Recently a CAS Key Laboratory was approved to be established at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), CAS, as a platform for etiology and biosafety research on emerging and highly infectious diseases, including Ebola haemorrhagic fever. Once built, it is expected to provide R&D support for the prevention and control of important infectious diseases, as an integral part of the national security system.

Drawing on the existing build-up and resources at WIV in the field of emerging violent viruses and biosafety research, the new Key Lab is to boost the basic and applied fundamental research on quick detection of antigents, molecular epidemiology, epidemic forecast and alert, pathogenic mechanisms, and strategies for the prevention and control of emerging and highly infectious diseases, including Ebola haemorrhagic fever. It will also dedicate itself to R&D of therapeutic antibodies, vaccines, drug evaluation and appraisal, and biosafety.

The new Key Lab will take root in the Institute's build-up in the field of etiology and biosafety research in emerging and highly infectious diseases. Back to 2003, WIV made prompt responses to the outbreak of SARS and played an important role in the battle against this epidemic. WIV scientists successfully detected and isolated SARS-like coronavirus of genetic diversity from bats, demonstrating that bats could be natural hosts of SARS coronavirus. In the prevention and control of bird flu, they effectively detected the antigents and antibodies, and isolated multiple strains of H5N1 bird flu virus, demonstrating that birds were still a potential way of the spread of this epidemic.

Experience accumulated from the above-mentioned battles against epidemics has equipped WIV with necessary capacity to address new challenges in the prevention and control of emerging viruses, paving the way for the setup of research groups in 2007 majoring in research on emerging viruses. In 2010 WIV saw the establishment of a research centre for studies of emerging infectious diseases on its campus, and later in 2012 formation of a team specialized in etiology for emerging infectious diseases. Over the past years, this team made a series of advances in antigent diagnosis, molecular epidemiology, virus immunology and structural biology, developing its own characteristics and advantages.

Director of the new Key Lab, Prof. SHI Zhengli, has long devoted herself to the research on emerging viruses, ranging from the isolation and identification of viruses, inheritance and evolution of viruses, techniques for virus detection, to molecular epidemiological research of viruses. Currently she focuses her efforts on virus carried by wild animals like bats, with extra emphasis on molecular epidemiology and molecular mechanisms underlying cross-species infections of viruses carried by bats that pertain to the health of both humankind and livestock.