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Posted on 04/13/2003 6:47:20 AM PDT by Lessismore

Toronto — A Canadian laboratory has become the first to sequence the coronavirus believed to be responsible for SARS.

The Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, part of the B.C. Cancer Agency, completed the first publicly available draft sequence of the new virus in the early hours Saturday, after several days of round-the-clock efforts.

A spokesman for the World Health Organization called the achievement "an extraordinary step."

"I knew that it could happen quickly," Dick Thompson said in an interview from Geneva.

"And frankly, I thought that the CDC," — the U.S. Centers for Disease Control — "would get it done first."

Dr. Marco Marra, director of the laboratory, said the raw sequencing data would be posted on the Internet by the end of the day Saturday and the lab's analysis of the total sequence would be up on the Web by the end of the weekend.

Dr. Marra said it's key that other laboratories study the results and confirm the findings, so that science can determine whether this new virus is actually responsible for the disease that is sweeping the globe.

"Our intention is to release the data so that anybody who is wanting to help has the fundamental information that they would need," he said from Vancouver.

"The sequence is fundamental information and should be available for this purpose: for vaccine development, for diagnostics, for whatever."

Just how critical an endeavour that is was driven home Saturday by the announcement that three more Canadians have died from SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. They bring to 13 the total number of Canadian SARS deaths, all in the Toronto area. All three were women — aged 86, 80 and 73 — and all had underlying medical problems.

As of Saturday, Ontario has recorded 223 probable and suspect cases of SARS; in Canada, the total has now reached 274 cases. Globally, the WHO set the total number of probable SARS cases at 2,960, with 119 deaths.

The latest deaths in Toronto aren't likely to be the last in Canada, warned a member of the Ontario SARS containment team.

"There are still two other very sick patients that were infected more than a couple weeks ago and have been in hospital and are really ill," said Dr. Donald Low, one of Canada's leading infectious disease experts and microbiologist-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital, where one of the women died.

Despite that rising death toll, Dr. Low and others were buoyed by the news that the Genome Sciences Centre had managed to sequence the coronavirus.

"Quite a coup," said Dr. Low, who explained what having the genetic code of the virus will tell scientists the world over.

"One, it should tell us where this damn thing came from, to start off with — which would be valuable. Two, it might tell you if it's picked up pieces of RNA from other closely related viruses in the same family, which might explain why this thing is causing such a miserable disease.

"I guess the other thing is it might give you some vaccine candidates."

That latter possibility only holds true if the coronavirus is confirmed as the cause of SARS. While the CDC and the WHO have identified it as the leading suspect, others — including Canada's Dr. Frank Plummer — remain unconvinced.

Dr. Plummer runs Health Canada's national microbiology laboratory in Winnipeg. His team announced several weeks ago that it believed a human metapneumovirus might be causing SARS.

While that theory appears to have fallen by the scientific wayside, Dr. Plummer is still skeptical that the new coronavirus is the answer. His lab has studied over 2,000 specimens and has found the coronavirus in less than 50 per cent of specimens from SARS patients.

"In our data, the association between coronavirus and this disease seems to be getting weaker, rather than stronger," he said.

Regardless, Dr. Plummer welcomed the sequencing news, saying it will be the starting point from which to answer the question for good.

"This will help us study SARS, in the first instance," Dr. Marra agreed.

"In the second instance, presuming that those studies reveal that one of the major causative agents in SARS is this coronavirus, then you will have a diagnostic not only for the coronavirus, but also SARS."

And if the virus is proven to be the cause of SARS, developing a diagnostic test will now be a quick matter, he added.

"It is our view that the development of a diagnostic [test] will be based on a technique called PCR" — polymerase chain reaction — "and the sequence would lead to the development of such a test within a day or so."

The Genome Sciences Centre was set up in 1999 by the B.C. Cancer Foundation to use genome science to study the causes of cancer. As such, this was a special project for the team, but one it believed was well worth doing.

"Our strong feeling is that this is an important public health issue internationally and if we need resources to help solve it, that we should pitch in with our expertise and help generate them," Dr. Marra said.

Using genetic material of the virus provided by Dr. Plummer's lab and relayed by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver, Dr. Marra's team fed multiple fragments of the virus's genetic material into computers which compared them and put them back together.

The whole process resembles completing an enormous jigsaw puzzle. The raw sequence data is like the box containing the puzzle pieces. The analysed data, which the lab was still completing Saturday, is the finished picture.

But it's important to post both on the Internet, Dr. Marra said, as other laboratories using the same pieces might put together a different — and potentially more precise — version of the puzzle.

"Multiple copies of the sequence are absolutely required. So first or second or third or fourth is irrelevant," he said.

"The important thing is that the material be made available for comparison so that we can actually study the viral genetic material carefully."

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