Wuhan Institute of Virology
Virology institute operating mainland China's first BSL-4 lab.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (WIV) is a virology research institute located in Jiangxia District, Wuhan, Hubei. Founded in 1956, it opened mainland China's first biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory in 2018 and has been an active premier research center for the study of coronaviruses.
Quick Facts
- Abbreviation
- WIV
- Formation
- 1956
- Founder
- Chen Huagui, Gao Shangyin
- Headquarters
- Xiaohongshan, Wuchang District, Wuhan, Hubei, China
- Leader
- Wang Yanyi
- Parent organization
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Staff
- 295
Facts from the source article.
History
The WIV originated in 1956 as the Wuhan Microbiology Laboratory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, established by scientists Gao Shangyin and Chen Huagui. It was renamed several times, becoming the South China Institute of Microbiology in 1961, the Wuhan Microbiology Institute in 1962, and the Microbiology Institute of Hubei Province in 1970 under the Hubei Commission of Science and Technology. In June 1978, it returned to CAS and was renamed Wuhan Institute of Virology. In 2003, CAS approved construction of mainland China's first BSL-4 laboratory at the WIV. The National Bio-safety Laboratory was built in 2014 at a cost of 300 million yuan, with assistance from the French government's CIRI lab. It contains 3000 m2 of BSL-4 space, 20 BSL-2, and two BSL-3 laboratories. The BSL-4 facilities were accredited by CNAS in January 2017 and became operational in January 2018. The institute investigates highly dangerous viruses including SARS, influenza H5N1, Japanese encephalitis, and dengue. The National Bio-safety Laboratory has strong ties to the Galveston National Laboratory and had ties with Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory until WIV staff scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were escorted from the Canadian lab in July 2019. Researchers have collaborated internationally on chimeric coronavirus work, which some experts classify as gain of function research, though many dispute this.
Coronavirus research
In 2005, WIV researchers published findings that China's horseshoe bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-like coronaviruses. Over years, they sampled thousands of horseshoe bats across China, isolating over 300 bat coronavirus sequences. In 2015, an international team including two WIV scientists engineered a hybrid virus combining a bat coronavirus with a SARS virus adapted to grow in mice, which infected human cells. In 2017, a WIV team announced that coronaviruses from bats in a Yunnan cave contained all genetic pieces of the SARS virus, hypothesizing the direct progenitor originated there; they warned of spillover risk due to a nearby village. In 2018, a serological study of villagers near those caves found 6 of 218 residents carried antibodies to bat coronaviruses, suggesting possible bat-to-human transmission. Prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, coronavirus research at the WIV was conducted in BSL-2 and BSL-3 laboratories. In December 2019, after pneumonia cases were reported in Wuhan, the institute checked its coronavirus collection and found the new virus had 96% genetic similarity to RaTG13, a virus discovered in horseshoe bats in southwest China.
Virus speculations criticism
The laboratory has been the focus of conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated speculation about the origin of the virus, causing political tension between China and other countries including Australia and the United States. Allegations have included that the outbreak resulted from manipulation or accidental release of a virus from WIV facilities, with claims of a cover-up. Shi Zhengli denied any connection between the WIV and the emergence of COVID-19. In February 2021, a WHO team said a laboratory leak origin was extremely unlikely, though WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted the report's conclusions were not definitive and data had been withheld. Politicians including Joe Biden and Boris Johnson have called for further investigations. The scientific opinion that an accidental leak is possible but unlikely has remained steady.
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