UN Team of Chinese researchers discovered a bats of bats that involves the risk of transmission from animal to man Because it uses the same human receptor of the virus that causes Covid-19. Driving the team, Still her: Shi Zhengli. The virologist known as “Batwoman” It is an absolute authority in the studies on the coronavirus of bats. He worked at the Wuhan Institute, at the center of the controversy on the origins of Covid (although, of course, Shi Zhengli denied that it may have been responsible for pandemic). This study reports the South China Morning Postwas held at the Guangzhou Laboratory together with researchers from the Guangzhou Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University and Wuhan Institute of Virology.
It can go from bats to man: Batwoman discovers a new coronavirus
The latest discovery is a new lineage of the Coronavirus Hku5 identified for the first time in the Japanese bat in Hong Kong. It comes from the Merbecovirus subgenre, which includes the Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome virus (MERS). It is able to bind to the conversion of human angiotensin conversion, the same receptor used by the Sars-Cov-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, to infect the cells.
For the moment there is no alarm. The “risk of onset of (hku5-cov-2) in human populations should not be overrated”wrote the researchers in An article published in the magazine Cell. Its efficiency was “significantly lower” compared to that of Covid-19. But it is clear that careful monitoring is necessary.
The Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli in 2020 in Beijing. (Photo by VCG/VCG Via Getty Images)
This virus He has not yet started his path of adaptation to man (and he may never do it).
The virologist Shi Zhengli, a life to study pipistelli
Born in 1964, Shi Zhengli came to the limelight in popular press as Batwoman during the Covid-19 pandemic for his work with the crownavirus of bats. For this he was included in the list of the 100 most influential people of 2020 of the Time magazine. A degree in genetics at the University of Wuhan and a Ph.D at the University of Montpellier, has studied bats in the caves and in the laboratory for twenty years.
In 2005 he discovered how much the natural tank of the Sars-Covs are and then study the mechanism with which they pour into human beings. With his colleague Jie, he led a team that He championship thousands of bats throughout Chinagiving life to A huge database which was then useful to the scientific community: an “advantage” in understanding the virus.
Shi Zheng-li has published numerous Studies on the transmission dynamics of the Coronaviruscontributing to the understanding of the mechanisms through which these viruses can go from animals to humans. He also worked for Exquesting his laboratory from any responsibility for the Covid-19 pandemicto reply tospeculations On a possible escape of the virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
This latest discovery, of the new Coronavirus Hku5-Cov-2, instead contains a invitation to epidemiological surveillance To identify and study viruses potentially dangerous for human health.
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