Throwback Thursday: U.S.-funded researchers resurrected 1918 flu in the lab
U.S. DOD, NIH, USDA, & CDC all took part in bringing a pandemic virus back from the dead
In 1996 and again in 1999, and 2005, U.S.-funded researchers did something many called insane.
They resurrected first parts of, then the full 1918 pandemic flu virus in the lab.
The Spanish flu of 1918 killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million people worldwide, including approximately 675,000 in the U.S.
It was with U.S. Government funding that a killer pandemic came back to life in 2005.
The U.S. Military remade parts of the1918 Spanish flu
In 1997, Virologist Jeffery Taubenberger, at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington, D.C., startled the scientific world by reporting that in 1996 his team had sequenced the hemaggluttin (HA) gene of the 1918 Spanish flu, and determined it to be a novel H1N1 influenza A virus.
Dr. Taubenberger and his colleagues, including molecular biologist Ann Reid, were able to sequence nine fragments of viral RNA from four of the virus’s eight gene segments, using new technology applied to the lung tissue samples taken from a military serviceman who was a victim of the 1918 flu. The victim’s tissue samples had been stored at AFIP, fixed in formaldehyde and embedded in paraffin.
This was Jurassic Park-level stuff: taking old virus out of something stored in wax.
This photo of Dr. Taubenberger and Reid still appears on the CDC website.
The HA gene they sequenced in 1996 is a crucial component of a virus, but it’s not the entire virus.
You can read details about their research here, but basically this part of the virus deals with how an influenza virus gets into and infects a respiratory track cell and also has to do with how our bodies target an influenza infection with antibodies.
It wouldn’t take long for others to try and push the viral envelope.
The grave digger joins the hunt
Johan Hultin, a retired pathologist, read about Dr. Taubenberger’s research, which related to Hultin’s own 1951 work as a student. In 1951, Hultin had traveled to Brevig Mission in remote Alaska to try and recover the virus. There, in an Alaskan Inuit village that lost 72 of its 80 residents to the 1918 pandemic flu, he had dug up bodies buried in a mass grave in the Alaskan permafrost.
At the time, Hultin unsuccessfully tried to regrow the 1918 virus at the University of Iowa. After reading the 1997 paper, Hultin reached out to Dr. Taubenberger and returned to Alaska the following week, by himself, to get fresh samples of the virus stored for more than 80 years in frozen bodies.
During his 1997 trip, Hultin obtained a tissue sample from the “pristine lungs” of a female, Alaskan Inuit virus victim.
Read that again.
This researcher dug into frozen ground in Alaska and cut open the “pristine lungs” of a long-dead and buried victim of the 1918 flu. He took a piece of her lungs with him and got it to federally funded flu researchers. (On a somewhat related note, UNC’s coronavirus expert Dr. Baric also works with chunks of dead people’s lungs to “humanized” his lab mice. You can read about that here.)
Hultin, the grave digger, got the Alaskan woman’s lung sample to Dr. Taubenberger, who, along with his colleagues’ help, was able to sequence the complete genome of the HA gene of the 1918 flu virus, which they detailed in a February 1999 paper.
Why settle for a part when you can make the whole 1918 flu virus?
In 2005, CDC researcher Terrance Tumpey would use Dr. Tautenberger’s team’s work, along with plasmid samples from researchers at New York’s Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and, through reverse genetics, completely recreate the full 1918 virus. The virus was grown and tested on mice, which succumbed to the lethal, resurrected pandemic 1918 virus. The federally funded researchers published their results in Science magazine.
They reported their work was crucial to explaining how the bird-based virus became adapted to humans. They also said the work was reviewed prior to the virus’ recreation, including sign-off and approval from the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), a panel created in 2004 to advise federal health officials on biological research that might threaten public health.
Some scientists thought this was wonderful. It was called one of the “breakthroughs of the year” by Science and was elected as “paper of the year” by Lancet. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) still hosts a full webpage on the discovery.
The man who started the 1918 flu virus hunt has worked for Dr. Anthony Fauci since 2006 and receives millions in funding
Today, Dr. Tautenberger is Chief of the Viral Pathogenesis and Evolution Section at Dr. Anthony Fauci’s NIAID within the NIH. Dr. Taubenberger is listed as the project lead on $51 million of NIH-funded projects since 1986.
This 2005 write up justifying Dr. Tautenberger’s and his colleagues’ work, shows their thinking at the time:
“The reason the scientists say their reconstructed virus poses no public health threat is that based on previous research, modern-day medicines are effective against the 1918 flu. And they think most people today are already at least partially immune.”
The man who resurrected the pandemic virus in its entirety was “very fortunate to have the support of CDC and NIH”
In 2020, Dr. Tumpey was still the branch chief of the Influenza Division’s Immunology and Pathogenesis Branch (IPB) at the U.S. CDC.
In 2018, 100 years after the 1918 flu emerged, the CDC asked Dr. Tumpy: “How did recreating the 1918 virus make you feel?”
He answered: “I was very excited, and I was very anxious in 2005. When you’re getting ready to remake a virus that is estimated to have killed at least 50 million people worldwide, I was passionate about the great task ahead. I was very fortunate to have the support of CDC and NIH. Before the experiments began, the CDC Office of the Director provided oversight and guidance for this important project. In particular, they carefully evaluated the specific studies to be conducted and concluded that this research could safely and securely be done under BSL-3-enhanced containment. It was decided that I would be the only scientist to rescue the 1918 virus at CDC and I was required to take additional safety precautions that included taking influenza antiviral prophylaxis. In addition, procedures were in place, such that if I experienced influenza-like illness I would quarantine myself at home and avoid contact with the outside world.”
According to the CDC, the full 1918 flu was resurrected in a BSL-3 lab, with enhancements, which is below a BSL-4 lab, a lab reserved for pathogens posing the greatest risk.
Evidently the 1918 flu virus, which killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million people worldwide, was not considered the greatest laboratory risk by the U.S. Government.
Please. Think. About. That.
Follow me as we explore more of history’s footnotes.
Additional Resources:
“The Deadliest Flu: The Complete Story of the Discovery and Reconstruction of the 1918 Pandemic Virus” U.S. CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/reconstruction-1918-virus.html
1997 Paper: “Initial genetic characterization of the 1918 “Spanish” influenza virus,” Jeffery K. Taubenberger, Ann H. Reid, Amy E. Krafft, Karen E. Bijwaard, Thomas G. Fanninge, Science, March 21, 1997, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/275/5307/1793; Initial-Genetic-Characterization-of-the-1918-Spanish-Influenza-Virus.pdf (researchgate.net)
1999 Paper: Ann H. Reid, Thomas G. Fanning, Johan V. Hultin, and Jeffery K. Taubenberger, PNAS, February 16, 1999, https://www.pnas.org/content/96/4/1651
2005 Paper: “Characterization of the Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus,” Terrence M. Tumpey, Christopher F. Basler, Patricia V. Aguilar, Hui Zeng, Alicia Solórzano, David E. Swayne, Nancy J. Cox, Jacqueline M. Katz, Jeffery K. Taubenberger, Peter Palese, Adolfo García-Sastre, Science, October 7, 2005, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/310/5745/77.abstract; https://www.marist.edu/documents/20182/649276/19W+Influenza+Epidemic+1b.pdf/0f897e26-9443-43c3-a332-54f9175f756a
“The Virus detective / Dr. John Hultin has found evidence of the 1918 flu epidemic that had eluded experts for decades,” Elizabeth Fernandez, SFGate, Feb. 17, 2002, https://www.sfgate.com/magazine/article/The-Virus-detective-Dr-John-Hultin-has-found-2872017.php
“Opening Pandora’s Box: Resurrecting the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Virus and Transmissible H5N1 Bird Flu,” Leonard Norkin, April 15, 2014, Virology Molecular Biology and Pathogenesis, https://norkinvirology.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/opening-pandoras-box-resurrecting-the-1918-influenza-pandemic-virus-and-transmissible-h5n1-bird-flu/
“Flu Fighter: Terrence Tumpey, Ph.D.,” CDC Pandemic Flu Fighters, CDC, webpage, https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/pandemic-flu-fighter-terrence-tumpey.htm
“1918 flu virus re-created to aid research,” Tampa Bay Times, using Information from the New York Times, Associated Press and Knight Ridder, November 7, 2005, https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2005/10/06/1918-flu-virus-re-created-to-aid-research/
“Into the Wild. Twice. For Mankind,” Michael McKnight, Sports Illustrated, May 27, 2020, https://www.si.com/more-sports/2020/05/27/johan-hultin-the-virus-hunter
Didn’t Russia say that the 2009 “Swine Flu” was derived from the 1918 “Spanish Flu” and was intentionally released into Russia through Georgia?