See, I can back my claims up. Even the other doctor who says it's needed admits it's a mutation as bolded. Or in layman's terms gain of funtion.
Professor Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has been an outspoken advocate of the lab leak theory, the idea Covid escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
He told DailyMail.com that Pfizer's press release 'unequivocally' indicates that 'Pfizer and its collaborators performed... high-risk gain-of-function research and enhanced potential pandemic pathogens research'.
But Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading in the UK, told this website: 'I don't find it [Pfizer's statement] alarming for a number of reasons.'
Paxlovid works by blocking the virus from releasing an enzyme crucial for Covid to replicate when it enters the body, known as the 3CL protease, explained Professor Jones.
Scientists work at the Pfizer vaccine research and development facility in Pearl River, New York
The research lab - located around 20 miles from New York - is the company's only biosafety level three (BSL-3) lab out of its nine major research and development sites in the US and UK
He said Pfizer's experiments involve looking at 'what changes to the sequence of the protease gene would be necessary to make the virus no longer sensitive to the drug'.
'So they make a range of mutations in the virus, led by computational predictions, and then culture that mutated virus in the drug to see if indeed it is no longer sensitive and if so by what degree,' he added.
In a press release sneaked out on Friday night, Pfizer finally responded to an undercover video that went viral last week. It denied carrying out gain of function tests.
www.dailymail.co.uk