Virus World

Scientists suggest GISAID, a virus sequence database, is rewriting pandemic history. When GISAID, the widely used database for influenza and SARS-CoV-2 genomes, issued a statement last week about a set of controversial sequences from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, the release explained by way of background that the repository was “an essential contributor to global health” trusted by thousands of data contributors from 215 nations and territories. But GISAID also included a claim that has been puzzling and infuriating some virologists for 3 years: It was the place where the first SARS-CoV-2 genomes were publicly shared, on 10 January 2020. That claim challenges contemporaneous news and social media accounts, the memories of many researchers contacted by Science, and non-GISAID records that all indicate the first sequence was made available through virological.org, a forum where scientists share and discuss information, early on 11 January in Europe, which was the evening of 10 January in the United States. It had been submitted by Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney who had received the sequence from Zhang Yong-Zhen, a virologist at Fudan University. GISAID, various information sources suggest, didn’t actually make its first genomes of the new coronavirus public until 12 January 2020. “I am very surprised” at GISAID’s claims, Zhang wrote in an email to Science. “I could not understand why some people attempted to rewrite the history.” GISAID Vice President and registered in-house council Ben Branda stood by its chronology in a lengthy email responding to questions from Science. He said the notion that the Zhang genome came first is “inaccurate” and based on “misinformation.”

 

Who exactly revealed SARS-CoV-2’s genetic code to the world may seem like a trivial issue. But the debate isn’t about scientific glory, according to Scripps Research evolutionary biologist Kristian Andersen. He calls GISAID’s version of events “deeply problematic” and says it could undermine trust in the database, which has played an essential role in charting the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and the rise of variants. As for Holmes, he says he would gladly credit GISAID if it was indeed first. “It’s not an ego thing,” he says. “But I have seen absolutely no evidence of their claim.” The release of the first SARS-CoV-2 genome was the subject of an intense behind-the-scenes tussle in China, where several laboratories had sequenced the virus by early January 2020. Zhang’s lab, which had long collaborated with Holmes, received a sample from a COVID-19 patient on 3 January and had a sequence ready on 5 January, which Zhang uploaded that day to GenBank, a public database run by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). But he did so without making it immediately visible to others. China was reportedly keeping tight control on any SARS-CoV-2 information and had banned researchers there from making the sequence public. Zhang, Holmes, and colleagues also sent a paper about the new virus to Nature on 7 January, according to the submission date on the final manuscript. On 8 January, The Wall Street Journal became the first media outlet to report that the outbreak in Wuhan was caused by a new coronavirus and that Chinese researchers had sequenced it, but the article didn’t identify which ones. Worried by the delay in sharing the viral genome, seen as key to developing diagnostics, vaccines, and drugs, Holmes had a “series of frantic calls” with Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, on 9 January, as Farrar wrote in his book Spike: The Virus vs. The People—the Inside Story. The two decided Holmes would put pressure on Zhang to go public with the sequence while Farrar would urge George Gao, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), to do the same with genomes they believed the agency had....