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Weather Channel: Mystery Thickens Over COVID-19's Origin; Claims of Hidden Early Genetic Information Attracts Further Scrutiny

June 25, 2021 | Arunita Banerjee

COVID-19 pandemic has been wreaking worldwide havoc for nearly 20 months now. Yet, Its origin and early spread continue to be one of the most intriguing scientific puzzles of recent history. Claims that the earliest coronavirus strains leaked out from a lab in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China have resurfaced and subsided multiple times, throughout the course of the pandemic. While many such claims were eventually disregarded as unfounded speculations of conspiracy theorists, allegations have continued against the Wuhan lab having known about the infection and its subsequent threat, much before the world at large was aware.

New study claims to shed light on missing early evidence

This week, the Chinese researchers found themselves back on the suspicion radar regarding their role in the origins and early spread of COVID-19. Earlier this week, a Seattle-based virologist, Dr. Jesse D. Bloom has made some startling allegations in a study that is yet to be peer-reviewed. While the pre-print still awaits formal vetting, Dr Bloom research claims to elucidate new information on how the pandemic originated.

His work is based on some “recovered” genetic information, which was deleted from the database of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA, upon request by a Chinese researcher. "Submitting investigators hold the rights to their data and can request withdrawal of the data," said the official NIH statement.

..."We will never know the answer. We either take their word for it, or we send you over with some muscular guys and we draw their blood. Would we tolerate that? No, we would not," said Robert Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine to IANS.

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Jennifer Gonzales
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jennifer.gonzales@ihv.umaryland.edu

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    Monday, December 21, 2020

    Robert Gallo of the UM School of Medicine Institute of Human Virology and Global Virus Network Awarded Top Life Sciences and Medicine Prize from China

    Robert C. Gallo, MD, The Homer & Martha Gudelsky Distinguished Professor in Medicine, co-founder and director of the Institute Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and co-founder and international scientific advisor of the Global Virus Network, was awarded the “VCANBIO Award for Biosciences and Medicine,” a significant and authoritative award in the life sciences and medicine field of China. The elite Prize is jointly presented by the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the VCANBIO CELL & GENE ENGINEERING CORP, LTD to push forward scientific research, technological innovation and continuous development in the life sciences and medicine field of China.


    Friday, December 18, 2020

    UMSOM Institute of Human Virology's Robert Gallo Awarded Italy's Magna Graecia International Prize

    Robert Gallo, MD, The Homer & Martha Gudelsky Distinguished Professor in Medicine, co-founder and director of the Institute Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and co-founder and international scientific advisor of the Global Virus Network, was awarded Italy’s “Magna Graecia International Prize,” an award created in 1997 by the Magna Graecia Foundation that is bestowed to the most influential Italians and Italians of origin who have embodied and symbolized, in the most diverse sectors, the best qualities of Italy by extending Italian culture beyond national borders.


    Friday, December 11, 2020

    Bloomberg TV Asia: Dr. Robert Gallo on COVID-19 Vaccines

    Dr. Robert Gallo, co-founder and international scientific advisor of the Global Virus Network and the co-founder and director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, discusses the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines. The first Covid-19 vaccine expected to be deployed in the U.S. won the backing of a panel of government advisers, a step that will likely help clear the way for emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration. Gallo, who co-discovered HIV as the cause of AIDS in 1984, speaks with Haidi Stroud-Watts and Shery Ahn on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Australia." (Source: Bloomberg)


    Wednesday, November 11, 2020

    Dr. Robert Gallo on Bloomberg Asia on COVID Vaccine Prospects

    Dr. Robert C. Gallo, The Homer & Martha Gudelsky Distinguished Professor in Medicine, co-founder and director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and co-founder and international scientific advisor of the Global Virus Network, discusses the timeline and safety of Covid-19 vaccine trials. He speaks with Shery Ahn and Haidi Stroud-Watts on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia".


    Sunday, November 01, 2020

    The Scientist: How Some Vaccines Protect Against More than Their Targets

    As researchers test existing vaccines for nonspecific protection against COVID-19, immunologists are working to understand how some inoculations protect against pathogens they weren’t designed to fend off.


    Friday, October 30, 2020

    Fox45 News: Contagion figures surrounding Covid-19

    Since the beginning of Covid-19, major questions have been asked and some still linger; how long are you contagious and can you be re-infected once you've had the virus Infectious disease physician at the University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute of Human Virology, Dr. Rohit Talwani, joined Fox 45 Morning News Friday to answer those burning questions.


    Monday, October 12, 2020

    WJLA (Washington, DC): How long can you spread coronavirus once infected? We found out.

    Social distancing, hand hygiene and face masks can help curb the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus but if you do get sick, how long can you spread COVID to others? 7 On Your Side went looking for answers.


    Thursday, October 08, 2020

    NPR: Could The Live Flu Vaccine Help You Fight Off COVID-19?

    In case you were still procrastinating getting a flu shot this year, here's another reason to make it a priority. There's a chance the vaccine could offer some protection against COVID-19 itself, says virologist Robert Gallo, who directs the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and is chairman of the Global Virus Network.


    Thursday, September 24, 2020

    Baltimore Sun: A vaccine will help, not end coronavirus pandemic, experts in Maryland and globally say

    A global group of virus experts warned Thursday about relying too much on the first vaccines to end the coronavirus pandemic. “If we get a perfect vaccine, great, but that’s unlikely,” said Dr. Robert Gallo, co-founder of the Global Virus Network, during a news conference following a meeting of the organization that works to understand and treat infectious diseases.


    Friday, August 28, 2020

    WYPR: Could Polio Vaccine Corral Covid-19?

    A safe, effective vaccine against Covid-19 could resurrect jobs, send kids back to classrooms--change our lives. But how safe and effective? And how quickly can we have it? Dr. Robert Gallo, the AIDS-research pioneer now leading virus science at the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Global Virus Network, argues we could get much of the benefit by inoculating people with an old, very cheap drug -- the oral Polio vaccine developed seven decades ago. Gallo contends it would trigger our ‘innate immunity’-- the body’s emergency response when a threat shows up.


    Friday, August 21, 2020

    Institute of Human Virology and Italian Researchers identify a SARS-CoV-2 Viral Strain with Deletion in a Protein, Possibly Reducing Fatalities

    The Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a Global Virus Network (GVN) Center of Excellence, in collaboration with scientists from Campus Biomedico in Rome, Italy announced today the results of studies showing the emergence of a SARS-CoV-2 viral strain with a deletion in a protein known as nsp1. These data, accepted for publication today by the Journal of Translational Medicine, (link here) may indicate the emergence of a less pathogenic viral strain.


    Monday, August 03, 2020

    Eureka, Charles River Laboratories: Could the Oral Polio Vaccine be Used to Prevent COVID-19?

    Virologist Robert Gallo, MD, has had a long and storied career in academic and government research. He is the Homer & Martha Gudelsky Distinguished Professor in Medicine, co-founder and director of the Institute Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and co-founder and international scientific adviser of the Global Virus Network. Despite his deep roots in HIV, Dr. Gallo’s current focus is, not surprisingly, COVID-19, which emerged in China last year and within four months morphed into a full-blown pandemic. As usual, Dr. Gallo’s research strategy has raised eyebrows. Unlike the antibody and RNA vaccines that are all the rage in COVID-19 science, Gallo is putting his energies behind repurposing the oral polio virus vaccine developed in the 1950s by Albert Sabin.


    Monday, August 03, 2020

    Infectious Disease Special Edition: COVID-19 and HIV: Was It a Deadly Mix?

    Social distancing is one of the curses of COVID-19, and may fall more heavily on people with HIV than on those without this burden. “People with HIV, and in particular certain subsets of that group—the LGBTQ community, older adults aging with HIV, etc.—face more mental health issues than the general population,” said Sarah Schmalzle, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at the Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, in Baltimore. “Many of our patients also already face significant isolation and loneliness due to a combination of HIV stigma, losses of friends and family to HIV, and aging.”


    Friday, July 31, 2020

    RollingStone-Useful Idiots: Dr. Robert Gallo on a COVID-19 Vaccine

    Dr. Robert Gallo, director of the Institute for Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, joins the show to give his take on the prospects for an effective COVID-19 vaccine. Gallo is skeptical of the approach many organizations are taking with antibody vaccines, citing the similarly low efficacy those treatments had with HIV due to the low durability of the antibodies. Dr. Gallo’s research is mainly related to Oral Polio Vaccine, which he thinks needs to be tested more in regard to innate immunity.


    Monday, July 20, 2020

    NPR: Early Oxford-AstraZeneca Coronavirus Vaccine Data 'Encouraging,' Scientists Say

    Dr. Robert Gallo is quoted about an experimental vaccine candidate being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University to protect against COVID-19 that triggered an immune response against the coronavirus and appeared to be safe.


    Tuesday, July 07, 2020

    Courthouse News Service: Global Progress on Ending HIV/AIDS Derailed by Covid-19

    A United Nations program aimed at eliminating HIV/AIDS released a report Monday showing that the global response to the epidemic has fallen far short of goals set for 2020, in large part due to the coronavirus pandemic.


    Monday, July 06, 2020

    Sputnik Radio: What If There Is No Vaccine for COVID-19?

    On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Robert Gallo, MD, the Homer & Martha Gudelsky Distinguished Professor in Medicine, co-founder and director of the Institute Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and co-founder and international scientific adviser of the Global Virus Network. What would you think if someone told you that we already have a vaccine that at least helps fight Covid-19? That may already be the case. Two American scientists, Dr. Robert Gallo and Dr. Konstantin Chumakov, are positing that decades-old live vaccines for things like polio and tuberculosis strengthen the immune system’s first line of defense a more general way to fight infection. And the history books show us that that sometimes translates into at least some cross-protection against completely different viruses.


    Tuesday, June 30, 2020

    Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: An Old Vaccine May Help Against Coronavirus: A tablet for polio boosts innate immunity, which fights other viruses.

    In this op-ed coauthored by Dr. Robert C. Gallo and Daniel J. Arbess, they discuss how “An Old Vaccine May Help Against Coronavirus: A tablet for polio boosts innate immunity, which fights other viruses.”


    Monday, June 29, 2020

    Baltimore Magazine Special Edition: Dr. Gallo Featured

    Dr. Robert Gallo is featured in Baltimore Magazine's special edition, "On the Front Lines: Acts of Courage and Kindness in the Age of Coronavirus."


    Friday, June 26, 2020

    IHV in the News

    Links to news stories featuring the IHV from June 11 to June 25, 2020.


    Friday, June 12, 2020

    Institute of Human Virology and Italian Researchers Find Higher Daily Temperatures Lead to a Decrease in COVID-19 Related Deaths

    Insights into population density and daily temperatures provide a path to public health strategies. The Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a Global Virus Network (GVN) Center of Excellence, in collaboration with scientists from Campus Biomedico in Rome and Ulisse Biomed and University of Trieste, in Trieste, Italy announced today the results of studies showing an inverse correlation between average high daily temperatures and COVID-19 related death rates in different geographical areas.


    Friday, June 12, 2020

    The Washington Post: We shouldn’t care who wins the vaccine ‘race’

    Dr. Robert Gallo writes a Letter to the Editor to The Washington Post entitled, “We shouldn’t care who wins the vaccine ‘race’,” regarding their June 4 front-page article “Cold War echoes in race for vaccine,” about the “race” among nations, notably the United States, China, and Russia and other European nations for development of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus.


    Friday, June 12, 2020

    CNN Health: An Existing Polio Vaccine Could Help Protect Against Coronavirus, Top Experts Say

    CNN: There is plenty of evidence that existing inoculations such as polio vaccines protect children against a wide range of infections and it's worth trying them out against the new coronavirus, a team of experts wrote in Science magazine Thursday.


    Thursday, June 11, 2020

    NBC News: Polio Vaccine Could Give Temporary Protection Against COVID-19, Scientists Hope

    NBC News: As the world waits for a coronavirus vaccine, some scientists are proposing that existing vaccines could give the body’s immune system a much-needed temporary boost to stave off infection. It’s still unclear whether such an approach would work, and some experts are skeptical. Others — including researchers in Israel, the Netherlands and Australia — are already investigating whether a tuberculosis vaccine could help jump-start the immune system and make COVID-19 less deadly, though the World Health Organization strongly advises against using that vaccine until it’s proven effective against the coronavirus.


    Thursday, June 11, 2020

    Global Virus Network Suggests Oral Polio Vaccine May Provide Temporary Protection Against COVID-19

    The Global Virus Network (GVN), a coalition comprised of the world’s preeminent human and animal virologists from 53 Centers of Excellence, including the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and 10 Affiliates in 32 countries, published a viewpoint in Science today that the stimulation of innate immunity by live attenuated vaccines in general, and oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) in particular, could provide temporary protection against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).


    Tuesday, June 02, 2020

    UM School of Medicine’s Institute of Human Virology Awarded Grants to Strengthen COVID-19 Response in Sub-Saharan Africa

    The Center for International Health, Education and Biosecurity (Ciheb) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Institute of Human Virology was awarded $4 million from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response activities in Botswana, Nigeria, Malawi, and Mozambique.


    Friday, May 01, 2020

    NYT Op-Ed Features Gallo-Chumakov Oral Polio Vaccine for COVID-19 Idea

    What if We Already Have a Coronavirus Vaccine? Researchers are testing whether decades-old vaccines for polio and tuberculosis could protect against infection.