DiEuliis Diane, Giordano James
National Defense University, Washington, DC, USA.
Georgetown Universitygrid.213910.8, Washington, DC, USA.
mSphere. 2022 Apr 27;7(2):e0002522. doi: 10.1128/msphere.00025-22. Epub 2022 Feb 28.
At present, there are two hypotheses about the emergence of SARS-CoV-2; the first is that it was due to a naturally occurring zoonotic jump, and the second contends that it spread due to an accidental dispersion of a laboratory-acquired infection in Wuhan, China. While the pandemic's actual origins remain occluded, it is useful to examine the latter possibility as a paradigm for evaluating biosecurity policy in the post-COVID world. While the pandemic may not have emerged from a research lab, this is possible with research on dangerous pathogens and prompts questions for biosecurity. How might biosecurity protections for such research be modernized while still enabling important, necessary public health research that utilizes dual-use or gain-of-function capabilities? As the world takes urgent action to mitigate shortcomings in the response to COVID-19, such questions and their potential solutions are vital to inform and direct future life science and technology endeavors.
目前，关于严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）的出现有两种假说；第一种是它源于自然发生的人畜共患病传播，第二种则认为它是由于中国武汉实验室获得性感染的意外扩散而传播的。虽然疫情的实际起源仍然不明，但将后一种可能性作为评估后新冠时代生物安全政策的范例进行研究是有益的。虽然疫情可能并非源于研究实验室，但对危险病原体的研究存在这种可能性，并引发了生物安全方面的问题。在仍然能够开展利用两用或功能获得能力的重要且必要的公共卫生研究的同时，如何使针对此类研究的生物安全保护措施现代化？随着世界紧急采取行动弥补应对新冠疫情的不足，此类问题及其潜在解决方案对于为未来的生命科学和技术努力提供信息和指导至关重要。
