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In the early days of 2020, as science searched for answers to a mysterious viral outbreak in central China, a leading virologist from China stepped forward to share critical data with the world.
Zhang Yongzhen’s revelation of the genome of the virus that causes Covid-19 was a crucial step in the race to combat the pandemic, helping researchers around the world identify the pathogen and create vaccines to combat it.
The scientific community praised him for his integrity, but in the years since, people who know Zhang say he has faced an unprecedented series of roadblocks in his career in China – and other obstacles to his research in the past week. .
On Sunday and Monday, Zhang, 59, slept overnight in protest outside his laboratory at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center after administrators suddenly closed the facility for renovations, according to accounts posted on his Weibo social media page. .
A post on his page early Wednesday said a “temporary agreement” had been reached for Zhang’s team to resume their scientific work in the laboratory, some of which is related to tracing the origins of Covid-19.
The ordeal is just the latest setback for Zhang’s research since 2020, according to a colleague who has been in contact with the Chinese scientist in recent years.
An online account by Zhang’s research students also listed the challenges the scientist has faced since his official employment was formally transferred to the Shanghai center in 2020, when his 19-year tenure at the China Center for Disease Control and Also prevent. ended.
Their account, reposted on Zhang’s Weibo page and seen by CNN, has since been deleted. He alleged that the Shanghai center, which is affiliated with the city’s Fudan University, failed to formally recognize Zhang’s employment, leaving him without social security and medical benefits, and terminated a five-year collaboration agreement with the scientist. ahead of time.
“An outstanding scientist in his field, a great contributor to the country and humanity should have fallen to this point – sad and chilling,” the post read.
In a statement on Monday, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center said it had closed some laboratories for renovation due to safety concerns and claimed it had provided additional office and experimental spaces for Zhang and his staff.
The institute always respects … and supports scientific researchers and students to carry out routine research work,” the statement said.
Images posted on social media this week appeared to show Zhang wrapped in sheets and sleeping on the doorstep of the laboratory building with security guards hovering over him.
Briefly by phone Monday, Zhang told CNN the center’s explanation that the lab needed to be renovated and that much of the announcement about the move was “nonsense.”
The lab’s closure affected the research of more than a dozen students, he said, adding that it was “difficult” to say more at the time.
In his post on Wednesday, Zhang said his team would “discuss with the (central) laboratory relocation plan for the future, a guarantee of normal life and scientific research work for students during the transition period,” and work to resolve issues which is about solving his part. own agreements with the centre. CNN was unable to independently confirm his posting.
The earlier post by Zhang’s students said that the two days the center gave them were not enough to move their science work first. Their lab was renovated as recently as 2020 and the second lab had not been in use since the pandemic, they said.
Zhang did not link to the online post detailing the circumstances that led to his protest of the lab’s closure to sharing the coronavirus genome sequence in 2020.
Multiple calls from CNN to the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center’s public relations department went unanswered Tuesday.
‘broken machine’
Zhang was the first scientist to share the genomic sequence of Covid-19 on 11 January 2020 as the World Health Organization waited for China provide the data after announcing almost two weeks earlier a viral outbreak in the central city of Wuhan.
He has been internationally praised for his work and was named by Nature as one of 10 people who helped shape science in 2020.
In an interview with the magazine that year, Zhang reflected on his global recognition.
“They say, ‘January 11 was a tipping point to understand that this is serious. It was a turning point for China. It was a turning point for the world,” he said.
But in China, Zhang faced challenges to his work that arose from that moment, according to longtime colleague Edward Holmes, a University of Sydney professor who published the genome with Zhang’s permission on an international data-sharing website.
After the data was released, restrictions were placed on Zhang’s lab, preventing him from isolating the Covid virus, Holmes said.
It is not clear if this move was separate from a Chinese government “correction” order received by Zhang’s team that had reports at the time saying the lab was temporarily closed a day after the sequence was released. Zhang told Nature in 2020 that the order only required his lab to update its biosafety protocols after moving equipment during the construction work.
Zhang, a scientist with China’s CDC since 2001, was also forced out of the agency in September 2020, according to a person familiar with the situation.
CNN has reached out to China’s National Health Commission, which oversees the CDC, for comment.
The changes for Zhang come as China — already known for its top-down control of the academic sector — tightens oversight of scientific information related to the virus. This included imposing restrictions until April 2020 on the publication of academic research into the origins of the novel coronavirus.
Beijing has repeatedly defended its scientific transparency and sharing of data related to the outbreak.
“The idea that (Zhang) would do anything anti-China is ridiculous because of his (national) pride. But it’s clear that the government wanted a certain message to be conveyed, a certain story to be told about the outbreak in Wuhan … by releasing the sequence of the virus it broke that doctrine – and it all stems from that, ” Holmes told CNN on Monday.
“In the old days, pre-Covid … it was like a machine and now the machine is broken. It’s just been slowly crushed by this.”
‘No regrets’
In the months after he shared the Covid-19 sequence, Zhang’s employment was transferred to the Shanghai Public Health Center, where he had a five-year collaboration agreement and a part-time professorship from 2018. It is unclear whether this transfer was already underway . works before January 2020.
Since then, he has continued to publish in journals such as Cell and Nature Microbiology on the presence of viruses in animals and nature in China and has received at least two international awards.
The latest of his international publications in March looked at the variations of coronavirus in Shanghai in the early months of the Covid-19 outbreak, and Zhang’s team continues to work on research related to the virus and its emergence.
Ongoing research includes a National Natural Science Foundation of China project at the lab, the post said.
In a Weibo post on January 11 marking the fourth anniversary of his exposure to Covid, Zhang appeared to allude to the challenges he has faced in the years since.
“Four years ago this morning, on behalf of the research team, we insisted on putting life first and we made the right choice,” Zhang wrote.
“Despite going through continuous ups and downs, experiencing the heat and cold of human emotions, and the harshness of the world, we must regret.”
But in recent years Zhang has made a big impact, according to Holmes.
“He’s not the same in terms of his productivity, he’s completely different – not the same person at all. It’s amazing to watch him and it’s amazing that he’s come this far,” he said.
Holmes, who had limited email contact with Zhang during his protest this week, said the Chinese virologist told him he had recently failed in his pursuit of a lawsuit against the Shanghai center for handling his contract.
“(This has all) gone on for a long time … but I didn’t realize how bad it was,” Holmes said.
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