01-31-2020, 03:07 PM
Punatic007 - He seems rather critical of the epidemiologists, a credential he does not claim. And exactly how close or not is he to the wheelhouse?
For clarity, Ari Allyn-Feuer is Principal Data Analyst at GlaxoSmithKline, with a PhD from the Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics department at the University of Michigan. Bioinformatics concerns itself with the use of computers and informatics in understanding biology, which is what the paper is all about. While he is not a virologist, this publication is right at the door to his wheelhouse.
It's not an epidemiology paper, or even a virology paper really, it's a bioinformatics paper using computerized sequences of known viruses to compare to the novel cornonavirus. As many people are pointing out, yes nCov has some overlap with HIV, but it also has the same overlaps with many viruses, plants, animals, fungus, etc...
Trevor Bedford, Bioinformatic specialist at the University of Washington, Seattle
https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1223337991168380928
"However, a simple BLAST of such short sequences shows match to a huge variety of organisms. No reason to conclude HIV."
Not that it matters per se, but Bioinformatics was my bread and butter at one point (not virology, but drug discovery - even worked with GSK on some projects) and the techniques used in the paper are common tools used at the undergraduate level. You can even run your own searches for nCov sequence matches if you care to - there's nothing secretive about this information.
https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?CMD=Get&RID=390WU08T014
(the fist match is a worm, the second a fungus, etc...)
So why would several PhD scientists from India pre-publish such rushed, amateur, and unreviewed work that just happens to imply that nCov is a Chinese manufactured bioweapon during the height of a pandemic scare?
Or as the inimitable Donald Sutherland would say: "That's the real question isn't it: why? [...] Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?"
For clarity, Ari Allyn-Feuer is Principal Data Analyst at GlaxoSmithKline, with a PhD from the Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics department at the University of Michigan. Bioinformatics concerns itself with the use of computers and informatics in understanding biology, which is what the paper is all about. While he is not a virologist, this publication is right at the door to his wheelhouse.
It's not an epidemiology paper, or even a virology paper really, it's a bioinformatics paper using computerized sequences of known viruses to compare to the novel cornonavirus. As many people are pointing out, yes nCov has some overlap with HIV, but it also has the same overlaps with many viruses, plants, animals, fungus, etc...
Trevor Bedford, Bioinformatic specialist at the University of Washington, Seattle
https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1223337991168380928
"However, a simple BLAST of such short sequences shows match to a huge variety of organisms. No reason to conclude HIV."
Not that it matters per se, but Bioinformatics was my bread and butter at one point (not virology, but drug discovery - even worked with GSK on some projects) and the techniques used in the paper are common tools used at the undergraduate level. You can even run your own searches for nCov sequence matches if you care to - there's nothing secretive about this information.
https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?CMD=Get&RID=390WU08T014
(the fist match is a worm, the second a fungus, etc...)
So why would several PhD scientists from India pre-publish such rushed, amateur, and unreviewed work that just happens to imply that nCov is a Chinese manufactured bioweapon during the height of a pandemic scare?
Or as the inimitable Donald Sutherland would say: "That's the real question isn't it: why? [...] Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?"