Dr. Zheng-Li is the Chinese virologist who researches SARS-like coronaviruses of bat origin. At the age of 56, she directs the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Dr. Shi is a member of the Virology Committee of the Chinese Society for Microbiology, and is an editor for two different scientific journals.
At the age of only 23, she acquired her bachelors in hereditary biology, but it wasn’t until the year 2000 that she was finally awarded a PhD from Montpellier University in France. She had to learn not only her science, but also French and English fluently, and Latin.
This new PhD published her first paper a year later, and five years after graduation, Dr. Zheng-Li published her most often quoted work: “Bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-like coronaviruses”.
15 years before the onset of this latest pandemic, she published – in English – the warning.
Today, Dr. Zheng-Li has 92 publications and has been cited over 3,000 times. In other words, she publishes close to five papers per year, which is not “hyperprolific” publishing, by industry standards.
China pays researchers to publish (and this can be many times more than their salary). Her modest number of publications is therefore a sign of the scientist’s integrity.
After more than a decade of work, she has built one of the world’s largest databases of bat-related viruses in the world. She is currently leading a joint effort with scientists from different scientific disciplines to find ways to defeat the new coronavirus.
These researchers can honestly admit that they still cannot fully establish the connection of the virus to all the symptoms observed in model animals, and they do not know how fast it mutates, nor the effect of potential drugs.
When asked to comment about the social media attacks, she said only: “My time must be spent on more important matters.”
You can read Dr. Zhengli’s contributions to science here – https://publons.com/
Her most recent article on the origin of coronavirus, nature.com/
Photo: Weibo, affect added by NewsgateNY.
Dr. Zhengli’s current work is courtesy of information provided by Stephen Chen at www.scmp.com/
