On the morning of September 29, the inaugural meeting of the Science and Technology Steering Committee of the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as “Wuhan P4 Laboratory”) was held. ZHANG Tao, the Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) attended the meeting. The meeting was hosted by Academician George F. Gao, the Director of the Science and Technology Steering Committee of Wuhan P4 Laboratory and Director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

At the meeting, ZHANG Tao issued the appointment certificates to the experts of the Steering Committee. Then the experts jointly examined the charter of the Steering Committee, and listened to the Wuhan P4 laboratory operation and research layout progress report. The participants also conducted in-depth exchanges and discussions on laboratory’s qualifications in pathogen preservation, scientific and technological cooperation mechanisms, and talent introduction, and clarified the Wuhan P4 laboratory's support capabilities for biosafety platforms, viral resource culture capacity, and national biosafety construction services.

The experts expressed their affirmation for the contribution of Wuhan P4 Laboratory to China's biosafety, human health and public health fields, and pointed out that the laboratory should play as a good high-level biosafety platform in the positioning of co-construction and common management. The laboratory shall further strengthen management, train high-level biosafety experimenters, conduct more in-depth and extensive international cooperation and scientific research, and carry a national-level mission.

ZHANG Tao thanked the relevant state and local authorities and the participating experts for their support of Wuhan P4 laboratory. He pointed out that as the country's first high-level biosafety laboratory built in accordance with international standards, Wuhan P4 laboratory is not only an important part of the strategic deployment by CAS, but also a institution that jointly built with the National Health Commission of China and the Hubei Provincial People's Government. As a hardware facility and conditional platform for researching and utilizing highly pathogenic pathogens, Wuhan P4 Laboratory is not only a laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but also a national laboratory. We must continue to uphold the concept of open sharing, further strengthen cooperation with domestic and foreign scientific research and health institutions, and constantly absorb and bring together outstanding scientific research staff at home and abroad to produce more and more important outstanding results. In the future scientific research activities, we will further enhance the sense of urgency and responsibility, adhere to demand orientation, problem orientation, goal orientation, and consolidate the direction of scientific research, so that the laboratory can give full play to the leading and pivotal role of large scientific facilities. For the national biosafety, the laboratory will make greater contributions to the cause of human health.

WU Peixin, the Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Department of the National Health Commission of China, and GE Lin, the Deputy Director of Department of Science and Technology of Hubei Province, and the representatives from CAS attended the meeting.