They're trying to take these natural viruses and give them new capability. I do believe that they're doing that motivated by trying to be ahead of the game so that we can figure out what kind of countermeasures we need for if and when these pathogens ever became problematic. So I don't necessarily think you have to view this as something that is negative, i am concerned that the gain of function research, if it's done, needs to be in containment labs that are highly contained and have multiple backup capacity.

Shi Zhengli

The unknown viruses that we have discovered are actually just the tip of the iceberg, if we want to protect humans from viruses or avoid a second outbreak of new infectious diseases, we must go in advance to learn of these unknown viruses carried by wild animals in nature and then give early warnings. If we dont study [ the viruses ], there will possibly be another outbreak, she added. Shi Zhengli is seen inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province, on February 23, 2017. ( AFP via Getty Images) A renowned virologist, Shi is best known for her work with bat coronaviruses at her lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology( WIV). She discovered the natural bat reservoir for the SARS pathogen that spread in southern China from 2002 to 2003. Rumors in mid-April claimed that Shi had been.