Wuhan Coronavirus Hunter Shi Zhengli Speaks out China’S “Bat Woman” Denies Responsibility for the Pandemic, Demands Apology from Trump

IN DEPTH

Accusations that SARS- CoV-2 originated at her lab affect her team members’ Downloaded from academic work and personal lives, Shi Zhengli says.

COVID-19 Wuhan coronavirus hunter Shi Zhengli speaks out http://science.sciencemag.org/ China’s “Bat Woman” denies responsibility for the pandemic, demands apology from Trump

By Jon Cohen lab has isolated and grown in culture only emy of Sciences, of which WIV is part, and three bat coronaviruses related to one that in- evolutionary biologist Kristian Andersen of he coronavirus pandemic has thrust fected humans: the agent that causes severe Scripps Research suspects they were “care- virologist Shi Zhengli into a fierce spot- acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which fully vetted” by the Chinese government.

light. Shi, nicknamed “Bat Woman,” erupted in 2003. The more than 2000 other “But they’re all logical, genuine, and stick to on June 24, 2021 heads a group that studies bat corona- bat coronaviruses the lab has detected, in- the science,” he says. viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Viro- cluding one that is 96.2% identical to SARS- Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at logy (WIV), in the Chinese city where CoV-2, are simply genetic sequences that her Rutgers University, New Brunswick, who Tthe pandemic began. Many have speculated team has extracted from fecal samples and has long urged for an investigation into that SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen that causes oral and anal swabs of the animals. the possibility that a lab accident COVID-19, accidentally escaped from her She also noted that all staff and spawned the pandemic, is un- lab—a theory promoted by U.S. President students in her lab recently tested Science’s impressed, however. “Most of Donald Trump. Some have even suggested it negative for SARS-CoV-2, challeng- COVID-19 these answers are formulaic, al- could have been engineered there. ing the notion that one of them trig- reporting is most robotic, reiterations of state- supported by the China has forcefully rejected such claims, gered the pandemic. Pulitzer Center ments previously made by Chinese but Shi herself has said very little publicly— Shi was particularly chagrined and the authorities and state media,” until now. On 15 July, Shi emailed Science an- about the 24 April decision by the Heising-Simons Ebright says. swers to a series of questions about the virus’ U.S. National Institutes of Health Foundation. Shi’s responses come at a time origin and her research. In them, she hit back (NIH), made at the White House’s when questions about how the pan- at speculation that the virus leaked from behest, to ax a grant to the EcoHealth Alli- demic originated are increasingly causing in- WIV. She and her colleagues discovered the ance in New York City that included bat virus ternational tensions. Trump frequently calls virus in late 2019, she says, in samples from research at WIV. “We don’t understand [it] SARS-CoV-2 “the China virus” and has said S

G E patients who had a pneumonia of unknown and feel it is absolutely absurd,” she said. China could have stopped the pandemic in its

I M A origin. “Before that, we had never been in Shi’s responses—available in full at tracks. China, for its part, has added an extra

G ET T Y contact with or studied this virus, nor did we scim.ag/ShiZhengli—are “a big contribu- layer of review for researchers who want to / know of its existence,” Shi wrote. tion,” says Daniel Lucey of Georgetown publish on the pandemic’s origins and has as- A F P “U.S. President Trump’s claim that SARS- University, an outbreak specialist who blogs serted that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated CoV-2 was leaked from our institute totally about SARS-CoV-2 origin issues. “There are in the United States. Calls for an independent, S EI EL E/ contradicts the facts,” she added. “It jeopar- a lot of new facts that I wasn’t aware of. It’s international probe into the origin are mount- dizes and affects our academic work and per- very exciting to hear this directly from her.” ing, and two researchers from the World J O H A N E O :

T sonal life. He owes us an apology.” The answers were coordinated with public Health Organization are now in China to dis-

P H O Shi stressed that over the past 15 years, her information staffers at the Chinese Acad- cuss the scope and scale of a possible mission.

SCIENCE sciencemag.org 31 JULY 2020 • VOL 369 ISSUE 6503 487

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Lucey says Shi’s answers to Science’s ques- SARS-CoV-2, differences in the sequences of Antibody tests have shown there is “zero tions could help guide the investigation team. the two viruses suggest they diverged from infection” among institute staff or students a common ancestor somewhere between with SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses. Shi PETER DASZAK of the EcoHealth Alliance, 20 and 70 years ago. Shi notes that her lab said WIV has never been ordered to destroy who has long worked with Shi, describes her never cultured the bat virus, making an ac- any samples after the pandemic erupted. as social, open, and something of a goodwill cident far less likely. Labs that presumably had strict biosafety ambassador for China at meetings, where Some suspicions have focused on a naming rules have had accidents: The SARS virus she converses in both French and English. inconsistency. In 2016, Shi described a partial escaped from several labs after the global (She’s also a renowned singer of Mandarin sequence of a bat coronavirus that she dubbed outbreak was contained in 2003. And even folk songs.) “What I really like about Zhengli 4991. That small part of the genome exactly if everyone in the institute tested negative is that she is frank and honest, and that just matches RaTG13, leading some to speculate for the virus today, an infected person could makes it easier to solve problems,” he says. that Shi never revealed the full sequence of have left WIV months ago. Still, Holmes says, Shi studied at Wuhan University and WIV, 4991 because it actually is SARS-CoV-2. But the answers are “a clear, comprehensive, and then earned a Ph.D. at the University of Mont- Shi explained that 4991 and RaTG13 are one believable account” of what occurred at WIV. pellier II in France. She returned to WIV in and the same. The original name, she says, 2000, initially focusing on viruses in shrimp was for the bat itself, but her team switched BUT THEN where did the virus come from? and crabs. A turning point in her career to RaTG13 when they sequenced the entire Shi concurs with the scientific consensus came in 2005, when she published a study in virus. TG stands for Tongguan, the town in that it originated in bats and jumped to hu- Science with Daszak and other researchers Yunnan province where they trapped that mans either directly or, more likely, via an from China, Australia, and the United States. bat, she said, and 13 for the year 2013. intermediate host. Her lab tested samples The paper reported the first evidence that from Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, Downloaded from bats harbored coronaviruses closely related which Wuhan officials initially fingered as a to the lethal virus that jumped from civets to possible origin because some early patients humans and caused the worldwide outbreak had links to it, and found RNA fragments of SARS in 2003. from the virus in “door handles, the ground Daszak has continued to work with Shi and sewage,” she wrote—but not in “frozen and her WIV team to sample wild animals animal samples.” But the market’s role was http://science.sciencemag.org/ and hunt for more coronaviruses. They have called into question when two papers re- published 18 more papers together. Shi “is ex- vealed that up to 45% of the first confirmed tremely driven to produce high-quality work,” patients—including four of the five earliest Daszak says. “She will go out in the field, and cases—did not have any links to it. “The Hua- gets involved in the work, but her real skills nan seafood market may just be a crowded are in the lab, and she’s one of the best I’ve location where a cluster of early novel worked with in China, probably globally.” coronavirus patients were found,” Shi says. Shi told Science her lab was thrust into the Researchers from WIV and Huazhong Ag- pandemic on 30 December 2019, the day her ricultural University didn’t find the virus in

team first received patient samples. “Subse- farmed animals and livestock around Wuhan on June 24, 2021 quently, we rapidly conducted research in and in other places in Hubei province, she parallel with other domestic institutions, and wrote. Years of surveillance in Hubei have quickly identified the pathogen,” she wrote. never turned up bat coronaviruses close to It didn’t long take for suspicions and ru- SARS-CoV-2, she said, leading her to believe mors to arise, first on China’s social media the jump to humans happened elsewhere. sites and then in Western media. On 2 Feb- Shi provided few details on China’s ef- ruary, Shi posted a note on her own social Shi Zhengli’s team has taken thousands of samples forts to pin down the origin. “Many groups media site saying SARS-CoV-2 was “nature from wild bats but never found the novel coronavirus. in China are carrying out such studies,” she punishing the uncivilized habits and customs wrote, using multiple approaches. “We are of humans,” and that she would “bet my life That’s “a very logical explanation,” says publishing papers and data, including those that [the outbreak] has nothing to do with Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist at about the virus’s origins.” the lab.” Partly as a show of support for Shi, the University of Sydney. Shi’s reply also clari- Daszak supports the push for an inter- Daszak and 26 other scientists from eight fied to him why 4991 held such little interest national research effort—which he cau- countries published a statement of solidarity to her team that they didn’t even bother to tions could take years—and says Shi’s with Chinese scientists and health profes- sequence it fully until recently: That short ge- group should play a prominent role in it. sionals in The Lancet in February. In a March netic sequence was very different from SARS- “I hope and believe that she will be able to Nature paper that analyzed SARS-CoV-2’s CoV, the virus that caused the 2003 outbreak. help WIV and China show the world that genetic makeup, Andersen and other evolu- “In reading this the penny dropped: Of there is nothing to these lab escape theo- tionary biologists argued against it being en- course, they would have been mainly inter- ries, and help us all to find the true origins gineered in a lab. ested in bat viruses closely related to SARS- of this viral strain,” he says. Shi ended her In her written answers to Science, Shi ex- CoV … not some random bat virus that is answers on a similar note. “Here, I would plained in great detail why she thinks her lab more distant,” Holmes says. like to make an appeal to the international is blameless. WIV has identified hundreds of Shi mentioned other factors that she says community to strengthen international co- bat viruses over the years, but never anything exonerate her lab. Their research meets strict operation on research into the origins of close to SARS-CoV-2, she says. Although biosafety rules, she said, and the lab is sub- emerging viruses,” she said. “I hope scien- much speculation has centered on RaTG13, ject to periodic inspections “by a third-party tists around the world can stand together j the bat virus that most closely resembles institution authorized by the government.” and work together.” ZHANG SHUYI PHOTO:

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Published by AAAS Wuhan coronavirus hunter Shi Zhengli speaks out Jon Cohen

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