Biologist Chumakov explained the version about the artificial origin of “Omicron”

by time news

Help “MK”. “Pyotr Chumakov is a Soviet and Russian molecular biologist, an expert in the molecular biology of cancer. Head of the Cell Proliferation Laboratory, Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of over 200 scientific works, 5 monographs, 19 copyright certificates and patents. He was the first to clone a gene that can stop malignant cell growth, made a significant contribution to the study of the function of the gene and its role in carcinogenesis and physiology of the body.

Chumakov’s account is the development of promising prototypes of new anticancer compounds, new approaches to cancer therapy using oncolytic viruses.

The fact that the coronavirus and specifically its new strain “Omicron” could have been created by hand has been repeatedly said by many Western and Russian scientists. At the recent General Meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova also hinted at this: “The new Omicron strain contains 32-35 mutations in the S-protein alone! According to many virologists, to collect all this in one place, you have to “really try”.

We contacted Pyotr Chumakov to dot the I.

– Petr Mikhailovich, are there any clear signs that the Omicron strain is of artificial origin?

– According to the structure of Omicron, it is now impossible to say whether it is of artificial or natural origin. There are technologies to hide these differences. However, any student of the biology department knows that bioselection technology exists. This is a rather old method of converting a dangerous virus into an attenuated strain (a live culture of a microorganism with a sharply weakened or completely lost virulence). Such strains have been used more than once as live vaccines. And why my suggestion that Omicron could be created as the same vaccine against the current pandemic caused such rejection among some colleagues, I do not understand.

– There is a joke in social networks: “In the morning there is no runny nose, cough, throat does not hurt, temperature is normal, oxygen is normal. Looks like it’s Omicron. I would like the joke to come true, and we stopped being seriously ill with COVID-19 thanks to Omicron. What should happen to the virus to weaken it so dramatically?

– In nature, this usually happens over several years. When a more pathogenic strain jumps from an animal to a person with a weaker interferon response, it gradually decreases pathogenicity. Excessive functions of pathogenicity are no longer needed by the virus and are lost.

Scientists also know many ways of laboratory attenuation of the virus. Here are a couple of examples. The first is temperature. The optimum temperature for the development of the virus is from 36.6 degrees and above. We are starting to deduce by bioselection a variant that will multiply at 32 degrees. It begins to adapt to low temperatures and, when it enters the human body, dies.

Another technique is passaging (reseeding) on ​​a culture of cells that have impaired antiviral protection. Developing on such cultures, the virus pampered and relaxed. If then such a strain enters the body with normal interferon protection, it also quickly fades away. For this, the term was even coined: “virus de-optimization”.

In nature, the same thing happens, only for years. And then the process took place in one click – a virus with 32 mutations in the S-protein was isolated. In my opinion, it has all the properties of a live vaccine, even if it originated naturally, which I do not exclude. It gives low pathogenicity and high infectivity (the latter is necessary for the rapid “vaccination” of large groups of the population.

– Why did your version cause such a fuss?

– I myself did not quite understand, to be honest. As soon as someone calls white white, that is, to speak out about the possibility of a man-made origin of the strain, they literally attack it, insult, accuse it of pseudoscientific judgment!

But I, like many of my other colleagues, once again affirm: the possibility of the laboratory origin of “Omicron” cannot be ruled out. It is impossible to exclude anything in science without knowing for certain. Science is alive and active when there is discussion in it – only in a good, well-reasoned scientific dispute, truth is born.

And I was faced with the fact that they rudely try to close my mouth. Some of these people call themselves fighters against pseudoscience. How can thinking people with such ferocity say this to a scientist ?! A fierce struggle against dissent was only in the days of the Bolsheviks (hello to the Lysenkovites) or the “Holy Inquisition”, which for a long time protested against Copernicus’s heliocentric theory.

In the end, I don’t care about their opinion. They apparently consider themselves to be great scientists …

– Since when did dogmatists rule science?

– Unfortunately, it seems that we are slipping into 1948, when, due to the lack of a calm dialogue between scientists, a catastrophe occurred – domestic genetics was ruined. It is dangerous when one group of scientists begins to attack another group of scientists, guided by some ideological dogma. You cannot put it otherwise – they deny the very possibility of malicious intent in the story of the coronavirus pandemic, instill in society the naive idea that there can be no contradictions and backstage games in the world. Why is this done?

As a sane person, as a scientist who understands a lot in the field of virology, I can argue with them. A serious scientist should be completely free in his judgments. Let some hypotheses be extravagant, but they also have the right to exist and be discussed.

There is, for example, a version that Omicron arose from a mouse infection. Supposedly, a person infected a domestic mouse (I don’t know how he succeeded), in a mouse the virus circulated in the body, weakened and again jumped to a person … It’s much easier, in my opinion, to assume that such a weakened version would be obtained in a vivarium.





– Are there strong virological laboratories in South Africa, where Omicron comes from?

– Theoretically, it could have been made anywhere and brought to South Africa. We are now being told that 160 people there were infected from one source. It is possible that the virus was simply sprayed into some room.

– But who needed it?

– Well, maybe someone needs it. Everyone understands that many people use the covid pandemic for their commercial or political purposes … Or maybe someone decided that it was time to curtail it and created a live vaccine. It is clear that no one licenses such a thing today … I call it a “headfire” when a low-pathogenic variant of the virus is launched, which, on its way, sweeps away all pathogenic variants.

– But could it be dangerous?

“It’s dangerous, I don’t argue. The virus can recombine, turn into a monster, etc. This is theoretically. But I believe that in the face of such a pandemic as it is now, such a “vaccine”, even if it was specially created, would be fully justified. It is much worse when millions of people can die from the “Delta”. In England, almost a million have already been infected with Omicron.

– And there is one deceased …

– Only one, but it is not yet known from what exactly.

It should be understood that the creation of such “vaccines” or laboratory viruses is possible. Any forces pursuing certain interests, including territorial and geopolitical ones, may be interested in them. And this cannot be hushed up. In conclusion, I will emphasize once again that I do not refute the version of the natural origin of the weakened Omicron strain.

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