Wet market SARS CoV-2 origins revisited

Summary

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Science In Action – Wet Market SARS CoV-2 Origins Revisited

BBC World Service | Host: Roland Pease | Air date: April 24, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Science In Action grapples with three unfolding science news stories:

1. The latest genetics research into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and its link to the Wuhan market.
2. Major funding cuts to research into misinformation in the US.
3. Political threats to government-funded university science, including at Harvard University.
   It closes on a lighter (and stranger) note, exploring a carnivorous caterpillar’s bizarre adaptations in Hawaii.

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1. Revisiting the SARS-CoV-2 Wet Market Origins (02:03–12:36, 14:20–14:23)

The Question

Renewed US political scrutiny (White House web pages refocusing on the “lab leak” hypothesis) put viral origins center stage again. This episode revisits the scientific search for definitive answers.

Key Discussion Points

• The Scientific Consensus: Most evidence points to the Huanan seafood market as site of the initial animal-to-human SARS-CoV-2 jump. Two genetically distinct lineages (“A” and “B”) appeared in Wuhan, possibly via multiple spillovers from animals.

• New Chinese Genome Sequences: Researchers Flo de Bar (Sorbonne University) and Zach Hensel (New University of Lisbon) found newly available early 2020 sequences. Their analysis doubles available data of early cases but still finds no intermediate genome bridging A and B lineages—strengthening the two-spillover hypothesis.

  “There are no early intermediate genomes between A and B, and these additional data still don’t have early intermediate genomes between A and B.”
  – Flo de Bar (07:51)

• Accessing New Data: The sequences were in open-access Chinese databases but largely overlooked. Some sequences from Wuhan hospitals, others from Beijing (possibly infected by travel from the market).

  “Some of the most important data has been online since the beginning of 2024... How much it’s new data is an interesting kind of question.”
  – Zach Hensel (04:09)

• Genetic Clues: Some new sequences from January 2020 can be traced back to the market by unique mutations, confirming spread from market-originated chains.

  “We can link them to the market for some of them because they have mutations that are not found elsewhere.”
  – Flo de Bar (09:15)

• No Paradigm Shift, But Increased Certainty: Absence of intermediates further confirms market spillover; a single intermediate strain could still upend the narrative, but so far, none exists.

  “The most important thing would have been if we found a sequence in between the lineage A and lineage B, and there is nothing.”
  – Zach Hensel (10:08)

• Why Keep Searching? The researchers describe a duty to “test the hypothesis with every bit of new data” as science should continually self-update.

  “We’re trying to get the best answer we can with all the data we can gather, and that’s why we keep looking for more data.”
  – Flo de Bar (11:13)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• [06:08] Roland Pease summarizes the significance: “You’ve got… the B, which actually became the one that dominated the world, and the A, and they are visible… in the market and in early cases… they’re different by two mutations… but there’s none which only has one difference.”

• [10:23] Pease articulates the crux: “That would have forced a rethink. So in a sense, passing that test just gives you more certainty… or confidence.”

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2. Research Funding Cuts for Misinformation Studies (14:23–22:30)

The Issue

The US National Science Foundation cut its portfolio of research grants combating misinformation, citing alignment with new administration priorities—effectively ending hundreds of projects.

Key Discussion Points

• Sudden Cancellation: Dr. Lisa Fazio (Vanderbilt University) describes the abrupt cancellation of her grant and many peers’ projects, with little explanation besides a vague decrease in alignment with “priorities.”

  “NSF has undertaken a review of its award portfolio… the agency has determined that the termination of certain awards is necessary because they are not in alignment with current NSF priorities.”
  – Lisa Fazio, quoting NSF (15:37)

• Research Focus: Fazio’s work examines how false beliefs form, the psychology of repetition bolstering truth-feelings, and how to effectively debunk misinformation.

  “When you hear something multiple times, it feels a little bit more true… so we were looking at how this plays out in daily life… and how we can correct them.”
  – Lisa Fazio (17:13)

• Free Speech Concerns: The stated reason for defunding is to avoid government interference with free speech. Fazio stresses research aims to educate and inform, not censor.

  “Providing more information… isn’t censoring anyone. That’s adding more free speech to the discussion.”
  – Lisa Fazio (19:09)

• Wider Impact: Cuts span a wide spectrum—psychology, computer science, AI, education—on topics from detecting deepfakes to media literacy. The whole misinformation research ecosystem was hit.

  “[NSF] canceled what seems like hundreds of grants on Friday…”
  – Lisa Fazio (20:31)

Memorable Segment

• [21:21] Fazio captures the stakes: “I think it’s obvious that this is a topic that we would want the top scientists in the US to be studying… all of whom were looking at this problem in a variety of different ways.”

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3. Political Threats to Science Funding: The Harvard/White House Clash (22:30–30:53)

The Situation

US federal funding to universities—especially elite ones like Harvard—faces new political threats tied to disputes over free speech and campus anti-Semitism. The change could strip billions from flagship science programs.

Key Discussion Points

• Major Achievements at Risk: Don Ingber, founding director of the Wyss Institute at Harvard, lists global-impact work in rapid COVID-19 diagnostics, organ-on-chip technology (reducing animal testing), and biotech startups, all dependent on federal funding.

  “Just the Wyss Institute… about 375 full time staff. We’ve created over almost 70 startup companies that have led to 2,000 jobs… These are high paying jobs and they’re also leading to good things that will help all mankind.”
  – Don Ingber (26:41)

• Breadth and Importance of Federal Funding: Government grants (NSF, NIH, DARPA, BARDA, DOE) are vital for advanced research, American technology leadership, and training of international talent.

  “This is a really international success story.”
  – Don Ingber (24:30)

• Economic Return on Investment: Scientific funding yields high economic payback along with health and environmental benefits.

  “For every dollar invested by NIH, it was something like $2.5 that have come back in terms of economic payback.”
  – Don Ingber (26:41)

• Consequences of Funding Threats:

  • Loss of global and domestic talent (“brain drain”), with young scientists considering leaving the US.
  • Negative effects already seen, such as cancelled contracts, revoked visas, and withdrawal of job/internship offers.

  “The number of applications to international jobs from scientists looking to leave the United States has gone up… this is a brain drainage. This is a negative brain drain to what America was always proud about in the 50s…”
  – Don Ingber (30:03)

• Political Leverage, Not Performance: Ingber points out that top-performing researchers—even those with recent national honors—are being targeted, not for under-performance, but for punitive political reasons.

  “This has nothing to do with failure to perform. This is purely… pure punitive lunacy.”
  – Don Ingber (28:37)

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4. The Carnivorous Caterpillar: Hyposmocoma Bone Collectors (31:20–38:46)

The Story

Ecologist Dan Rubinoff (University of Hawaii) shares the remarkable tale of an endemic Hawaiian caterpillar with a gruesome yet ingenious survival strategy.

Key Insights

• Unique Evolution:

  • These “bone collector” caterpillars live in Hawaii’s forests, spinning protective silk cases decorated with the carcasses and body parts of their host spiders' prey—and even bits of the spider’s own shed skin.
  • This case-camouflage helps them avoid detection by their main predator/landlord: spiders.

  “They are taking bits of arthropod… and importantly, bits of the shed skin of that spider and incorporating it into their cases to protect themselves from this spider landlord. And that’s incredible.”
  – Dan Rubinoff (32:36)

• Lifestyle & Diet:

  • Unlike typical caterpillars, these are carnivorous scavengers and occasional cannibals.
  • In the lab, they’ll eat Drosophila pupae, dead insects, and even smaller caterpillars of their own kind.

  “The only thing it’s able to capture and eat is another one of its brethren… it chews through the silk case and is eating it alive in its little home.”
  – Dan Rubinoff (36:17)

• Rarity and Conservation:

  • Hawaii is the world’s extinction capital; many of its remarkable invertebrates, including these caterpillars, disappear before being scientifically described.
  • The fragility and under-studied nature of Hawaii’s insects is highlighted.

  “Hawaii is the extinction capital of the world. We have lost so many different animals and plants… especially in the insects, where I would say we’re still halfway to describing them all here.”
  – Dan Rubinoff (37:54)

Memorable Moment

• [37:28] Rubinoff’s enthusiasm for their ingenuity: “I am telling you, these caterpillars are underestimated, sir. And not just these bone collectors, but that entire group, Hyposmocoma. They are all case makers and they do spectacularly different things in oddly specific ways.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:03] – Origins of SARS-CoV-2: US policy, new genome data
• [04:09] – Zach Hensel explains new sequence discoveries
• [06:34] – Discussion of two early lineages (“A” and “B”), absence of intermediates
• [09:15] – How mutations link some cases back to the market
• [10:23] – The significance of missing intermediates
• [11:13] – The continual scientific search for answers
• [15:37] – Lisa Fazio: sudden cut in NSF grant for misinformation research
• [17:13] – Details of misinformation research
• [20:31] – Hundreds of grants cut, effects on the field
• [22:30] – Don Ingber on science funding threats at Harvard’s Wyss Institute
• [26:41] – Return on investment for public science funding
• [30:03] – Brain drain and chilling effect of political pressure
• [31:20] – Bone collector caterpillar: ecology and adaptation
• [37:54] – Conservation concern for Hawaii’s unique insects

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• Science and its Funding Are Political: Both COVID origins research and misinformation studies are buffeted by government priorities and ideological tides in the US, with broad impacts on public knowledge, innovation, and the global reputation of American science.
• Wet Market Evidence Holds Strong: Despite renewed scrutiny and more data, the zoonotic (market spillover) origin of COVID-19 is further supported—not undermined—by new genomes from early 2020.
• Nature Remains Full of Wonder (and Danger): Amid heavy topics, the tale of Hawaii’s bone collector caterpillar is a reminder of evolution’s creativity and the pressing need for conservation.

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Produced by Alex Mansfield for BBC World Service.
Host: Roland Pease

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Transcript

[Roland Pease]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

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[Lisa Fazio]

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[Roland Pease]

Welcome to Science in Action from the BBC World Service with me, Roland Pease, where we return again to the issues some scientists in the US have as President Trump's administration pushes its new priorities.

[Don Ingber]

This is a brain drain. This is a negative brain drain to what America was always proud about in the 50s when we were the attractor, the magnet. Now we repulse, but we also have.

[Roland Pease]

Time for a gruesome carnivorous caterpillar.

[Dan Rubinoff]

Bits of insect that they find around the spider's web, bits of mite, and importantly, bits of the shed skin of that spider and incorporating it into their cases to protect themselves from this spider Landlord.

[Roland Pease]

Let's start in Washington. If you looked at the website Covid.com a week or two ago, you would have found a bunch of official U.S. guidance on coping with COVID the symptoms of the infection, how to order tests, how the vaccines Work federal research into Long Covid and so on. Go there now and you'll be redirected to a White House webpage Lab true origins of COVID 19, largely a rehash of the House Oversight Committee hearings in which Tony Fauci and others were grilled over talking points around the idea. SARS cov2 was results of dodgy lab work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The scientific consensus, as we've often discussed here, has long been that the Huanan seafood market, mentioned from the start of the pandemic, is where the virus crossed over from captive animals into workers and customers. One line of evidence has been that two distinct strains of the virus, labeled A and B, arose there at nearly the same time, most plausibly explained as two jumps from the animal reservoir. Any data showing an intermediate form would weaken the hypothesis, which is why an analysis of newly retrieved Chinese genome data from 2020 found by Flo Debar and Zach Hensel, is so interesting. There is still no intermediate genome.

[Zach Hensel]

I think, in terms of, like, the amount of data, it's roughly doubling the amount of sequences until the middle of January that don't have a known link to this market in Wuhan. So that's what people have been asking for. And the interesting thing was the data wasn't, like, hidden anywhere or anything like that. Some of the most important data has been online since the beginning of 2024. So how much it's new data is an interesting kind of question.

[Roland Pease]

I mean, that's interesting flow, because the last time I spoke to you, you had been busy sort of trying to find some other data that were hidden behind a database in China. When were you both, either of you, aware of these data? Because these are applications, as I understand it, Flow.

[Flo de Bar]

Yeah. So the data are available online on a Chinese database, and that's maybe why the data had remained unchecked, unseen. I don't know until recently.

[Roland Pease]

Yeah.

[Flo de Bar]

So these data. Yeah, Zach found them. I don't want to take credit for it. Zach found them by checking papers and noticing that there may be data linked to these papers and checking the actual databases.

[Roland Pease]

Presumably these were samples which are collected by physicians in Chinese hospitals who didn't think about their further significance the way that you have.

[Zach Hensel]

So, yeah, one type of sequencing would be not necessarily for epidemiology, but for developing, like, diagnostic techniques or looking for variants within one patient, something of this nature. So it's not necessarily for the purposes of contributing to the Global Genome Database.

[Roland Pease]

But the important thing for you is that they come very Early. So this is, I think, another 180 or so.

[Zach Hensel]

Yeah. So some of the sequences are quite early. And yeah, if we had a sequence in mid January or earlier that was potentially an intermediate between these two early lineages, that wouldn't, you know, definitely change the picture, but it would change the likelihood that you had one introduction or two introduction, something like this.

[Roland Pease]

So, Flo, as I recall, this is because you've got two early lineages, the B, which actually became the one that dominated the world, and the A, and they are visible, as it were, in the market and in early cases from the very beginning of the pandemic, they're different by two mutations, is that right? But by two small differences in the genome, but there's none, which only has one difference.

[Flo de Bar]

Yeah. There has been a discussion on the number of spillovers into humans, whether there was one introduction or multiple introductions. And you have these two early lineages separated by two mutations, and each gave rise to clades eventually B1 and viruses circulating today are descendants of B. But initially there were two. Both A and B were found in the markets B in greater amounts than A. But finding A in the market in 2022, which was a result published by China CDC center for Disease Control team, was already a big result at the time. And then there was also a paper we were not part of that suggested that there may have been multiple spillovers. And that also is important in terms of origins because it means that it's more likely to have happened with animals in the market than as a product of a lab accident. And there have been heated discussions about whether there were one or two introductions, and we don't solve the question either. But something that's significant is that there are no early intermediate genomes between A and B. And these additional data still don't have early intermediate genomes between A and B.

[Zach Hensel]

So a difficult thing about the paper is that there's no, like, big upsetting of the, you know, consensus, scientific consensus of what, what the conclusions are.

[Roland Pease]

I mean, these are early data. You better tell me when the. The earliest sequence comes from. But also they're not from Wuhan itself, They're from different cities. Is that right?

[Dan Rubinoff]

So.

[Zach Hensel]

So there's one sequence from January 7th which is not new per se, but the most significant new Data is from January 10th or January 16th. From Wuhan. From hospitals in Wuhan.

[Roland Pease]

Oh, they are from Wuhan. Sorry, I misunderstood that.

[Zach Hensel]

Yeah. And then there's additional data from Beijing, and this is significant because it was in a human sequence database which has more Protections for patient privacy. So if you want, even though it's open data, you have to request access or publication of it from a data access committee. So we actually got data published at a request which Contributed, I think, 42 sequences out of the 180ish, like you said.

[Roland Pease]

But the ones from Beijing, would they've been infected by someone in Wuhan who'd been infected, perhaps by someone who had been at the market? I mean, are there any way connecting these early cases to the market itself?

[Flo de Bar]

Yeah, there are different ways. You can link the sequences to Wuhan. So you have epidemiological history when you have information about the patients, and you know, for instance, that they were travelers from Wuhan, etc. And there is also another way which is looking at the mutations. And sometimes you have mutations that are rare so that you can say they are specific to some transmission chain and you can link it back to Wuhan. And what's interesting with the new sequences is that we can link them to the market for some of them because they have mutations that are not found elsewhere.

[Roland Pease]

Okay, so they're descendants of ones that you already knew about.

[Flo de Bar]

Yeah, because they bear this mark in a way that link them back to the market.

[Roland Pease]

I mean, as you said, Zak, it seems to me that this doesn't move the dial very much. Is that right?

[Zach Hensel]

So for multiple introductions, it's a story of, like, what could have been there but wasn't. So if we increase particularly the earliest number of sequences by this much, the most important thing would have been if we found a sequence in between the lineage A and lineage B and there is nothing.

[Roland Pease]

And that would have forced a rethink. So in a sense, passing that test just gives you more certainty. Yeah, or confidence, I should say.

[Zach Hensel]

So at the beginning you said that, you know, now because of Trump, this is in the news. So I would be really interested in seeing with some specificity what is another theory that explains all of the data that can then be falsified by additional data that might be published? I don't. I don't, don't know one now and until February 22nd. I was very, maybe naively, but I was skeptical. I didn't think it was the market. I didn't think it was a lab or something else. I thought these were both kind of convenient, circumstantial things.

[Roland Pease]

Flo, I'm quite interested. I mean, both of you have been quite dogged in doing this work. You know, why do you keep digging away at this when the, I guess the fruits seem to be not a slam dunk.

[Flo de Bar]

I don't know. It's more. It's new data. Like we had to check whether what we've concluded before still held with these new data. And once you find them, you have some obligation to check. I mean, we're trying to get the best answer we can with all the data we can gather, and that's why we keep looking for more data. No later than yesterday we were still looking for other case data sets, trying to compare papers published at different time points to see whether information in there changed how it did. There are data that we know exist and have not been made public yet. We know of one data set that has not been made public but is linked to a paper that was submitted and rejected. And we know also from that paper that the data in there still would not shake anything. For the rest, we don't even know if these samples exist, have existed, still exist. So it's I mean, we'll see with time, but I.

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[Lisa Fazio]

This is the story of the one as head of maintenance at a concert hall, he knows the show must always go on. That's why he works behind the scenes, ensuring every light is working, the H Vac is humming, and his facility shines with Grainger's supplies and solutions for every challenge he faces. Plus 24. 7 customer support. His venue never misses a beat. Call quickgranger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Flo de Bar]

Rather avoid speculating on them.

[Roland Pease]

Okay, I guess we'll have to keep waiting, but at any point, a new sequence could falsify the zoonosis hypothesis, as Zak said, which is how science works. Zach Hensel is at the new University of Lisbon and Flo de Bar is at Sorbonne University. Their study is a preprint on biorxiv. The argument over Covid origins has frequently become entangled with the whole information wars thing. Indeed, the the new White House webpage I mentioned says at one point the Biden administration resorted to outright censorship, coercing and colluding with the world's largest social media companies to censor all COVID 19 related dissent on the other side, many scientists and medics have accused anti vaxxers and lockdown skeptics and so on of spreading misinformation. Amidst all this, the National Science foundation, the main federal funder of research, just announced it was going to cease oil all support for work on combating misinformation as not being aligned with the administration's priorities. Psychologist Lisa Farzio of Vanderbilt University soon learned her Building Knowledge Lab was among the losers.

[Lisa Fazio]

So the email was sent to our Office of Sponsored Programs at Vanderbilt just says that NSF has undertaken a review of its award portfolio. Each award was carefully and individually reviewed and the agency has determined that the termination of certain awards is necessary because they are not in alignment with current NSF priorities.

[Roland Pease]

Just says not in line.

[Lisa Fazio]

Yep.

[Roland Pease]

So it doesn't actually explain what they mean there.

[Lisa Fazio]

It does not say anything about what the current priorities are or how this isn't in alignment with it. They did release a FAQ on their website around the same time these emails went out that provides more information, but also information that doesn't apply to my grant or a lot of the other grants.

[Roland Pease]

I found this very interesting. The National Science foundation is the funding body, which is sort of at arm's length. I thought of the White House of the administration gives out the money, but they put out this statement saying that they will not support any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen. I mean, is that as it were, that's the rubric you've been caught under, do you think?

[Lisa Fazio]

Exactly. That seems to be their reasoning for canceling all of these grants on misinformation and disinformation, even though none of them, to my knowledge, are doing anything to censor the American public.

[Roland Pease]

I mean, what sort of work were they funding for you?

[Lisa Fazio]

So my grant was focused on how false beliefs form and how we can correct them. So we looked at the effects of repetition on belief. We know that when you Hear something multiple times, it feels a little bit more true to you than if you've only heard it once. So we were looking at how this plays out in our daily life through text messages and Instagram posts. And then we were looking at when we find things that are wrong, how can we tell people that that's inconsistent with current evidence in ways that are effective and cause belief change?

[Roland Pease]

I mean, is it fair to summarize, you were looking for how to help promote critical thinking?

[Lisa Fazio]

Yeah, we're trying to understand where false beliefs come from. And then what can we do to create kind of an accurate information environment in the U.S. i mean, I find.

[Roland Pease]

It very interesting that one of the studies you were involved with during the pandemic was on disinformation about COVID So this was about vaccine hesitancy and, well, all kinds of topics which are still pretty current.

[Lisa Fazio]

Yeah. So we know that there's lots of misinformation that is currently and has been spreading in the U.S. lots of science misinformation, health misinformation, misinformation about voting and democracy. And I'm of the opinion that it's useful for American citizens to have access to accurate information, and we want them to make the best decisions for themselves based on the best available evidence out there.

[Roland Pease]

So this goal they talk about of combating misinformation, disinformation, mal information that could be used, they say, to infringe on protected speech rights, you don't recognize that as what you're up to?

[Lisa Fazio]

No. And in fact, it seems I don't understand that goal at all. I completely agree that the government should not be censoring American citizens and determining what they can or can't say. But that's not what this research was about. One of the things we did was help fact checkers design effective misinformation debunks. But providing more information about what science says about a topic isn't censoring anyone. That's adding more free speech to the discussion. And science is designed to try and help us get closer to the truth. And I think it's important for scientists to tell the public what they find and that, yeah, we do have more evidence on this side of a debate than the other. That seems to me like what science should be in service of, not something that should be muzzled.

[Roland Pease]

Since you've shared your experience, I wonder if you've been hearing from other researchers who've been affected in the same way. Is this, I'm wondering, the scale of the effect of this change.

[Lisa Fazio]

Yeah. So I mean I know a lot of people in the misinformation research community and I think everyone that I've talked to to has been affected.

[Roland Pease]

Everyone?

[Lisa Fazio]

Yeah, everyone either is currently a grant holder or is collaborating with someone who's a grant holder or has a close colleague who had a grant that was cancelled. NSF was one of the major funders in the US for this type of research and they canceled what seems like hundreds of grants on Friday.

[Roland Pease]

On this topic to me, what seems weird, I hadn't even worried so much about disinformation eight years ago. Let's say, you know, yes, there were some anti vaxxers out there, there were people who believed in UFOs and so on. But it Covid has really shown, it seems to me, what a poison misinformation can be. It's, you know, we, we understand the need I think for your kind of research.

[Lisa Fazio]

I think it's obvious that this is a topic that we would want the top scientists in the US to be studying. The range of grants that were affected is huge. We have psychology, computer science, education, communication, political science, a wide range of fields, all of whom were looking at this problem in a variety of different ways. So we have people who are looking at AI deep fakes. How can we detect those and what can we do to make sure people aren't fooled by them? People who were inventing new ways of doing systems like community notes where the people on a platform help review what they think is reliable and unreliable information. Media literacy campaigns to teach people, what should you look for to determine what is a good source of information in your community?

[Roland Pease]

So this is, and that's, that's all under threat.

[Lisa Fazio]

You're saying that those are all examples of grants that I know have been terminated.

[Roland Pease]

Lisa Fatio A reminder, this is science in Action from the BBC World Service. More widely discussed in general news has been the growing clash between President Trump's administration and Harvard University among the elite institutions of the world, which stands to lose $3 billion or more of federal funding because of anti Semitism there. According to the White House, the Wyss Institute is one of its centers of scientific excellence that could be damaged by the cuts. Its founding director, Don Ingber was on the program at the start of the pandemic to share what its experts were doing to tackle the outbreak and is back now to defend their cutting edge research.

[Don Ingber]

Some of the CRISPR patents came out of the place, you know, during COVID we developed a quick way to manufacture nasal swabs using injection molding. So anyone around the world could do them when there were no nasal swabs. One of the first FDA approved diagnostics for Covid was a company that licensed our IP called sherlock. My group developed human organ chips, which, you know, the FDA just last week actually announced that they want to, they plan to reduce animal testing. And one of the major alternatives are human organ chips, which are pioneered at the WYSS Institute in my lab and during COVID We used those to rapidly repurpose existing drugs to be used for Covid and some of them went to clinical trials. So those are just a couple of examples. I mean, the things that come out of the WYSS are quite amazing and we do it fast.

[Roland Pease]

We spoke to you back in January 2020. It was our second program entirely devoted to the coronavirus. We talked to you about the organ chips that you put stem cells, you put tissue type cells into them and you can do the testing. I think maybe what's important is that that had been work that had been built up over years. That's the nature of the kind of work that science produces. It doesn't give an answer straight away.

[Don Ingber]

Yeah, I mean, I spoke in about 2010 on BBC around my first invention out of my lab on the human lung breathing lung on a chip, which won the international design award in London, you know, and got international recognition. But we've been working on that for over 16 years, you know what I mean? And it's taken a lot of effort of a lot of young people from all around the world. I mean, that's the thing about American science is we are the great magnet for the best and brightest from across America, but across the world. And so this is a really international success story.

[Roland Pease]

What about the relationship then between the institute and the various government agencies in terms of the funding that you get? How important is that funding in your whole budget? But also what's the sort of the return on investment they get?

[Don Ingber]

Well, the most of our funding is government funded research, certainly much more than half. We couldn't do what we do without it. We've diversified. We actually don't have that much NIH relative to other parts of most universities, maybe 10 to 15% range. But we're funded by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. I have been funded since 1998 consistently, and many of my other faculty members, the contracts that were ended were barda, have been funded by the fda. We're funded by doe, Department of Energy, IARPA and other advanced research projects in energy in the past.

[Roland Pease]

I mean, all these under threat.

[Don Ingber]

At the moment, everything's under threat. Well, I don't know to be answered. I mean, nih, doe, nsf, in my case, Barda, they were all, they're all being hit. I don't know about the other agencies. We're all in the black. We just don't know.

[Roland Pease]

I mean, this is a model of research funding that as far as I know goes back to World War II, that the government says, you universities have got the expertise, we'll pay you to do the stuff, the country as a whole benefits.

[Don Ingber]

Right. Well, you know, I think there have been studies just with NIH that, you know, for every dollar invested by NIH, it was something like 2.$5 that have come back in terms of economic payback. You know, just the Wyss Institute, okay, we're small, we're about 375 full time staff. We've created over almost 70 startup companies that have led to 2,000 jobs. Okay. These are high paying jobs and they're also leading to good things that will help all mankind. We don't only do medicine, we do the environment. So this is planetary health as well as human health. And MIT, they did a study in 2014 or 15 retrospectively, and there was something like 30,000 companies that were spawned by MIT and trillions of dollars of value. So the action of the administration is basically shooting the nation in its foot. I mean, they want to compete with China. Last week all this is happening at the same time. I don't know why, but last week there was a federal commission report that was warning that we're losing our edge against China in biotechnology and that the government must invest at least $15 billion immediately. Well, the government just threatened to cut 9 billion from Harvard alone. But it's cutting across the entire nation. Nih, nsf, it's crippling science. And science is the source of technology, that is the source of America's economic leadership. And they miss that completely.

[Roland Pease]

I have met many of the leaders of your teams in the WYSS Institute in the past. I've been there, I've met them, seen them at work. I presume a lot of them are sort of still in their labs or in their offices sort of getting on with the science. But what's the mood, let's say in the coffee room?

[Don Ingber]

I mean, we're all most concerned about the students and fellows who are. Many of them have visas and they're just all terrified. There were two stop work orders I received on two of my contracts. But David Walt, who is another faculty Member at the Beats received a third. His was nih. He works on ultrasensitive diagnostics for neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's. David, just four months ago received the National Medal of Technology from the President, but it was President Biden. I don't know if he's targeted because of that, but the idea that he's not performing is ludicrous. Right. He also founded Illumina, the world's most successful genomics company that has changed the world. This has nothing to do with failure to perform. This is purely, as I said in an interview, pure punitive lunacy. It doesn't make any sense. They're using it as a lever arm to gain control of universities. And if you read what the Trump administration demands were for Harvard, Harvard had no choice but to say no and basically put in a lawsuit.

[Roland Pease]

Your concern is, even if things improve quickly, there will be lasting damage, both in the confidence of people who want to work in Harvard and other universities, but also on the long term health of US science.

[Don Ingber]

I saw a graph in this morning news that was the opposite of the stock market. So the stock market since administration took hold has been dropping precipitously. The number of applications to international jobs from scientists looking to leave the United States has gone up in a concomitant manner, going up rapidly. And this is a brain drainage. This is a negative brain drain to what America was always proud about in the 50s when we were the attractor, the magnet. Now we repulse and our young people are leaving. We've had people from Europe who had accepted postdoctoral fellowships turn them down because they were warned that it's not safe to be in the United States. This is not an America anyone I know is comfortable with.

[Roland Pease]

But Donningber, who circulated a similar defence of the Wyss Institute's mission in a message to its staff last week. Let's turn from all this policy turmoil to the calm of a mountain slope in Hawaii and its bizarre, gruesome resident, a grim species of carnivorous caterpillar dubbed bone collector. Ecologist Don Rubinoff has been writing about it in Science magazine.

[Dan Rubinoff]

Oh, I'd say it's quite the opposite. It's adorable and it's really an example of sort of bizarre resiliency and evolution. Right. I mean, you talk about the most vulnerable thing, you've got a caterpillar, which is the universal prey item. Right. Everybody loves to eat caterpillars. To have this one, actually pull a fast one on spiders, I think that's brilliant and well deserved. I think it's sort of the opposite of grim. It's almost like a hero's tail.

[Roland Pease]

I mean, how big is this thing, for one? You know, let's just get down to really basics.

[Dan Rubinoff]

It's. We're talking in the range of a grain of rice. So these are tiny. The caterpillars are a bit more than that. I'd say maybe about a half an inch is when the caterpillar case matures. The moth that comes out of there is considerably smaller because the caterpillar is carrying around this case. The way to visualize that is maybe more like what a hermit crab is doing. And in both situations, having that case is really critical to their survival. You know, I'm talking about hermit crabs having really needing it. And these caterpillars also need it. They spin their cases out of silk and without them, they die.

[Roland Pease]

But a critical part of the story is that they are not eating leaves and stuff. They are eating things which are caught in the spider sweb. Is that right?

[Dan Rubinoff]

Yeah, yeah. So from my perspective, there are many things that make these caterpillars sort of incredible. One is they're making these cases and they're part of a group of Hawaiian caterpillars which are found nowhere else. They're endemic to Hawaii. That's this genus Hyposmocoma. The nickname for them is the Hawaiian fancy case caterpillars. So you've got these 18 different lineages, all spinning cases out of silk in very different ways. Some of them look like oysters, some of them look like crabs, some of them look like burritos or cigars. We've got all these names for the different cases. And these bone collectors happen to be just one of those lineages, one of 18. And in this case, in this situation, they are taking bits of arthropod, so bits of insect that they find around the spider's web, bits of mite, and importantly, bits of the shed skin of that spider and incorporating it into their cases to protect themselves from this spider landlord. And that's incredible. Making a case already is, I think, a remarkable thing. Making a case that it's that particular is unheard of. And then you top that off by having this lifestyle where you're living literally in the lion's den, right? I mean, imagine if your life was. That's what they're doing. They're covering themselves with the bones and hoping that the spider or the lion, as you were, doesn't detect them.

[Roland Pease]

So the spider trust thinks that's yesterday's meal as it Were. Or something like that and passes by.

[Dan Rubinoff]

Yeah, or so. So. So remember, these caterpillars are really slow moving. They're kind of dragging themselves along around the spider's web. And this isn't a sheet web, right? These are cobwebs. So we're not finding them sort of displayed across a vista. These are tucked into tree holes, the sorts of places you don't really want to be sticking your hands is where we're sticking our hands, you know, into rotting wood under a rock where these spiders are making their sort of messy webs. And as much as anything, you should think about these webs as almost being trip wires, right? These are not beetles that are. Or flies that are flying into the web. These are insects or other arthropods that are sort of bumbling around under the rock, kind of triggering and maybe being slowed down by this web. And then the spider is rushing out and capturing them, spitting them up and eating them. And because they're doing that, their environment for the spider and for these caterpillars is three dimensional, right? There's up, down and sideways that they can go. Whereas if you had a sheet web that's really two dimensional, and I think that's why these caterpillars are able to do that. If they were being asked to sort of tightrope across a spider's web between two bushes, no way. They're just way too clumsy for that. But in this case, you don't have anywhere to fall, so you're just kind of moving along. And if the spider were to ever rush at them, it's going to taste itself through its own shed body parts and, like you say, yesterday's meal. And it's very likely that it's just going to leave it alone. There's very little reason for it to think there's something tasty hiding under that case. It's a great way to get prey and protein if you're not that good at catching it yourself. So these caterpillars, we have a video up and it's no coincidence that the only thing it's able to capture and eat is another one of its brethren. So another bone collector caterpillar, which was smaller, was sort of come upon by another one which chews through the silk case and is eating it alive in its little home. So these guys are very much predators, but they're just not that good at it in captivity. I mean, let's be honest, right? Call it what it is, you can love something and still understand its weaknesses. In this case, we Feed them Drosophila pupae in the lab, and they are very happy to go and chew on those, but they will also eat dead bits of meat. So you can imagine say a termite comes through, triggers the spider web. The spider bites it, spins it up and has a bit of a snack, but doesn't finish it off and then retreat somewhere. And in the next hour or so, this caterpillar comes along, chews through the silk and eats a bit of that termite. No problem for anybody. That's probably what it's doing in the wild. And it can continue to sort of eat that termite until those tasty bits are really juicy, no more. You know, I think once things are really dried up, it probably has some difficulty. We see them using the dried up, the, the fully crunchy bits of other insects like the heads of ants, the wings of beetles, the wings of flies. Those are things that aren't edible for it either. And it spins those onto its case as part of its camouflage. And it doesn't surprise me at all that they sort of check them first, probably for bits of food. So if there's a spot of ant brain that's a little bit softer, it'll probably eat that before it ties the ant head onto its case.

[Roland Pease]

And I just want to check. I'm getting something I hadn't expected. I thought maybe they just had sticky covering that's picked up these bits. You're saying that there's actually a deliberate action of after one of these things, they're actually spinning thread around the thing to tie it onto their carcass.

[Dan Rubinoff]

I am telling you, these caterpillars are underestimated, sir. And not just these bone collectors, but that entire group, Hyposmocoma. They are all case makers and they do spectacularly different things in oddly specific ways.

[Roland Pease]

I mean, this stuff is wonderful and it's fun, but there is a sad side to this because you talk about the risk of these going extinct. They're very rare even now.

[Dan Rubinoff]

Yeah, no, it's. I mean, that's the case again. Hawaii is the extinction capital of the world. We have lost so many different animals and plants across the board and so many more that we probably didn't even know about, especially in the insects, where I would say we're still halfway to describing them all here. I would argue that the insect fauna of Hawaii is less well known than that of Costa Rica. And given the fact that we're part of the United States and a developed nation, you wouldn't think we'd be so badly off. But every time we go and look at a new group, I have a grad student come in or a postdoc, and they start looking at a new group. We find new species and about double what we thought there was beforehand. Even in large moths, which have no business being unknown, there are lots of unknown or unrecognized species. And what that also suggests to us is there may be a lot more.

[Roland Pease]

That we've already lost the beauty and fragility of nature. Dan Rubinoff is an ecologist at the University of Hawaii and brings to a close this edition of Science in Action. From the BBC, I'm Ron and Peace. The producer is Alex Mansfield. Join us again next week with what I anticipate will be an earth sciences special. At the BBC, we go further so you see clearer. Through frontline reporting, global stories and local insights, we bring you closer to the world's news as it happens. And it starts with a subscription to BBC.com giving you unlimited articles and videos, ad free podcasts and the BBC News channel, streaming live 24.

[Dan Rubinoff]

7.

[Roland Pease]

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