DARPA - PREEMPT (HR001118S0017) Project DEFUSE

1 DRASTIC RESEARCHP roject DEFUSEDARPA - PREEMPT (HR001118S0017)Documents made available by an anonymous sourceCONTEXT & SUMMARY2 KEY DOCUMENTS4 DEFUSE PROPOSAL OVERVIEW6 FINDINGS7 Ecohealth Alliance (EHA) Tried To Bypass The P3CO/DURC Frameworks7 EHA Would Have Used Us Taxpayer Money To Pay Shi Zhengli At Half Time And Peng Zhou And Ben Hu AtQuarter Time8 EHA DEFUSE Would Have Invited Shi Zheng Li To A Project Kickoff At DARPA Headquarters8 EHA had 3 Key Cave Sites In Yunnan For SARS-r CoV Collection8 EHA Planned To Inoculate Wild Bats With Aerosolized Vaccines9 The Proposal Does Not Properly Discuss Ethical, Legal And Social Issue10 EHA Wanted To Oversee All Work In China10 Live Bats Were Meant To Be Used At The WIV And Various International Labs For Infection Experiments, OftenUsing Captive Bat Colonies10 EHAP roposed Multiple.

2 Regular Visits To 3 Yunnan Cave Sites12 EHA Planned To Send Samples To Duke University (Singapore) And UNC Chapel Hill12 The Proposal Set A Clear Pathway For Chimeric Virus Construction13 EHA Has 180 Unpublished SARSr-CoV Strains13 All Coronaviruses Were To Be Screened At The WIV14 Three To Five Chimeric Coronaviruses Were To Be Created Per Year14 The Proposal Planned To Identify Key Minor Deletions In The Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) To Alter HumanPathogenicity14 The Proposal Includes The Introduction Of Human-specific Cleavage Sites 14 The Proposal Planned To Introduce Naturally Occurring Proteolytic Cleavage Sites To Create NovelCoronaviruses16 The Proposal Planned To Research Alternate Receptors To ACE216 The Proposal Planned To Introduce Key RBD Residues Into Low Risk Strains To Test Pathogenicity In HumanAirway-cells And In hACE2 Mice16 The Proposal Spillover Probability Assessment Does Not Include Lab-research Related Risks17A Potentially Highly Important Spike Protein Dataset Was Not Public17 EHA Proposed MERS-coronavirus Experiments And Had Already Introduced SARS And MERS Into Bat CellLines18 EHA

3 Proposed A Database Of All Field, Lab And Modelling Work18 Ecohealth Alliance Proposed Industrial Scale Bat Sampling19 Ecohealth Alliance Misled DARPA About Risks To General Public19 EHA Proposed To Generate Batified Mouse Models 19 QUESTIONS TO ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE20 REFERENCE LIST23 DRASTIC - Project & SUMMARYT hese leaked documents describing bat research proposed by EcoHealth Allianceshould beconsidered in light of the following context:OnAugust27th,2021, (GOF)moratoriuminlate2017,viathePotentia lPandemicPathogenCareandOversightframewo rk(P3CO), ,creativeinterpretationsoftheguidelines, andratherdiscretionarydecisionstoreferre searchprojectsornot,allcontributedtoredu cingtheeffectivenessoftheP3 COframework-despitethefactthat other agencies of the US federal government actively maintained the GOF (EHA)inconcertwIththeWIVwerelookingtowar dsimplementinganadvancedhumanpathogenici tyBatCoVresearchprojectthatclearlyqualif iesasGoF,inagrantproposalsubmittedtoafun dingproposalcallbytheDefenseAdvancedRese archProjectsAgency( DARPA ) (named DEFUSE )wasultimatelyrejectedforfullfunding(but leavingopenthedoorforpartial funding)

4 , in part because it skirted the GOF ,abranchofthefederalgovernmenthadalready judgedaspectsofEHA sresearch,andthecorrespondingsharedresea rchplanwiththeWIV,asfallingunderthedefin itionofGOF, ,theP3 COframeworkwasdesignedtoallowgreaterflex ibilityforvaccinedevelopment,andinJuneof 2018theNIH sVaccineResearchCenter(VRC)expandeditsex istingpartnershipwithModernatoincludeful l-scaleresearchintoapan-coronavirus(CoV) advantage of this flexibility to continue their work with the Wuhan Institute of VirologyDRASTIC hasreviewedthecontentsofthesedocumentsTh eydetailpastachievementsandplannedexperi mentsincollaborationwithresearchersfromt heWuhanInstituteofVirology(WIV),EastChin aNormalUniversity(ECNU),UNC-ChapelHill,D uke-NationalUniversityinSingapore,theUSG S National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) and Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

5 Thegrantproposalincludessomeelementsofre searchthatarealreadypublicviascientificp apers,aswellasotherelementsthathavenever beenmadepublic;theseincludevaccinatingwi ldbatsusingaerosolizedvirusesandfurtherw orkonpublishedandunpublishedCoVstrainsth atcouldfillthe extant gaps in our understanding of the origins of ,onmattersofnationalinterest(suchasDURC) ,forinstancebyproposingthattheDARPA grantpaysagoodchunkofkeyWIVresearcherssa laries, - Project DOCUMENTSDARPA PREEMPT program (HR00111880017):-Brief introduction : release: (archived version)-Grant Opportunity: of some of the main Grant Opportunity files: of the Selected teams: (1)AutonomousTherapeutics,Inc.,(2)Instit utPasteur,(3)MontanaState University, (4) The Pirbright Institute and (5) the University of California, ,UKorAustralianpartners,plusonepartnerin Estonia(Tartu) and the Institut Pasteur network in Asia.

6 None of the teams include Chinese of funded PREEMPT projects: $ for UCDavisteam PREEMPT Project Montana State Universityteam PREEMPT DEFUSE proposal to DARPA PREEMPT :-D1:75 page PROPOSAL: Volume I -D2:8-page budget-D3:Summary of Rejection Letter ( DARPA ): :Executive SlidesNote:page numbers are given as the nthpage in thecorresponding PDF document. Hence (D1, ) means 10thPDF page of document - Project ( UnderstandingtheRiskofBatCoronavirusEmer gence )for5years(June2014-May2019)-withsubgran tstoWIV,EastChinaNormalUniversity(Shangh ai)and(startingyear3) :~$695,000 East China N. Uni:~$259,000 Wuhan University:~$442,000(all direct costs over 5 years, see pages 5 and 189 ofgrant)Early 2017:China sets up itsown version of DARPA ,under the Central Military ( PREEMPT ) (BAA)forproposalsforPREEMPTP rogramHR001118S0017,withaspanof years (Dec 18 - May 22).

7 Directly infect :ProjectDEFUSE(DefusingtheThreatofBat-Bo meCoronaviruses) for a requested amount of $14,209,245 (over years).2018 ??Rejectionof EHA Project DEFUSE due to importantconcerns2018 NovApplicationforrenewalofNIHR01Al110964 grant UnderstandingtheRiskofBatCoronavirusEmer gence ( )-withsubgrantstoWIV( ),InstituteofPathogenBiology(IPB,Beijing ),EastChinaNormalUniversity (Shanghai)WIV:~$353,000 IPB:~$350,000 East China N. Uni:~$368,000( via the consultancy of Dr Guangjian Zhu)2019 Jul 24 Fast renewalof NIH R01Al110964 grantgrant for 5 years (June 2019 - May 2024)2020 Apr 24 Suspension of NIH R01Al110964 grant2020 Jul8 ReinstantiationofNIHR01Al110964grant-but allactivitiesaresuspendeduntilNIH conditionsare satisfied (see also p 320 ofgrant).

8 2020 Aug20 New5-yeargrantfor UnderstandingRiskofZoonoticVirusEmergenc einEIDH otspots of Southeast Asia (excluding China1As noted in theReinstantationletter sub-wards werenot (and are likely still not) correctly reportedby EHA in the Federal Subaward Reporting System. The numbers above are compiled from acareful reading of the grant documentsrecently disclosedvia an FOI - Project DEFUSE PROPOSAL OVERVIEWDRASTIC - Project ALLIANCE (EHA) TRIED TO BYPASS THE P3CO/DURC FRAMEWORKSEHA confidentlyassessedinitsproposalthatthew orktobecarriedwasneithersubjecttoP3CO(Go F) nor DURC (Dual Use Research of Concern) restrictions: These QSo strain viral spike glycoproteins will be synthesized, and those binding to humancell receptor ACE2 will be inserted into SARSr-CoV backbones (non-DURC, non-GoF).)

9 (D1, )Theparagraphaboveactuallycontainstheonl ymentionsofGoFandDURC inthewholeDEFUSE Project proposal - and it dismisses ,andofaqualification for any partial funding: Giventheteam'sapproachdoespotentiallyinv olveGoF/DURC research(theyaimtosynthesizespikeglycopr oteinsthatmaybindtohumancellreceptorsand insertthemintoSARSr-CoVbackbonestoassess capacitytocauseSARS-likedisease),ifselec tedforfundinganappropriateDURC riskmitigationplanshouldbeincorporatedin tocontractinglanguage that includes a responsible communications plan EffectivelyEHAunsuccessfullyproposedtheu seofbat-SARSr-CoVbackbonesandnotthehuman evolvedSARS-CoVinwhatlookslikeadeliberat eattemptatcircumnavigatingtherestriction softheP3CO frameworkand related DURC restrictions.

10 AnenhancedPPPisaPPPresultingfromtheenhan cementofapathogen ,20172beenrecovered from nature are not enhanced PPPs, regardless of their pandemic : dbyUSRTK thatJonathanEpsteinaskedonthe23rdMarchfo rhelpfromRalphBaricforsomewordingforasec tionintheproposalthatwouldaddress communicatingdual-use information :DRASTIC - Project (27thMar2018), ,thereview of the proposal effectively concluded than no satisfying DURC language had been included: ..ifselectedforfundinganappropriateDURC riskmitigationplanshouldbeincorporatedin to contracting language that includes a responsible communications plan WOULD HAVE USED US TAXPAYER MONEY TO PAY SHI ZHENGLI AT HALFTIME AND PENG ZHOU AND BEN HU AT QUARTER TIMEEHADEFUSE proposedtohaveShiZhengLiworkhalftime(8h/ day,22d/month)forthetwofirstyearsonthepr oject,withPengZhouandBenHuas1/4thoftheir time,alldrawingsalariesthroughthe DARPA grant (D2, ).