Scientists in Canada have used commercially available genetic material to piece together the extinct horsepox virus, a close cousin of the smallpox virus that killed as many as a billion human beings before being eradicated.
The laboratory achievement was reported Thursday in a news article in the journal Science. The feat suggests that it would be relatively straightforward to re-create smallpox.
The lead researcher told The Washington Post that his efforts are aimed at developing vaccines and cancer treatments.
Smallpox, the deadliest disease in human history, was formally declared eradicated in 1980. Government officials and virologists have long debated whether to destroy the existing samples of smallpox kept under close guard at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as in government facilities in Russia.
| |  | | Democracy Dies in Darkness | | | | | | Science Alert | Fri., Jul. 07, 2017 9:30 a.m. | | | | | | Scientists synthesize smallpox cousin in an ominous breakthrough | Scientists in Canada have used commercially available genetic material to piece together the extinct horsepox virus, a close cousin of the smallpox virus that killed as many as a billion human beings before being eradicated.
The laboratory achievement was reported Thursday in a news article in the journal Science. The feat suggests that it would be relatively straightforward to re-create smallpox.
The lead researcher told The Washington Post that his efforts are aimed at developing vaccines and cancer treatments.
Smallpox, the deadliest disease in human history, was formally declared eradicated in 1980. Government officials and virologists have long debated whether to destroy the existing samples of smallpox kept under close guard at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as in government facilities in Russia. | | Read more » | | | |
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