|
Institution
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was founded
by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1956. The mission of WIV is
to engage in basic research in virology, as well as to develop techniques
for controlling viral problems that are important to human health
and agriculture.
There are about 130 scientists and officers, as well as about 120
MSc and PhD students in the institute. The Key Laboratory of Molecular
Virology of WIV, leaded by Dr. Zhihong Hu, has 22 staff and a total
of 40 MSc and PhD students. The laboratory works on viruses that
are important to human health and agriculture such as HIV /AIDS,
influenza virus, HCV,baculovirus, etc…
Participants
Since the outbreak of SARS, many groups of the
key laboratories of Molecular Virology at WIV have participated
in SARS CoV research. A biosafety level-3 laboratory has been approved
by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) for conducting
researches of infectious SARS-CoV. The WIV participates in a project
seeking for the animal reservoir of SARS-CoV funded by the MOST,
and has developed a test of polyclonal antibody against IgG of civet
cats which can be used for animal surveys in this project.
Prof. Zhihong Hu, the director of the Key Laboratory of Molecular
Virology of WIV, got her PhD in virology at Wageningen University
(the Netherlands). She has been working in virology for 17 years
and has been co-ordinator for a Dutch-Sino project on baculovirus
since 1996.
Prof. Hanzhong Wang, the group leader of animal viruses research
group at WIV, has worked on different animal viruses fro more than
18 years. He was trained as virologist in China and was further
trained as visiting scientist at the National Veterinary Institute,
Uppsala, Sweden and Wageningen University, the Netherlands.
Prof. Ze Chen, the group leader of the influenza virus research
group at WIV, originally trained as a medical doctor, obtained his
MD at Tokyo University in Japan. He has more than 13 years experience
on influenza virus research, both on molecular virology as well
as on epidemiology and vaccine development.
The above groups have collaborated effectively on SARS-related researches
at WIV supported by MOST, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hubei
Government since last April.
All of them will collaborate in this project.
Participation of women: Hu Zhihong, the
director of the Laboratory.
Roles in the project
-
Under the leadership of Dr. Zhihong Hu, the
scientists from WIV will focus on detection and isolation of
SARS-like CoV from animals.
-
Expertise on virology by Zhihong Hu , Hanzhong
Wang and Ze Chen.
-
Expertise on animal virus research by Hanzhong
Wang.
-
Expertise on epidemiology by Ze Chen.
Publications
5 recent publications:
1. Wang H., F. Deng, G. P. Pijlman, X. Chen, X. Sun, J. M. Vlak
and Z. Hu. . Cloning of biologically active genomes from a Helicoverpa
armigera single-nucleocapsid nucleopolyhedrovirus isolate by using
a bacterial artificial chromosome. Virus Res. 2003. In press.
2. Fang M., H.Wang, H. Wang, L. Yuan, X. Chen,
J. M. Vlak and Z. Hu. 2003. The open reading frame 94 of Helicoverpa
armigera single nucleocapsid nucleopolyhedrovirus encodes a novel
occlusion-derived virion protein: ODV-EC43. J Gen Virol, 2003; 84:
000-000. In press.
3. Long G., X. Chen, D. Peters, J.M. Vlak and Z.
Hu. Open reading frame 122 of Helicoverpa armigera single nucleocapsid
nucleopolyhedrovirus encodes a novel structural protein of occlusion-derived
virions. J Gen Virol, 2003 ;84: 115-121.
4. Chen X., W.F. J. IJkel, R. Tarchini, X. Sun,
H. Sandbrink, H. Wang, S. Peters, D. Zuidema, R. K. Lankhorst, J.
M. Vlak, and Z. Hu. The sequence of the Helicoverpa armigera single
nucleocapsid nucleopolyhedrovirus genome. J Gen Virol, 2001; 82
: 241-257.
5. Chen Z, Kadowaki S, Hagiwara Y, Yoshikawa T,
Sata T, Kurata T, Tamura S. Protection against influenza B virus
infection by immunization with DNA vaccines. Vaccine. 2001. 19:1446-1455.
|
