DREAMSTIME, AALEKSANDER
In light of the call to halt all research on H5N1 transmissibility and virulence for 60 days issued by 39 influenza researchers around the world last week, one of the scientists involved in the controversial research spoke out about the decision to limit or keep his work under wraps.
“As the risks of such research and its publication are debated by the community, I argue that we should pursue transmission studies of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses with urgency,” Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist at the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, wrote in a Nature commentary yesterday (January 25).
Kawaoka led the team of researchers who combined the H5 haemagglutinin (H5 HA) gene from the avian flu virus with the genes from ...
