---
title: "Scientists: Coronavirus Likely a Hybrid of Two Other Viruses"
description: "New research suggests that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is actually a genetic hybrid of a bat and pangolin virus that happened to swap genes."
date: "2020-06-02"
modified: "2020-06-02"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/coronavirus-likely-hybrid-two-viruses"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Medical"
  - "Pathogens"
  - "Viruses"
tags:
  - "biology"
  - "coronavirus"
  - "covid19"
  - "medicine"
---

# Scientists: Coronavirus Likely a Hybrid of Two Other Viruses

![New research suggests that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is actually a genetic hybrid of a bat and pangolin virus that happened to swap genes.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coronavirus-likely-hybrid-two-viruses.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Images via Pixabay/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

Researchers may have finally figured out why it's been so difficult to tell where the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 — which causes COVID-19 — came from within the animal kingdom.

While most evidence suggests that the virus [spread among bats](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/coronavirus-started-animals-dangerous>) before infecting people, a genetic analysis of it never identified a perfect match among known bat diseases. Now, scientists think that's because SARS-CoV-2 is actually a genetic hybrid, *[Ars Technica reports](<https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/sars-cov-2-looks-like-a-hybrid-of-viruses-from-two-different-species/>)*: it seems to be the result of two separate viruses that swapped genes somewhere along the way.

The surface of SARS-CoV-2 is dotted with spike proteins that help it stick onto human cells, like biological Velcro. While the rest of its genetic code matches a bat virus, the portion of SAR-CoV-2's genome that creates those spike proteins does not.

Instead, relevant genes appear to have come from a pangolin coronavirus, [according to research](<https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/28/sciadv.abb9153>) published Friday in the journal *Science Advances*. At some point prior to infecting humans, the researchers believe, the two coronaviruses engaged in a process called recombination to create a hybrid that is now causing a pandemic in humans around the world.

Recombination can occur between two unrelated viruses — like a bat and pangolin coronavirus — if they've infected the same host, *Ars Technica* reports. One virus's cellular machinery messes up while trying to reproduce itself, and the other virus takes over, inserting its genome into the partially-completed strand of genetic material.

On one hand, *Ars Technica* reports, the study explains the origin of SARS-CoV-2 in terms of natural biological processes, helping [debunk the conspiracy theory](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/fauci-virus-not-made-lab>) that it was engineered in a lab.

But it also suggests that other hybrids could be out there, forming on their own in unknowing animal hosts — an ominous possibility.

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)