This article examines the 2015 chimeric-virus research involving Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher Shi Zhengli, focusing on the modification of the S spike of a bat-derived SARS virus to enable binding to the human ACE2 receptor and the criticism subsequently raised in Nature over the risks of such research.

August 27, 2020: Shi Zhengli’s Chimeric Virus Research—Genetic Modification of the S Spike of a Bat-Derived SARS Virus and Its Binding to the ACE2 Receptor
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
The Chimera Created by the “Bat Woman”
As a person who “holds the key” to the Wuhan coronavirus, attention has focused on Shi Zhengli, a principal investigator at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Born in 1964, she graduated from the Department of Genetics in the School of Biology at Wuhan University.
She went to France as a researcher and obtained her doctorate from the University of Montpellier.
She subsequently worked in Australia and the United States, and because she collected viruses from bats and studied them, she came to be known by the nickname “Bat Woman.”
In 2015, Shi published a paper in the international medical journal Nature Medicine.
Its title was “Bats as a Source of Emerging Zoonotic Viruses.”
Put simply, the paper described the creation of a new “chimera” through genetic modification.
The bat SARS virus has protein projections known as S spikes, but these are inherently unable to bind to the ACE2 receptors found in the human bronchial tubes.
For that reason, as I wrote at the beginning, the virus cannot be transmitted directly from bats to humans.
Shi, however, modified the S spike of this virus so that it could bind to ACE2.
In other words, she made a bat SARS virus capable of infecting humans.
Whether it was because of that “modification” is unclear, but four regions of the virus came to have the same genetic sequences as the AIDS virus.
The AIDS virus enters the human body and attacks CD4 cells, which produce antibodies responsible for immune functions, thereby destroying those immune functions; the virus created by Shi acquired the same function.
This is also a characteristic and genetic sequence possessed by the present Wuhan coronavirus.
Frankly, it is difficult to believe that such a sequence arose through natural mutation.
It would be normal to conclude that human intervention was involved.
On January 26, the Beijing Municipal Health Commission announced that anti-HIV drugs were effective in the clinical treatment of pneumonia caused by the Wuhan coronavirus.
At that stage, however, would anyone immediately arrive at the idea that “AIDS drugs are effective against pneumonia caused by the Wuhan coronavirus”?
One could not arrive at such an idea without knowing from the outset that it bore a resemblance to the AIDS virus.
In other words, it is conceivable that people within China had Shi’s paper in mind from the very beginning.
Scathing Criticism Three Days Later
Shi Zhengli published her paper on November 9, 2015, but three days later, on November 12, Nature—the journal that might be described as the “elder brother” of Nature Medicine—published an article titled “Engineered Bat Virus Stirs Debate Over Risky Research.”
Its author was Declan Butler, a veteran reporter for Nature.
Based on interviews with various scholars, Butler criticized Shi’s paper by asking, “For what purpose was research of this kind conducted?”
Although many different kinds of research are conducted throughout the world, it is rare, even in academic circles, for such scathing criticism to be directed at a researcher by name.
Shi conducted this research with researchers centered at the University of North Carolina in the United States.
Immediately after Butler’s article appeared, however, the United States decided to terminate all research funding it had provided for SARS-related studies.
It is unclear exactly what kind of research Shi Zhengli was conducting, but in 2013 she announced that she had succeeded in isolating a novel SARS coronavirus that was almost identical to the SARS coronavirus and had further demonstrated that the Chinese horseshoe bat was the source of the SARS virus.
At that time, she also stated that “a vaccine had been developed,” but as has already been pointed out, the virus was not inherently transmissible from bats to humans, so it is unclear what purpose that vaccine was intended to serve.
Perhaps, even at that stage, she was considering the creation of a virus capable of passing from bats to humans.
To be continued.