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Wuhan Institute of Virology

Coordinates: 30°22′28.0″N 114°15′58.4″E / 30.374444°N 114.266222°E / 30.374444; 114.266222
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Wuhan Institute of Virology
中国科学院武汉病毒研究所
AbbreviationWIV
Predecessor
  • Wuhan Microbiology Laboratory
  • South China Institute of Microbiology
  • Wuhan Microbiology Institute
  • Microbiology Institute of Hubei Province
Formation1956
FounderChen Huagui, Gao Shangyin
HeadquartersJiangxia, Wuhan, Hubei, China
Coordinates30°22′28.0″N 114°15′58.4″E / 30.374444°N 114.266222°E / 30.374444; 114.266222
Director-General
Wang Yanyi
Secretary of Party Committee
Xiao Gengfu[1]
Deputy Director-General
Gong Peng, Guan Wuxiang, Xiao Gengfu
Parent organization
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Websitewhiov.cas.cn

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV; Chinese: 中国科学院武汉病毒研究所; pinyin: Zhōngguó Kēxuéyuàn Wǔhàn Bìngdú Yánjiūsuǒ) is a research institute on virology administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Located in Jiangxia District, Wuhan, Hubei, it opened mainland China's first biosafety level 4 (BSL–4) laboratory in 2015.

History

The Institute was founded in 1956 as the Wuhan Microbiology Laboratory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). In 1961, it became the South China Institute of Microbiology, and in 1962 was renamed Wuhan Microbiology Institute. In 1970, it became the Microbiology Institute of Hubei Province when the Hubei Commission of Science and Technology took over the administration. In June 1978, it was returned to the CAS and renamed Wuhan Institute of Virology.[2]

In 2015, the National Bio-safety Laboratory was completed at a cost of 300 million yuan ($44 million) at the Institute in collaboration with French engineers from Lyon, and was the first biosafety level 4 (BSL–4) laboratory to be built in mainland China.[3][4] The laboratory took over a decade to complete from its conception in 2003, and scientists such as U.S. molecular biologist Richard H. Ebright expressed concern of previous escapes of the SARS virus at Chinese laboratories in Beijing, and the pace and scale of China's plans for expansion into BSL–4 laboratories.[3] The Laboratory has strong ties to the Galveston National Laboratory in the University of Texas.[5] In 2020, Ebright called the Institute a "world-class research institution that does world-class research in virology and immunology".[5]

Coronavirus research

In 2005, a group including researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology published research into the origin of the SARS coronavirus, finding that China's horseshoe bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-like coronaviruses.[6] Continuing this work over a period of years, researchers from the Institute sampled thousands of horseshoe bats in locations across China, isolating over 300 bat coronavirus sequences.[7]

In 2015, the Institute published successful research on whether a bat coronavirus could be made to infect HeLa. A team from the Institute engineered a hybrid virus, combining a bat coronavirus with a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow in mice and mimic human disease. The hybrid virus was able to infect human cells.[8][9]

2019–20 coronavirus pandemic

Main article: 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic

In December 2019, cases of pneumonia associated with an unknown coronavirus were reported to health authorities in Wuhan. The Institute checked its coronavirus collection and found the new virus was 96 percent identical to a sample its researchers had taken from horseshoe bats in southwest China.[10]

As the virus spread worldwide, the Institute continued its investigation. In February 2020, the New York Times reported that a team led by Shi Zhengli at the Institute were the first to identify, analyze and name the genetic sequence of the Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), and upload it to public databases for scientists around the world to understand,[11][12] and publishing papers in Nature.[13] In February 2020, the Institute applied for a patent in China for the use of remdesivir, an experimental drug owned by Gilead Sciences, which the Institute found inhibited the virus invitro;[14] in a move which also raised concerns regarding international intellectual property rights.[15] In a statement, the Institute said it would not exercise its new Chinese patent rights "if relevant foreign companies intend to contribute to the prevention and control of China’s epidemic".[16]

The Institute was rumored as a source for the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak as a result of allegations of bioweapon research,[17][18] a concept that some U.S. experts have rejected, noting that the Institute was not suitable for bioweapon research, that most countries had abandoned bioweapons as fruitless, and that there was no evidence that the virus was genetically engineered.[5][17] In February 2020, virus expert and global lead coronavirus investigator Trevor Bedford observed that "The evidence we have is that the mutations [in the virus] are completely consistent with natural evolution".[19] On the other hand, even before the outbreak of the pandemic, some virologists questioned whether previous experiments on creating novel coronaviruses in the lab justified the potential risk of accidental release.[20]

During January and February 2020, the Institute was subject to further conspiracy theories, and concerns that it was the source of the outbreak through accidental leakage,[21] which it publicly refuted.[22] Members of the Institute's research teams were also subject to various conspiracy theories,[23][24] including Shi, who made various public statements defending the Institute.[25] While Ebright refuted several of conspiracy theories regarding the WIV, he told BBC China that this did not represent the possibility of the virus being "completely ruled out" from entering the population due to a laboratory accident.[21]

Research centers

The Institute contains the following research centers:[26]

  • Center for Emerging Infectious Disease
  • Chinese Virus Resources and Bioinformatics Center
  • Center of Applied and Environmental Microbiology
  • Department of Analytical Biochemistry and Biotechnology
  • Department of Molecular Virology
  • The institute is mentioned in Dean R. Koontz's 1981 novel The Eyes of Darkness, where it is the source of a weaponized virus, however this is only from the 1989 edition onward. Prior to that (and during the Cold War) a Russian origin was used.[27]

See also

References

  1. ^ "现任领导".
  2. ^ "History". Wuhan Institute of Virology, CAS. Archived from the original on 29 July 2019. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  3. ^ a b David Cyranoski (22 February 2017). "Inside the Chinese lab poised to study world's most dangerous pathogens". Nature. 592 (7642): 399–400. Bibcode:2017Natur.542..399C. doi:10.1038/nature.2017.21487. PMID 28230144.
  4. ^ "China Inaugurates the First Biocontainment Level 4 Laboratory in Wuhan". Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. 3 February 2015. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  5. ^ a b c Adam Taylor (29 January 2020). "Experts debunk fringe theory linking China's coronavirus to weapons research". Washington Post. Retrieved 3 February 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. doi:10.1126/science.1118391. PMID 16195424.
  7. ^ David Cyranoski (1 October 2017). "Bat cave solves mystery of deadly SARS virus — and suggests new outbreak could occur". nature.com. Archived from the original on 17 January 2020. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  8. ^ Menachery, V., Yount, B., Debbink, K. et al. A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence. Nat Med 21, 1508–1513 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.3985
  9. ^ Butler, Declan (12 November 2015). "Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research: Lab-made coronavirus related to SARS can infect human cells". Nature.
  10. ^ Qiu, Jane (11 March 2020). "How China's "Bat Woman" Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus". Scientific American.
  11. ^ Chris Buckley; Steven Lee Myers (1 February 2020). "As New Coronavirus Spread, China's Old Habits Delayed Fight". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  12. ^ Jon Cohen (1 February 2020). "Mining coronavirus genomes for clues to the outbreak's origins". Science. Retrieved 4 February 2020. The viral sequences, most researchers say, also knock down the idea the pathogen came from a virology institute in Wuhan.
  13. ^ 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. PMID 32015507.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ 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". Nature. 30 (3): 269–271. doi:10.1038/s41422-020-0282-0. PMC 7054408. PMID 32020029.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ "China Wants to Patent Gilead's Experimental Coronavirus Drug". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  16. ^ Denise Grady (6 February 2020). "China Begins Testing an Antiviral Drug in Coronavirus Patients". New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  17. ^ a b Josh Taylor (31 January 2020). "Bat soup, dodgy cures and 'diseasology': the spread of coronavirus misinformation". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  18. ^ Kate Gibson (3 February 2020). "Twitter bans Zero Hedge after it posts coronavirus conspiracy theory". CBS News. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  19. ^ Clive Cookson (14 February 2020). "Coronavirus was not genetically engineered in a Wuhan lab, says expert". Financial Times. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  20. ^ Butler, Declan. "Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research". Nature News. doi:10.1038/nature.2015.18787.
  21. ^ a b "[TRANSLATED] Wuhan Pneumonia: "Wuhan Virus Research Institute" in the eyes of the outbreak and fake news storm". BBC News China. 5 February 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  22. ^ Yang Rui; Feng Yuding; Zhao Jinchao; Matthew Walsh (7 February 2020). "Wuhan Virology Lab Deputy Director Again Slams Coronavirus Conspiracies". Caixin. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  23. ^ Broderick, Ryan (31 January 2020). "A Pro-Trump Blog Doxed A Chinese Scientist It Falsely Accused Of Creating The Coronavirus As A Bioweapon". Buzzfeed. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  24. ^ Derek Hawkins (1 February 2020). "Twitter bans Zero Hedge account after it doxxed a Chinese researcher over coronavirus". Washington Post. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  25. ^ Stephen Chen (6 February 2020). "Coronavirus: bat scientist's cave exploits offer hope to beat virus 'sneakier than Sars'". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  26. ^ "Administration". Wuhan Institute of Virology, CAS. Archived from the original on 29 July 2019. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  27. ^ Evon, Dan (18 February 2020). "Was Coronavirus Predicted in a 1981 Dean Koontz Novel?". Snopes. Retrieved 29 February 2020.

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