May 6, 2020

expert comment on two preprints about the Sars-CoV-2 virus

Two preprints, posted on ScienceDirect and BioRxiv respectively, looked at the Sars-CoV-2 virus.

Dr Jonathan Stoye, Head of Division of Virology, The Francis Crick Institute, said:

“Two very recent preprint postings, one from UCL the other from Los Alamos, make fascinating and complementary reading. Both present evolutionary analyses, using rather different methodologies, of SARS-CoV-2 sequence data provided by GISAID (Global Initiative for Sharing Avian Influenza Data).  The former focusses on examining the extent of repeated, independently acquired genetic changes, while the latter points to the possible biological consequences of specific amino acid changes.  Both studies emphasise that the virus is a moving target with an unknown evolutionary destination; in addition, both provide important clues to future research directions.”

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v1

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567134820301829

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink: www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

None received.