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Engineered in German labs using reverse genetics, then tested in U.S. animals with live H5N1 challenge.

A peer-reviewed study published this month in Vaccine details how the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)—through its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)—funded and conducted live H5N1 “bird flu” experiments on ferrets using newly engineered chimeric influenza viruses that were synthetically constructed in Europe from the combined genetic material of multiple flu strains.

NIAID is led by Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, widely recognized for leading the team that sequenced the 1918 influenza “Spanish flu” pandemic virus genome.

Dr. Taubenberger’s work on the Spanish flu virus involved the reconstruction and sequencing of one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

The revelation of new bird flu pathogen creation follows this website’s report that the NIH, led by Director Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya, and USDA have funded scientists to create other brand-new, never-before-seen avian influenza viruses with enhanced growth and replication traits at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recently engineered a brand-new strain of bird flu in its Atlanta, Georgia laboratories, signifying broad, multi-agency coordination of federally backed programs to genetically bioengineer new avian-influenza viruses across multiple institutions.

Moreover, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) recently awarded Cidara $339 million for its new influenza drug CD388.

Each U.S. agency is contributing to a rapidly expanding network of synthetic bird-flu drug development and virus creation with heightened replication efficiency, immune-evasion features, and potential dual-use biosecurity risks.

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Who Funded It

According to the acknowledgments:

“The ferret experiment was funded and carried out by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (USA) non-clinical and preclinical service programs through Southern Research Institute (USA) contract HHSN272201700029I/75N93020F00002 with Treamid Therapeutics GmbH (D.Pleimers).”

The work was supported by Treamid Therapeutics and UniFluVec.

That means the U.S. government financed part of the research, while two private European biotechnology firms oversaw the development of the new virus, signalling international bird flu pandemic orchestration.

The Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Alabama carried out the ferret infection and live-virus challenge under NIH/NIAID direction.

“The experiment in ferrets was performed by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) National Institute of Health (USA) and Southern Research Institute (USA),” the study reads.

Where the Viruses Were Created

The paper confirms the engineered viruses were constructed in Europe:

“The recombinant influenza virus vector, UniFluVec, is based on the PR/8/34 influenza virus and constructed using the reverse genetics method with synthetic plasmids generated by GeneArt (Germany).”

That means synthetic plasmids were built by GeneArt, a Thermo Fisher Scientific division in Germany, then used by UniFluVec and Treamid Therapeutics to assemble a brand-new influenza virus before transferring materials for NIH-funded animal testing in the U.S.

What They Created

The new construct, called UniFluVec, is a hybrid influenza virus assembled from several different strains through reverse genetics, a process that reconstructs live viruses from cloned DNA:

“The recombinant influenza virus vector, UniFluVec… constructed using the reverse genetics method… The HA and NA fragments originate from A/Mississippi/10/2013 (H1N1pdm), while PB2, PB1, PA, NP, M and NS fragments—from PR/8/34 (H1N1).”

The authors then spliced in additional genetic material from multiple lineages:

“UniFluVec includes two key modifications in the NS segment: a truncated NS1 protein of 124 amino acids and a heterologous NEP protein from the A/Singapore/1/57-like (H2N2) virus. Additionally, the truncated NS1₁₂₄ protein was fused with a 21-amino-acids of the fusion peptide from the HA2 subunit of the B/Lee/1940 virus and a conserved nine-amino-acid B-cell epitope NP_243–251 of the PR/8/34 virus.”

This created a synthetic multi-strain hybrid virus containing genetic components from at least four different influenza species—H1N1, H1N1pdm, H2N2, and influenza B.

Testing with Live H5N1 Challenge

The synthetic UniFluVec virus was later tested against one of the world’s most lethal avian influenza strains:

“Vaccination of ferrets was performed within a biological safety cabinet (BSC). On study day 0, animals were anesthetized and vaccinated IN with 1.0 ml (0.5 ml/nares) of the PBS (vehicle control) or vaccine virus.”

“On day 21 or 23, each ferret was anesthetized and infected IN with 1.0 ml (approximately 0.5 ml/nares) of influenza virus A/Indonesia/5/2005 (H5N1).”

Bottom Line

The NIH-funded research demonstrates that synthetic, multi-strain chimeric influenza viruses were genetically constructed in Europe using reverse-engineered plasmids and then tested in live mammals with an H5N1 challenge in the United States.

Taken together with concurrent projects at the USDA, CDC, and BARDA, the work underscores a broad, multi-agency program to bioengineer, test, and commercialize novel avian-influenza viruses and related countermeasures—often under the banner of “vaccine” or “therapeutic” development.

While the authors describe their study as vaccine research, the combination of cross-continental virus construction, high-pathogenicity live-animal challenges, and U.S. federal coordination situates it squarely within the domain of gain-of-function–type experimentation, raising renewed questions about oversight, transparency, and biosecurity.

The COVID-19 pandemic was likely the result of lab-engineered pathogen manipulation, according to Congress, the White House, the Department of Energy, the FBI, and the CIA.