Pangolin coronavirus kills mice? Chinese Studies Controversial – Liberation

A recent scientific study on the virulence of pangolin coronaviruses in China calls into question the safety and validity of certain virology experiments.

A pangolin coronavirus, a dead lab rat, a draft of a scientific article… a very nasty cocktail four years after the appearance of SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic. Le Figaro An article was published on Thursday 18 January “Dangerously modified pangolin coronavirus in China”.. This article reports the results of a Chinese study published in a simple text format of a few pages on the BioRXiv site, where scientists can share their work in progress. The research has not yet been accepted by a scientific journal, therefore. publication Make a point.

What does the study in question say?

Published on January 4 by Lihua Song, a researcher at the Beijing Technological University of Chemistry, the study focuses on a coronavirus identified in pangolins before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019. The researchers wanted to test whether the virus was present in small mammals. Ability to infect humans. To do this, they used mice. But genetically modified mice. In fact, they have been manipulated to ensure that human proteins are present on the surface.