Scribd
Upload
265K views2 pages

Defuse Project Rejection by Darpa

The DEFUSE project proposal submitted by EcoHealth Alliance to DARPA for funding was rejected. While two reviewers thought the aim of reducing viral shedding in bat caves was of interest, the proposal was not recommended for funding due to significant weaknesses. It was considered potentially risky gain-of-function research as it proposed synthesizing coronavirus spike proteins that bind human cells. It also failed to address dual use concerns, provide a risk mitigation plan, sufficiently discuss ethical issues, or explain how data and results would be analyzed.

Uploaded by

Zerohedge Janitor
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
265K views2 pages

Defuse Project Rejection by Darpa

The DEFUSE project proposal submitted by EcoHealth Alliance to DARPA for funding was rejected. While two reviewers thought the aim of reducing viral shedding in bat caves was of interest, the proposal was not recommended for funding due to significant weaknesses. It was considered potentially risky gain-of-function research as it proposed synthesizing coronavirus spike proteins that bind human cells. It also failed to address dual use concerns, provide a risk mitigation plan, sufficiently discuss ethical issues, or explain how data and results would be analyzed.

Uploaded by

Zerohedge Janitor
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

REJECTION OF DEFUSE PROJECT PROPOSAL

Proposal Title: DEFUSE - Defusing the Threat of Bat-borne Coronaviruses (2018)

Proposal Identifier: HR001118S0017-PREEMPT-FP-019

Amounts Requested by EcoHealth Alliance:

Phase I $8,411,546
Phase II $5,797,699
Total: $14,209,245

RESULT

The DEFUSE proposed project by EHA was rejected by DARPA, although “if funding became
available”, certain components of particular interest could have gone ahead, subject to a clear
contractual Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) risk mitigation plan that ‘includes a
responsible communications plan’.

REASONS FOR REJECTION

The Biological Technologies Office of DARPA reviewed the EcoHealth Alliance DEFUSE
proposal and the Evaluation Reports and decided it was “selectable”. In doing so, two out of
three reviewers considered the aim of preempting “zoonotic spillover through reduction of viral
shedding in the bat caves” as of interest to DARPA. These reviewers assessed the EHA and
Collaborators team and concluded that:

- They have plenty of prior experience.


- They have access to Yunnan caves where bats are infected with SARSr viruses.
- They have carried out past surveillance work
- They have developed geo-based risk maps of zoonotic hotspots
- Their proposed experimental work is logical and can validate molecular and evolutionary
models.
- Their proposed preemption approaches can rapidly be validated using bat and
"batenized" mouse models.

However, the Biological Technologies Office did not recommend it be funded at that time
because significant weaknesses were identified:

Rejection Letter - Findings p. 1/2


1. The proposal is considered to potentially involve GoF/DURC research because they
propose to synthesize spike glycoproteins which bind to human cell receptors and insert
them into SARSr-CoV backbones to assess whether they can cause SARS-like disease.

2. However the proposal does not mention or assess potential risks of Gain of Function
(GoF) research.

3. Nor does the proposal mention or assess Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC)
issues, and thus fails to present a DURC risk mitigation plan.

4. The proposal hardly addresses or discusses ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI).

5. The proposal fails to discuss problems with the proposed vaccine delivery systems
caused by the known issues of variability in vaccine dosage.

6. The proposal did not provide sufficient information about how EHA would use any data
obtained and how they would model development or perform any necessary statistical
analysis.

7. The proposal did not explain clearly how EHA will take advantage of their previous work,
nor how that previous work could be extended.

8. The proposal failed to clearly assess how it would deploy and validate the “TA2
preemption methods” in the wild. This refers to carrying out experiments with effective
immune boosting molecules and delivery techniques via FEA aerosolization mechanism
at one test and. two control bat cave sites in Yunnan, China (PARC, EHA, WIV).

9. The proposal does not address concerns about these vaccines not being able to protect
against the wide variety of coronaviruses in bat caves which are constantly evolving, due
to insufficient epitope coverage.

---
DRASTIC independently assesses that the tone of the proposal (see for instance the ‘our cave
complex’) and the deep suggested involvement of some of the WIV parties (Shi Zheng Li
employed half-time for 3 years - paid via the grant - and invited to DARPA headquarters at
Arlington), may not have helped either - especially in the absence of any DURC risk mitigation
program.

It is clear that the proposed DEFUSE project led by Peter Daszak could have put local
communities at risk by failing to consider the following issues:

- Gain of Function
- Dual Use Research of Concern
- Vaccine epitope coverage
- Regulatory requirements
- ELSI (ethical, legal, and social issues)
- Data Usage

END
Rejection Letter - Findings p. 2/2

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy