Science - USA (2022-04-15)

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at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore

who in 2013 co-wrote a paper with Shi and

Daszak describing the first bat corona-

virus linked to SARS-CoV. Wang says he and

Supaporn plan to report that in some parts

of the viral surface protein that docks onto

animal cells, the new viruses “have a closer

relationship with SARS-CoV-2 than any

other previously found in bats.”

HEROIC AS SUCH WILDLIFE surveillance may

seem, some scientists question its value for

heading off future pandemics.

PREDICT, which received $207 million

from USAID from 2009 to 2019, discov-

ered 959 novel viruses and identified hot

spots for spillovers to humans, along with

training Supaporn and nearly 7000 other

researchers. “We were building their sur-

veillance systems with them,” Mazet says.

Edward Holmes, an evolutionary bio-

logist at the University of Sydney, applauds

PREDICT’s training efforts but has doubts

about whether the effort made the world

safer. “It produced a fair amount of se-

quence data, but has it actually predicted

anything?” he asks. “I don’t really know. It

didn’t get SARS-CoV-2.”

Carroll, who retired from USAID in 2019,

and scientists who participated in PRE-

DICT contend that the project clarified

what drives spillovers, such as the wildlife

trade at markets and deforestation. PRE-

DICT’s supporters also say it pinpointed

sites where outbreaks are most likely. But

Carroll readily acknowledges PREDICT’s

limitations. “Its scope was too small to have

a meaningful impact,” he says.

Carroll, Mazet, Daszak, and a small group

of other researchers see PREDICT as a trial

run for a much bigger effort: a GVP that

aims to identify 75% of the viruses most

likely to spill over within 10 years, at an es-

timated cost of $4 billion. GVP organizers,

who started to flesh out the idea 6 years ago,

had hoped to launch in 2020 with support

from China and Thailand. The pandemic

derailed their plans—but also underscored

the need, Carroll, Supaporn, and other re-

searchers argued last year in a commentary

in The BMJ.

Holmes has assailed the idea of the GVP

since it was first floated. “It’s absolute non-

sense,” he says. “It’s too big a bloody arena.”

Nearly all threatening pathogens are RNA

viruses, which mutate at a fast clip, con-

stantly creating new variants, Holmes notes.

“You’ve got an amazing diversity of viruses

that are continually turning over, so how

would you then decide, ‘That’s the one that

I’m worried about?’” he asks. “Surveillance

is infinitely better and more cost-effectively

directed at humans.”

Supaporn counters that the goal of wild-

life surveillance isn’t to characterize every

potential viral threat, but rather to learn

how viruses evolve. And she is convinced

that this work can predict the most likely

future pathogens. “Even a general sense of

this is extremely valuable to public health

planning efforts,” she says. “Learn, under-

stand, prepare.”

THOSE ARGUMENTS MAY HAVE contributed to

Supaporn’s falling out with Thiravat, which

forced her to walk away from the institu-

tion he heads, the Health Science Centre

of the Thai Red Cross Emerging Infectious

Diseases program at King Chulalongkorn

Memorial Hospital. She is now at its sister

Clinical Centre, without her equipment and

trained technicians. Work like Supaporn’s

promises more risks than benefits, Thiravat

contends. “Wildlife surveillance may in-

troduce human pathogens to wildlife and

vice versa.” As for SARS-CoV-2, he believes

it was not a natural jump of a virus from

animals to humans. “It was a product of lab

leak of virus after manipulation,” he asserts.

(Thiravat has also advocated using the

antiparasitic drug ivermectin to treat

COVID-19, even though multiple studies

have shown it is ineffective.)

Thiravat contends that Supaporn si-

phoned off about $400,000 from grants.

But an investigation conducted by the Thai

Red Cross Society exonerated her in July

2021, concluding in a letter (which she

supplied to Science) that there was “no evi-

dence of financial conduct contrary to [her

employer’s] regulations.”

Some Supaporn supporters say Thiravat

is jealous of the attention she has received

for her coronavirus work during the pan-

demic. She says the problem began when

she challenged things he said to his super-

visors, which she did not want to discuss in

detail. “I’ve always respected him—he is my

mentor and an intelligent clinician and sci-

entist,” she says. “And I’m lucky that even

though I have some politics in the lab, peo-

ple outside Thailand don’t think that I’m

wrong, and they support me.”

Supaporn’s setbacks mean she must now

rely on colleagues, including Wang, to com-

plete the lab analyses of samples her team

collects in the field. But she’s upbeat about

her future.

In early March, she met with research-

ers from a new $125 million, 5-year project

launched last year by USAID called Discov-

ery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens—

Viral Zoonoses (DEEP VZN), taking them

to the flying fox colony in the trees at Wat

Luang Phrommawat. While she waits to see

whether DEEP VZN makes her a collabo-

rator and whether the GVP finds funding,

Supaporn has enough grant money to con-

tinue her fieldwork for the time being.

For now, she focuses on training students

and embracing the many unknowns she

faces. “It’s a Buddhist teaching,” she says.

“Uncertainty is certainty.”

Which could also be a motto for the en-

tire pandemic prevention enterprise. j

This story was supported by a grant from the Alfred

P. Sloan Foundation.

Swarmed by moths, Supaporn Wacharapluesadee’s

team worked into the evening sampling blood

and other bat tissues at a makeshift lab (left). A hole

punch in the wing will provide DNA to identify

the species of this Hipposideros bat.

NEWS | FEATURES

PHOTO: LAUREN DECICCA

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