Evidence suggests the Rocky Mountain Laboratory had access to the SARS-CoV-2 genome before the rest of the world On January 22, 2020, Dr. Vincent Munsey’s laboratory at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory (RML) published a pre-print manuscript containing a set of highly complex experiments using synthetic spike proteins from SARS-CoV-2. This is, to my knowledge, the first publication of synthetic biology work being done using the genome sequence of the Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2. An analysis of the timeline and workflow from this first manuscript, starting from the publicly stated date when the first genome was available, concludes that the experiments could not have been done that quickly. The alternative hypothesis is that RML had the sequences before their publication from China. The implications of this conclusion are immense.
@quay_dr Is the pre-print still available? The Methods section might be informative. They probably didn't make these themselves.
@quay_dr Even if they produced the proteins they most likely did not make the plasmids.
@quay_dr Tentatively, it is possible to get 1-2 day turnaround on a plasmid and transfected into HEK for protein spike within a week of the sequence being published.
@quay_dr Though doing the experiment AND getting them published that quickly would be unusually fast.