China’s ‘bat lady’ Shi Zhengli opens path for new coronavirus research

A leading virologist known as China’s “bat woman” has created the first customised coronavirus receptor, a development that could help in the development of new drugs.

Shi Zhengli, who is best known for her work with the Wuhan Institute for Virology, conducted the groundbreaking research along with other scientists from China, the United States and Switzerland.

While researchers have previously been able to create strains of the coronavirus to study its potential evolution and spread, they have not successfully created functional virus receptors, the molecules on the host cells to which the virus binds.

In a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature last month, corresponding author Shi and an international research team introduced the concept of customised virus receptors, a modular chimeric protein they compared to “Lego blocks”.

“The modular design relies on building artificial receptor scaffolds comprising various modules and generating specific virus-binding domains,” the team from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuhan University, University of Washington and Swiss biotechnology company Humabs BioMed wrote.

“Our findings provide a foundation for the design of viral infection models for difficult-to-culture coronaviruses and other viruses, and will facilitate further advances in basic research on various infectious diseases and accelerate the rapid development of countermeasures for the benefit of public health worldwide.”