How awesome is Wuhan Virus Research Institute？
On December 8, 2017, Fu Cong, head of the China delegation, said at the meeting of States parties to the United Nations Biological Weapons Convention that in October of that year, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences held the International Training Course on Biosafety Laboratory Management and Experimental Technology.
Don’t underestimate this conference, which is the most important achievement of China virus research in the world. The trainees of this training course organized by Wuhan Virus came from Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Kenya, Serbia, Hungary and other countries. At that time, the lecture team of the training course came from the P4 laboratory construction and research team of Wuhan Institute of Virology. This laboratory has the highest level of protection in China and even in Asia, except for China, the other one is in Japan. At the end of December last year, at the beginning of the discovery of Covid-19, the relevant samples were directly sent to Wuhan P4 laboratory for testing. Later, relevant departments and institutions took the test results and published a paper entitled "Initial Transmission Dynamics of novel coronavirus-infected Pneumonia in Wuhan, China" in the New England Journal on January 29th. One of the conclusions was that "interpersonal transmission occurred among close contacts in December 2019". Recently, this paper has been questioned. The Ministry of Science and Technology recently issued a notice asking all relevant research project undertakers and their researchers to devote all their research energy to various research tasks, write the paper on the front line of fighting the epidemic, and apply the research results to fighting the epidemic. Before the task of epidemic prevention and control is completed, we should not focus on publishing the paper. In addition to the early discovery of human-to-human transmission in Covid-19, on January 28, the institute just developed an antibody detection test paper for research; At the same time, the Institute and the Institute of Toxicology and Drug Research of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences jointly discovered novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) at the cellular level.Drugs with good inhibitory effects, such as remidivivir or rendixivir (GS-5734), chloroquine (Sigma-C6628), Ritonavir, etc. In addition, on January 21st, the Science and Technology Department of Hubei Province launched the "2019 New Type Pneumonia Emergency Science and Technology Research Project", and established a new type pneumonia emergency science and technology research expert group, whose leader is Shi Zhengli, a researcher at Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In addition, the whole genome sequence of novel coronavirus was determined by Wuhan Institute of Virology on January 2nd, and the virus strain was successfully isolated on January 5th. On January 9th, the virus strain resource has been put into the national virus resource database according to the standard, and has been preserved in a standardized way.
Wuhan Institute of Virology was also the first institution to conclude that the virus strain originated from bats. On January 23rd, Shi Zhengli’s team published "The Discovery of a novel coronavirus and Its Possible Origin of Bats" on the pre-printed platform of bioRxiv, and proposed that a new type of pneumonia virus might originate from bats. It was confirmed for the first time that novel coronavirus used the same cells as SARS coronavirus to enter the receptor, and it was found that the sequence consistency between novel coronavirus and a bat coronavirus was as high as 96%. Born in 1956, the current director is a post-80s Wuhan Virus Institute, which has a long history and a high level, and is a department-level unit. In June 1956, shortly after the founding of New China, the famous virologist Academician Gao Shangyin, the famous microbiologist Academician Chen Huagui and Professor Jane Haoran and other scientists of the older generation established Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was one of the national institutes established earlier in China. Wuhan Institute of Virology is one of the first enrollment units with the right to confer degrees since the country resumed graduate enrollment. Up to now, the discipline has trained 429 master students and 174 doctoral students. At present, the discipline has 27 discipline groups with different professional directions, 30 doctoral tutors, 10 master tutors, including 3 Jie Qing and 10 people in the Hundred Talents Program. There are 240 graduate students, including 110 doctoral students. The China Virus Resource and Information Center under the Wuhan Virus Institute has the largest virus repository in Asia, and established the only China Virus Collection in China. The research direction of Wuhan virus is all important human viruses.Such as HIV, HCV, influenza virus, human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), tumor virus KSHV, herpes simplex virus (HSV), etc.) and new viruses of animal origin (such as SARS-CoV, avian influenza virus, arbovirus, etc.). Chen Xinwen, former director of Wuhan Institute of Virology, received his doctorate in virology from Wageningen University in the Netherlands in 2001. He has been engaged in cooperative research in American University of California, Berkley and German University of Duisburg-Essen. Chen Xinwen is also a winner of the Hundred Talents Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Outstanding Youth Fund. He has won the second prize of national technological invention and the second prize of Hubei Natural Science. He is currently the president of Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chen Xinwen was succeeded by Wang Yanyi, who became the director of Wuhan Virus Institute in October 2018. Wang Yanyi is a female "post-80 s" scientific research cadre, and previously served as the deputy director of Wuhan Virus Research Institute.
According to public information, Wang Yanyi was born in 1981. She graduated from Peking University College of Life Sciences in 2004, and then went to the University of Colorado to get a master’s degree. When she came to Wuhan University, she served as a lecturer and associate professor in the School of Life Sciences of Wuhan University for six years, during which she received her doctorate.
In March 2012, Wang Yanyi was transferred to Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He served as the head of molecular immunology discipline and deputy director of the Center for Viral Pathology. In December 2014, he served as assistant to the director, and one year later he was promoted to deputy director of Wuhan Institute of Virology. Wang Yanyi’s main research direction is the interaction mechanism between virus and host. He has presided over or undertaken many projects such as National Natural Science Foundation and 973 Project. Published nearly 30 SCI papers in internationally renowned journals. In 2013, Wang Yanyi was selected as the first batch of top-notch young talents in the national "Ten Thousand Talents Program". Shi Zhengli, a "batwoman", was able to quickly find the virus or its source from bats after searching for the virus host for 13 years in COVID-19, which has a lot to do with one person and her team. This person is Shi Zhengli.
Shi Zhengli’s team is working in the field.
Shi Zhengli, known as "batwoman", has been engaged in the etiology research of new viruses for a long time, especially in the research on the traceability of SARS virus, and her leading team confirmed that bats are the natural hosts of SARS coronavirus. Since the outbreak of SARS virus 18 years ago, a large number of coronaviruses (SARSr-CoV) associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome have been found in bats, their natural hosts. At the beginning of this outbreak in Wuhan, Shi Zhengli’s team obtained full-length genome sequences from five patients, which are almost identical to each other and have a similarity of 79.5% with the genome sequence of SARS-CoV. Later, researchers further found that novel coronavirus (nCoV-2019) had 96% homology with Bat Coronavirus at the whole genome level. By analyzing the paired protein sequences of seven conserved nonstructural proteins, it was shown that novel coronavirus belonged to SARSr-CoV species. The team led by Shi Zhengli not only confirmed that bats are the natural hosts of SARS coronavirus, but also found serological evidence that bats in China are infected with Nipah virus and Ebola virus, and found and identified a large number of genetically diverse new viruses such as adenovirus and circovirus in bats, further confirming that bats are the natural hosts of many viruses. Before and after the Spring Festival in 2003, SARS spread from Guangdong Province to other provinces in China at an alarming rate, and there were many "super communicators" who spread SARS to dozens or even dozens of people. In March 2003,The University of Hong Kong and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have successively isolated a virus from SARS patients. Under the electron microscope, this virus looks like a crown of medieval European emperors. According to the morphological characteristics and genetic information, scientists believe that this new coronavirus is the pathogen of SARS, and it is a coronavirus that has never been found in humans. Later, researchers in China began to look for the source of the virus. They found that the earliest 11 cases had a history of contact with wild animals in Otawa. Following this clue, scientists first aimed at the Guangdong wildlife market, and soon separated and detected the virus exactly the same as SARS virus in the civets in the market. After this discovery was announced, Guangdong Province issued a ban in early 2004: completely killing civet cats in the wild animal market, banning wildlife trade and closing the wild animal market. However, Shi Zhengli and her team are not satisfied. For this new virus, we must find the source, that is, the "natural host"-an animal that carries a virus for a long time, but it does not get sick itself and can live in peace with the virus. Because the Hendra virus that broke out in Australia in the 1990s and the Nipah virus that broke out in Malaysia were later confirmed to be fruit bats, Shi Zhengli and her team focused their attention on bats. In 2004, the team collected fruit bats from Guangdong and Guangxi for the first time, and tested the genetic material in the laboratory. As a result, nothing was found after 8 months. Later,Antibodies to SARS virus were found in three species of bats in Guangxi and Hubei, and they followed suit, and coronavirus was detected in these three species of bats. In 2005, Shi Zhengli and her team published their research results in the journal Science. However, after careful comparison, it is found that there are still some differences between bat SARS-like coronavirus and SARS virus found in 2005, especially the most critical gene that determines the infectivity and pathogenicity of the virus is not the same. Later, they continued to search all over the country, whether in the south or the north, in the middle or in the west, whenever they heard that there were bats, they would go all over 28 provinces and cities in China, just like looking for a needle in a haystack. In 2011, Shi Zhengli and her team isolated and detected a highly homologous SARS-like coronavirus in a cave in Yunnan. Apart from the close evolutionary relationship, they are also very similar in function.
They monitored the cave for five years, sampling twice a year, and found more than ten different types of SARS-like coronavirus. Although no virus exactly the same as SARS virus was found, a natural gene pool of SARS virus was found.
After 13 years of tracking, they finally determined the bat origin of SARS virus. In January 2019, the project "Research on Bats Carrying Important Viruses in China" led by Shi Zhengli won the second prize of the National Natural Science Award in 2018. On January 29th, American Academy of Microbiology announced the list of Fellows of American Academy of Microbiology in 2019, and Shi Zhengli was elected. The American Academy of Microbiology is one of the subsidiaries of the American Society for Microbiology, the world’s largest and oldest member organization in the field of life sciences, and it is in the leading position in the international microbiology discipline. Among the scientists elected as Fellows, there are many Nobel Prize, Lasker Prize and national medal of science award Prize winners. Mysterious P4 Laboratory At the beginning of 2003, the spread of SARS in China virtually gave birth to the construction of the first P4 laboratory in China, and this important task fell on the shoulders of Wuhan virus, which is in an important transition period. In February 2003, Hu Zhihong, then director of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, suddenly received a phone call from Chen Zhu, then vice president of Chinese Academy of Sciences, asking if he could undertake the task of building P4 laboratory in Wuhan. Hu Zhihong immediately said that he would go all out. Hu Zhihong immediately called the party and government leading bodies of the Institute to discuss, and decided that Yuan Zhiming, then deputy director, was responsible for the preparation of P4 laboratory. At the same time, he ordered Yuan Zhiming, a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois in the United States, to end his trip and immediately return to China to prepare for P4 laboratory construction. On March 25th, 2003, Wuhan Institute of Virology submitted to the Biological Bureau of Chinese Academy of Sciences.Report on "Request for Instructions on Establishing P3 and P4 Laboratories". P4 laboratory is based on the degree of harm and protection required to deal with pathogenic microorganisms in the world. In the world, biosafety laboratories are usually divided into four levels, with the first level of protection being the lowest and the fourth level of protection being the highest. In the highest-level biosafety laboratory, in addition to other general protective measures, positive pressure protective clothing, airtight doors, chemical showers, sewage treatment systems, air filtration systems, etc. are specially set up to avoid the threat of operated harmful biological factors through protective barriers and management measures. Due to the complexity of construction and maintenance and high technical requirements, China has no experience in building P4 laboratory and maintenance, and needs to seek international cooperation to carry out laboratory construction. From April 5 to 11, 2003, Yuan Zhiming went to France with Chen Zhu to seek cooperation in P4 laboratory construction and research on emerging diseases. After consultation with Ms. Haignere, French Minister of Research and New Technology, she reached a preliminary cooperation intention. Chen Zhu and Yuan Zhiming saw P4 laboratory for the first time in Lyon, and its glass shell was colorful at night. After visiting it, they found that the internal structure and technology were particularly complicated. The P4 laboratory in Lyon was designed and built by French company Meria and RTV. During the visit, Wang Shaoqi, then Minister Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in France, discussed the Sino-French cooperation with Chen Zhu and Yuan Zhiming. That night, Wang Shaoqi asked Yuan Zhiming to stay in the confidential room of the embassy, wrote an internal report of nearly ten thousand words and sent it back to China.The contents are as follows: The research of infectious diseases in France has been highly valued by the government, and the first level-4 biosafety laboratory in Europe has been established in Lyon, and the Pasteur Institute is also the earliest unit in the world to carry out SARS research. To carry out the research on emerging diseases, P3 and P4 laboratories with high biosafety level should be established first, so as to prevent infectious pathogens from being released into the environment, and at the same time provide researchers with high biosafety guarantee. Some P3 laboratories have been established in China to carry out some research on SARS pathogens, but the research on some more virulent infectious pathogens and possible new disease pathogens must be carried out in P4 laboratory with the highest security level. Therefore, the establishment of P4 laboratory will become an important technical platform and guarantee for China to carry out research in related fields. On January 28th, 2004, when president Hu Jintao visited France, he witnessed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Sino-French Cooperation on Preventing and Combating Emerging Infectious Diseases between the Government of People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Government of the French Republic: the establishment of a Sino-French emerging infectious disease group composed of representatives and experts from the competent French government departments; Support the development of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, acquire the necessary equipment and technology for establishing a high-level biosafety laboratory, and provide relevant support and training. On November 26th, 2007, when French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited China, China and France signed a supplementary statement on the cooperation agreement on the prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases, emphasizing "to ensure that all necessary measures are taken as soon as possible to implement all planned projects including Wuhan P4 laboratory".. In 2008, France delivered a laboratory drawing, and in 2009, Zhongyuan Design Institute of China provided the drawings designed by China. In the design process, we refer to the main concepts of Lyon laboratory design to ensure the highest degree of safety. On January 9, 2012, the key equipment of the core laboratory-airtight door and life support system arrived in Jiangxia Zhengdian Park and passed the acceptance test. On January 31st, 2015, Wuhan P4 Laboratory held a completion unveiling ceremony, which marked the completion of hardware construction and installation of major facilities and equipment.
The core area of Wuhan P4 laboratory is about 300 square meters, and it adopts the structure of "box in box". The interior of the laboratory is a negative pressure space, that is, the pressure inside is less than that outside, and air can only enter but not exit. The inside of this "big box" is divided into different areas by heavy metal doors, including cell laboratory, animal laboratory and animal autopsy room.
Academician Gao Fu, director of China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said: The official operation of Wuhan P4 Laboratory marks that China’s research on pathogenic microorganisms and immunology has entered the international advanced ranks, showing that China’s national security is another "frigate", which is comparable to the strategic deployment of China’s "two bombs and one satellite" in China. previous chapter
The Truth Behind the "Squeezing Water" of Provincial Economic Data
This article first appeared on WeChat WeChat official account: See Finance. The content of the article belongs to the author’s personal opinion and does not represent Hexun.com’s position. Investors should operate accordingly, at their own risk.