Shi Zhengli is a Chinese virologist who researches SARS-like coronaviruses of bat origin.
13 Facts About Shi Zhengli
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Shi Zhengli came to prominence in the popular press as "Batwoman" during the COVID-19 pandemic for her work with bat coronaviruses.
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Shi Zhengli was included in Times 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
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Shi Zhengli was born in Xixia County, Nanyang, Henan province in 1964.
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Shi Zhengli graduated from Wuhan University in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in genetics.
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Shi Zhengli received her master's degree from the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1990, and she received her PhD at the Montpellier 2 University in France in 2000, where she gained fluency in French.
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Shi Zhengli is the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located in Jiangxia District, Wuhan.
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On her resume, Shi Zhengli mentioned receiving grant funding from US government sources totaling more than US$1.2 million, including $665,000 from the National Institutes of Health from 2014 to 2019, as well as US$559,500 over the same period from USAID.
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In 2008, Shi Zhengli led a research team which studied binding of spike proteins of both natural and chimaeric SARS-like coronaviruses to ACE2 receptors in human, civet and horseshoe bat cells, to determine the mechanism by which SARS may have spilled over into humans.
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In 2014, Shi Zhengli collaborated on additional genetic engineering experiments led by Ralph S Baric of the University of North Carolina, which showed that two critical mutations that the MERS coronavirus possesses allow it to bind to the human ACE2 receptor, and that SARS had the potential to re-emerge from coronaviruses circulating in bat populations in the wild.
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Shi Zhengli argued to the Times that her genetic engineering experiments differed from gain-of-function work because she did not set out to make viruses more dangerous, but instead to see if she could modify them to be able to jump host species.
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Shi Zhengli is a member of the Virology Committee of the Chinese Society for Microbiology.
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Shi Zhengli is editor-in-chief of Virologica Sinica, the Chinese Journal of Virology, and the Journal of Fishery Sciences of China.