Shi Zhengli

Shi Zhengli (simplified Chinese: 石正丽; traditional Chinese: 石正麗; born 26 May 1964) is a Chinese virologist who researches SARS-like coronaviruses of bat origin. Shi directs the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory located in Jiangxia District, Wuhan. In 2017, Shi and her colleague Cui Jie discovered that the SARS coronavirus likely originated in a population of bats in a remote region of the Yunnan.[1] Shi came to prominence in the popular press as "bat woman" during the COVID-19 pandemic for her work with bat coronaviruses.[2]

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Shi.
Shi Zhengli
Born (1964-05-26) 26 May 1964
Xixia County, Henan
Education
Scientific career
FieldsVirology
Institutions
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese石正丽
Traditional Chinese石正麗

Early life and education

Shi was born in May 1964 in Xixia County, Henan.[3] She graduated from Wuhan University in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in hereditary biology.[4] She received her master's degree from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1990 and her PhD from Montpellier 2 University in France in 2000.[5]

Career

In 2005, Shi Zhengli and colleagues found that bats are the natural reservoir of SARS-like coronaviruses.[6][7][8]

In 2008 Shi led a research team which studied binding of spike proteins of both natural and chimaeric SARS-like coronaviruses to ACE2 receptors in human, civet and horseshoe bat cells, to determine the mechanism by which SARS may have spilled over into humans.[9][10] In 2014, Shi Zhengli collaborated on additional gain-of-function experiments led by Ralph S. Baric of the University of North Carolina, which showed that two critical mutations that the MERS coronavirus possesses allow it to bind to the human ACE2 receptor,[11] and that SARS had the potential to re-emerge from coronaviruses circulating in bat populations in the wild.[12] In 2014, the US National Institutes of Health placed a moratorium on SARS, MERS, and influenza gain-of-function studies, due to concerns about the risks vs. benefits of such research,[13][14] lifting this moratorium in 2017 after the creation of a new regulatory framework.[15] Zhengli and her colleague Cui Jie led a team which sampled thousands of horseshoe bats throughout China. In 2017, they published their findings, indicating that all the genetic components of the SARS coronavirus existed in a bat population in a cave in Yunnan province.[1] while no single bat harbored the exact strain of virus which caused the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak, genetic analysis showed that different strains often mix, suggesting that the human version likely emerged from a combination of the strains present in the bat population.[1] Shi has been directing the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory located in Jiangxia District, Wuhan.

2020

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Shi and other Institute scientists formed an expert group to research Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).[16][17] In February 2020, researchers led by Shi Zhengli published an article in Nature titled, "A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin", finding that SARS-CoV-2 is in the same family as SARS, and that it has 96.2% genome overlap with the most closely related known coronavirus.[18] In February 2020, her team published a paper in Cell Research showing that remdesivir and chloroquine inhibited the virus in vitro, and applied for a patent for the drug in China on behalf of the WIV.[19][20][21] The granting of this patent by China raised concerns about intellectual property rights in an international context.[22] Shi co-authored a paper labelling the virus as the first Disease X.[23]

In February 2020, the South China Morning Post reported that Shi's decade-long work to build up one of the world's largest databases of bat-related viruses gave the scientific community a "head start" in understanding the virus.[24] The SCMP also reported that Shi was the focus of personal attacks in Chinese social media who claimed the WIV was the source of the virus, leading Shi to post: "I swear with my life, [the virus] has nothing to do with the lab", and when asked by the SCMP to comment on the attacks, Shi responded: "My time must be spent on more important matters".[24] In a March 2020 interview with Scientific American, where she was called China's "Bat Woman", Shi said "Bat-borne coronaviruses will cause more outbreaks", and "We must find them before they find us."[2] According to an April 2020 opinion column by Josh Rogin in the Washington Post, U.S. officials sent to the WIV in 2018 had dispatched two diplomatic cables back to Washington which "warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab" and "also warn[ed] that the lab's work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic," noting that they had met with Shi Zhengli.[25] Leading virologists have disputed the idea of SARS-CoV-2 leaking from a lab.[26][27] Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, which studies emerging infectious diseases, has noted estimates that 1–7 million people in Southeast Asia who live or work in proximity to bats are infected each year with bat coronaviruses.[26][27] In an interview with Vox, Daszak comments, "There are probably half a dozen people that do work in those labs. So let's compare 1 million to 7 million people a year to half a dozen people; it's just not logical."[27]

Service and Honours

Shi is a member of the Virology Committee of the Chinese Society for Microbiology. She is an editor of the Board of Virologica Sinica,[28] the Chinese Journal of Virology, and the Journal of Fishery Sciences of China.

See also

References
  1. Cyranoski, David (1 December 2017). "Bat cave solves mystery of deadly SARS virus – and suggests new outbreak could occur". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-017-07766-9.
  2. Jane Qiu (11 March 2020). "How China's "Bat Woman" Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus". Scientific American. Archived from the original on 14 April 2020. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  3. 石正丽：与病毒相伴的女科学家. sciencenet.cn (in Chinese). 10 March 2009. Archived from the original on 7 February 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2019. 1964年5月，石正丽出生于河南省西峡县。
  4. 中科院武汉病毒所博士生指导老师简介 (in Chinese). Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan Division. 22 September 2009. Archived from the original on 10 August 2018. 石正丽, 女， 1964年出生，博士，研究员。1987年7月毕业于武汉大学生物系遗传专业，获学士学位。
  5. Areddy, James T. (21 April 2020). "China Bat Expert Says Her Wuhan Lab Wasn't Source of New Coronavirus". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 23 April 2020. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  6. Li, Wendong; Shi, Zhengli; Yu, Meng; Ren, Wuze; Smith, Craig; Epstein, Jonathan H; Wang, Hanzhong; Crameri, Gary; Hu, Zhihong; Zhang, Huajun; Zhang, Jianhong; McEachern, Jennifer; Field, Hume; Daszak, Peter; Eaton, Bryan T; Zhang, Shuyi; Wang, Lin-Fa (28 October 2005). "Bats Are Natural Reservoirs of SARS-Like Coronaviruses". Science. 310 (5748): 676–679. Bibcode:2005Sci...310..676L. doi:10.1126/science.1118391. PMID 16195424.
  7. Lu Wei (鲁伟); Liu Zheng (刘铮) (10 March 2009). 石正丽：与病毒相伴的女科学家. sciencenet.cn (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 7 February 2019. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  8. Ren, Wuze; Li, Wendong; Yu, Meng; Hao, Pei; Zhang, Yuan; Zhou, Peng; Zhang, Shuyi; Zhao, Guoping; Zhong, Yang; Wang, Shengyue; Wang, Lin-Fa; Shi, Zhengli (1 November 2006). "Full-length genome sequences of two SARS-like coronaviruses in horseshoe bats and genetic variation analysis". J Gen Virol. 87 (11): 3355–3359. doi:10.1099/vir.0.82220-0. PMID 17030870.
  9. Ren, Wuze; et al. (1 February 2008). "Difference in Receptor Usage between Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Coronavirus and SARS-Like Coronavirus of Bat Origin". Journal of Virology. 82 (4): 1899–1907. doi:10.1128/JVI.01085-07. PMC 2258702. PMID 18077725.
  10. Hou, Yuxuan; et al. (22 June 2010). "Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) proteins of different bat species confer variable susceptibility to SARS-CoV entry". Archives of Virology. 155 (10): 1563–1569. doi:10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6. PMC 7086629. PMID 20567988.
  11. Yang, Yang; et al. (10 June 2015). "Two Mutations Were Critical for Bat-to-Human Transmission of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus". Journal of Virology. 89 (17): 9119–9123. doi:10.1128/JVI.01279-15. PMC 4524054. PMID 26063432.
  12. Menachery, Vineet D.; Yount, Boyd L.; Debbink, Kari; Agnihothram, Sudhakar; Gralinski, Lisa E.; Plante, Jessica A.; Graham, Rachel L.; Scobey, Trevor; Ge, Xing-Yi; Donaldson, Eric F.; Randell, Scott H. (11 November 2015). "A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence". Nature Medicine. 21 (12): 1508–1513. doi:10.1038/nm.3985. ISSN 1546-170X. PMC 4797993. PMID 26552008.
  13. Kaiser, Jocelyn (17 November 2014). "Moratorium on risky virology studies leaves work at 14 institutions in limbo". Science, AAAS. Archived from the original on 26 March 2020. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  14. Butler, Declan (12 November 2015). "Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research". Nature News. doi:10.1038/nature.2015.18787. Archived from the original on 21 April 2020. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  15. Collins, Francis (19 December 2017). "NIH Lifts Funding Pause on Gain-of-Function Research". nih.gov. US National Institutes of Health. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  16. Zhang Juan (张隽); Guan Xiyan (关喜艳) (24 January 2020). 石正丽等13位专家组队 攻关新型肺炎研究. People's Daily (in Chinese). Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  17. Jon Cohen (1 February 2020). "Mining coronavirus genomes for clues to the outbreak's origins". Science. Archived from the original on 3 February 2020. Retrieved 4 February 2020. team led by Shi Zheng-Li, a coronavirus specialist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, reported on 23 January on bioRxiv that 2019-nCoV’s sequence was 96.2% similar to a bat virus and had 79.5% similarity to the coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a disease whose initial outbreak was also in China more than 15 years ago.
  18. Shi Zhengli; Team of 29 researchers at the WIV (3 February 2020). "A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin". Nature. 579 (7798): 270–273. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2012-7. PMC 7095418. PMID 32015507.
  19. Shi Zhengli; Team of 10 researchers at the WIV (4 February 2020). "Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro". Cell Research. 30 (3): 269–271. doi:10.1038/s41422-020-0282-0. PMC 7054408. PMID 32020029.
  20. "China Wants to Patent Gilead's Experimental Coronavirus Drug". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 6 February 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  21. Denise Grady (6 February 2020). "China Begins Testing an Antiviral Drug in Coronavirus Patients". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 8 February 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  22. Barmann J. "Bay Area-Based Gilead Sees Potential Legal Conflict With China Over Its Coronavirus Drug". SFist. Impress Media. Archived from the original on 26 March 2020. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  23. Shi Zhengli; Jiang Shibo (2020). "The First Disease X is Caused by a Highly Transmissible Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus". Virologica Sinica. doi:10.1007/s12250-020-00206-5. PMID 32060789.
  24. Stephen Chen (6 February 2020). "Coronavirus: bat scientist's cave exploits offer hope to beat virus 'sneakier than Sars'". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 7 February 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  25. Rogin, John (14 April 2020). "State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 14 April 2020. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  26. Brumfiel, Geoff; Kwong, Emily (23 April 2020). "Virus Researchers Cast Doubt On Theory Of Coronavirus Lab Accident". Archived from the original on 28 April 2020. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  27. Barclay, Eliza (23 April 2020). "Why these scientists still doubt the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab". Archived from the original on 30 April 2020. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  28. "Editorial Board". Virologica Sinica. Archived from the original on 29 February 2020. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  29. 法国驻华大使亲临武汉病毒所为袁志明、石正丽研究员授勋 (in Chinese). Wuhan Institute of Virology. 20 June 2016.
  30. Huang Haihua (黄海华) (24 January 2020). 新型冠状病毒可能来源于蝙蝠！“蝙蝠女侠”石正丽发现其与蝙蝠冠状病毒同源性为96% (in Chinese). Sina Corp. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  31. 学界大牛！12位华人学者当选2019年美国微生物科学院院士. xincailiao.com (in Chinese). 3 February 2019. Archived from the original on 7 February 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.