Dear NSI members,
NSI and the Norwegian Biochemical Society Oslo (NBS Oslo) jointly invites you to a guest lecture by Professor Kristian G Andersen (Scripps Research, La Jolla, USA), where he will give a lecture on “The origin of a pandemic – the facts and the fiction”.
Meeting details: Date/time: Thursday October 17th, 14:15-15:30
Location: Lille Auditorium, Domus Medica, UiO Gaustad Campus, https://link.mazemap.com/RDL5JFni
Coffee/tea and refreshments are served from 14:00
Unable to attend in person? Follow the Webinar here: https://uio.zoom.us/j/63134655575
Title of talk: The origin of a pandemic – the facts and the fiction
Short bio: Professor Andersen’s research interest is on host-pathogen interactions and his lab uses a broad array of approaches including sequencing, experiments, field work and computational methods. He has contributed much to the studies on Zika, Ebola, West Nile and Lassa viruses, and most recently, SARS-CoV-2, where he has been one of the key scientist investigating the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
Abstract: Understanding SARS-CoV-2’s origins is crucial for preventing future pandemics. Early reports and research identified Wuhan’s Huanan Market as a likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this hypothesis became controversial, with subject matter experts becoming frequent targets of rampant, and still-ongoing, conspiracism and political attacks. In a series of papers, our research has shown that the earliest COVID-19 cases, including those without direct links to the market, were both centered around on, and much closer to, the market than expected by chance. We also show that multiple species of likely intermediate hosts were for sale at the market, including clear genetic signatures of racoon dogs, bamboo rats, and civets co-mingling in samples also positive for SARS-CoV-2. Further, we found that virus and susceptible animal samples clustered in a specific corner of the market, exactly where wildlife was being sold prior to the start of the pandemic. Our phylodynamic analyses strongly suggest that at least two separate cross-species transmission events occurred in late November and early December 2019 at the market, with the timing of the early market outbreak corresponding to the start of the pandemic itself. Combined, our studies give us unprecedented insights into the origin of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic at a granularity never previously achieved, pointing to the unregulated wildlife trade in China as the culprit, and the Huanan Market as the early epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence.
Look forward to seeing you there!
