fox files

American tax dollars finance human body-altering pathogens in collaboration with Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation helped fund a U.S.-Wuhan research team that engineered an adenovirus designed to deliver DNA-editing machinery into human blood-forming stem cells, according to a study published July 1 in Molecular Therapy.

The stated purpose of the study was to genetically engineer human stem cells to resist HIV infection.

But the experiments raise broader questions about the risks of funding purported viral systems designed to permanently alter the human body.

The research was funded by multiple National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants under HHS, grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and support from biotechnology company Ensoma Bio.

The author affiliations include the University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and the State Key Laboratory of Virology and Biosafety at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The study acknowledges support from NIH grants R01HL128288, R01AI174304, K08AI183990, and R01HL141781, along with grants INV-017692 and INV-038139 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Additional support came from China’s Prevention and Control of Emerging and Major Infectious Diseases–National Science and Technology Major Project and Ensoma Bio.

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According to the paper, the researchers claim to have engineered modified helper-dependent adenoviral (HDAd) vectors to carry CRISPR-derived base editors programmed to alter the human CCR5 gene.

Rather than editing cells outside the body before transplanting them back into a patient, the researchers say they designed the adenovirus to deliver the gene-editing machinery directly into blood-forming stem cells inside a living subject.

Hematopoietic stem cells continually produce new blood and immune cells throughout a person’s life.

By altering the DNA of those stem cells, the researchers say they sought to create a continuing supply of immune cells lacking a functional CCR5 receptor, which HIV is said to commonly use to infect cells.

The study claims that the engineered adenovirus produced “near-complete target site editing” in an HIV-permissive cell line.

The researchers also reported efficient editing in human CD34+ blood-forming stem cells obtained from mobilized donors and umbilical cord blood.

The experiments extended beyond laboratory cell cultures.

Researchers injected the engineered adenoviral vector into humanized mice, enriched the purportedly genetically modified cells, and then exposed the animals to HIV.

According to the paper, approximately 50% of the targeted CCR5 sites were edited in bone marrow cells, and the treated animals had roughly 12-fold lower HIV plasma titers than untreated controls following HIV challenge.

The paper describes the work as part of a broader effort to move human gene editing from ex vivo procedures—where cells are removed, genetically modified, and reinfused—to in vivo editing performed directly inside the body using purported viral delivery systems.

The researchers write that helper-dependent adenoviral vectors can carry large genetic payloads, be manufactured at relatively low cost, and be adapted to deliver different genome-editing systems into hematopoietic stem cells

Bottom Line

American taxpayer dollars and Gates Foundation funding helped finance a U.S.-Wuhan collaboration that engineered a virus to carry purportedly human DNA-editing machinery into living cells.

The study illustrates continued government investment in purported viral delivery systems designed to make permanent changes inside the body.

You can contact NIAID here, NIH here, and HHS here to voice opposition to taxpayer-funded research on pathogens—particularly after Congress, the White House, the Department of Energy, the FBI, the CIA, and Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) all acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic was “likely” the result of a laboratory incident involving engineered pathogens.