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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaScience

Coronavirus: Wuhan virology lab’s long history of scientific collaboration

  • French and US expertise behind establishment of China’s top-level research facility into deadly and easily transmittable pathogens
  • International scientists defend Wuhan Institute of Virology and its deputy director Shi Zhengli who discovered link between bats and Sars

Reading Time:4 minutes
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Hazard suits worn by researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s specialist laboratory, the only facility on the Chinese mainland equipped for the highest level of biosafety. Photo: Handout
Linda LewandSarah Zheng
International scientists have defended the Wuhan Institute of Virology, at the heart of a persistent conspiracy theory about the origins of the new coronavirus, pointing to its role as part of a global network into pathogen research.
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While experts have repeatedly said it is highly unlikely the new coronavirus – named Sars-CoV-2 – accidentally leaked from the lab, its location in the central Chinese city where the first infections were reported has made the institute a target in the blame game between the US and China over the pandemic.

But, from the outset, international scientists were closely involved in the development of the institute’s highly specialised laboratory and have repeatedly vouched for its safety procedures. In addition, the institute’s researchers have collaborated with their global counterparts for years.

James Le Duc, director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas, one of the largest active biocontainment facilities on a US campus, was closely involved in training the Wuhan institute’s staff from before it opened in January 2018.

Le Duc, who toured the lab in 2017 before it began operations, said scientists from the Wuhan institute had been active in ongoing dialogue facilitated by science bodies from the United States and China, participating in the discussions and sharing their work. He also defended the institute’s deputy director Shi Zhengli, whose work in researching viruses in bats made her a target for conspiracy theorists.
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