigated. They all agreed to convene experts to look into it. They did not try to suppress the information. This is not at all how it is being portrayed in the press. I am disappointed.
Another section of the diary that politicians and reporters are getting excited about is this:
Jan. 26, 2020 – It now appears using epi data and genomic data that the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market. The infections spread among people weeks before the Chinese reported that they were dealing with a new infection and that gave the virus time to establish itself in multigenerational (sustained) spread. Remember, early on the Chinese were saying that there is no human to human transmission and all the original 27 cases were from the market. Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans. age 676 of the pdf released by Ron Paul’s office (https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf)
We have known for years that there were cases of COVID-19 before the large spreading events that happened in the Wuhan market. Thus, Fauci here correctly surmises it must have jumped to humans earlier than the Wuhan market cases; the Wuhan market was not the origin. In fact, Chinese officials found the earliest case to have occurred November 17th, 2019, in Hubei province. Just because Dr. Fauci deduced that the market was not the source does not mean that it has to have been engineered.
If you search through the rest of Dr. Fauci’s diary using “gain of function” as a search term, you get dozens of references to it; all of them make it clear that Dr. Fauci was dubious that SARS-CoV-2 was an engineered virus. That is his opinion and he has a right to have that. A meta analysis by Thakur et. al shows that the majority of studies done on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 suggest it has a zoonotic origin (it came from an infected animal). I am not aware of any papers that indicate a lab leak. I think the scientific community right now, barring other evidence, agrees this is a zoonotic strain.
Is SARS-CoV-2 engineered?
The short answer is, our best evidence says probably not.
Let’s ask the question anyway. What evidence is there that is was engineered? A review of the evidence by Alwine et. al comes to the conclusion that there is little credible evidence that the virus was created by scientists. I encourage you to read the peer-reviewed paper, but I will discuss two salient points here.
- Propagation of SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory causes it to lose important sequences. When you grow a virus in the laboratory, you are putting it under selective pressure. The cell-culture conditions are different from those of an infection in a human, and this favors the fastest-growing virus. Hundreds of laboratories grew SARS-CoV-2 for research, and all of them noticed the deletion of the portion of the spike gene encoding the furin cleavage site. Thus, a virus grown in the lab would not have this site. Ironically, part of the discussion scientists were having was whether this furin cleavage site indicated an engineered virus. We now know a laboratory strain would lose this cleavage site.
- Lack of any evidence of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering uses recombinant technologies to modify a virus. These methods often lead to telltale evidence in the sequence, such as restriction sites, differences in DNA base content between the natural virus and engineered pieces, and selection markers. Numerous isolates of SARS-CoV-2 have been sequenced, including the earliest strains. These sequences have no signs of genetic engineering.
Why do gain-of-function research?
Gain-of-function research seems to be dangerous and risky and it can be, if the virus is accidenly released. Governments have very tight supervision of any of these experiments and if a scientist is found to be doing these experiments without approval, there are serious consequences. So why do this research? It is to anticipate possible changes in virulence before they happen and work on remedies. Instead of being reactionary, once a virus is spreading through a population, be proactive and already have a good understanding before a pandemic. Is it worth doing? I leave that up to the experts.