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In the early days of 2020, as science sought answers to a mysterious viral outbreak in central China, a leading Chinese virologist stepped forward to share critical data with the world.
Zhang Yongzhen’s disclosure of the genome of the virus that causes Covid-19 was a crucial step in the race to fight the epidemic, helping researchers around the world identify the pathogen and create vaccines against it.
He was praised by the scientific community for his integrity, but since then people who know Zhang say he has faced a series of unprecedented obstacles in his career in China – with another obstacle placed in the way of his research last week. .
On Sunday and Monday, Zhang, 59, slept through the night in protest outside his laboratory at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center after administrators abruptly closed the facility for renovations, according to accounts posted on the Weibo social media page.
A post on his page early Wednesday said a “tentative agreement” had been reached for Zhang’s team to continue their scientific work at the laboratory, some of which had to do with tracing the origins of Covid-19.
The ordeal is the latest obstacle to Zhang’s research since 2020, according to a colleague who has been in contact with the Chinese scientist in recent years.
An account posted online by Zhang’s research students also revealed a series of challenges the scientist has faced since his 19-year tenure at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, since his official job was officially transferred to the Shanghai center in 2020. Finished.
Zhang’s accounts, which were reposted on his Weibo page and seen by CNN, have since been deleted. The report alleges that the Shanghai center, affiliated with the city’s Fudan University, did not officially recognize Zhang’s work, depriving him of social security and medical benefits and prematurely terminating a five-year collaboration agreement with the scientist.
The post said, “It is truly sad and chilling that a senior scientist in his field, a person who has contributed to the country and humanity, has fallen to this point.”
In a statement on Monday, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center claimed that it had closed some laboratories for renovation due to safety concerns and provided additional office and experimental spaces for Zhang and his team.
“The Institute always respects and supports scientific researchers and students conducting normal research work,” the statement said.
Footage posted on social media this week showed Zhang wrapped in blankets and sleeping on the threshold of the laboratory building, with security guards hovering over him.
Reached briefly by phone on Monday, Zhang told CNN that there had been numerous reports that the center’s statement that the laboratory needed to be renovated and that the move was “nonsense.”
More than a dozen students’ research was affected by the lab’s closure, he said, adding that it was “inappropriate” to say more at the time.
In his post on Wednesday, Zhang said his team would “discuss with (the center) the laboratory’s future relocation plan, the guarantee of normal life and scientific research work to students during the transition period” and work to resolve issues related to its mission. their own agreements with the center. CNN could not independently verify her post.
Zhang’s students had previously stated in their posts that the two days the center allotted to them were insufficient to further their scientific work. They added that their laboratories were renovated as recently as 2020 and a second laboratory has not been used since the pandemic.
Neither Zhang nor the online post detailing the circumstances that led to his protest linked the lab’s closure to the sharing of the coronavirus genome sequence in 2020.
Multiple calls from CNN to the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center’s public relations department went unanswered on Tuesday.
‘The machine is broken’
Zhang became the first scientist to share the genome sequence of Covid-19 on January 11, 2020, while the World Health Organization was waiting for China’s announcement. provide data Following the announcement of a viral outbreak in the central city of Wuhan nearly two weeks ago.
He has been praised internationally for his work and was named by Nature as one of 10 people helping shape science in 2020.
In an interview with the magazine that year, Zhang reflected on his worldwide recognition.
“They say, ‘January 11 was a turning point in realizing that this was serious.’ This was a turning point for China. “This was a turning point for the world,” he said.
But in China, Zhang faced challenges to his work that emerged from that moment, according to University of Sydney professor and long-time collaborator Edward Holmes, who published the genome on an international data-sharing website with Zhang’s permission.
Holmes said that after the data was published, restrictions were imposed on Zhang’s laboratory, preventing him from isolating the Covid virus.
It’s unclear whether this move was separate from the Chinese government “correction” order received by Zhang’s team, which resulted in the temporary closure of the lab a day after the sequence aired, according to reports at the time. The order only required his laboratory to update its biosafety protocols after moving equipment during construction work, Zhang told Nature in 2020.
Zhang, who had been a scientist at the China CDC since 2001, also had to leave 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.
For Zhang, these changes come as China, already known for controlling the academic sector from top to bottom, has tightened oversight of scientific information about the virus. This included imposing restrictions on the publication of academic research into the origins of the new coronavirus until April 2020.
Beijing has repeatedly defended its scientific transparency and data sharing on the epidemic.
“The idea that (Zhang) would do anything anti-China is ridiculous given his (national) pride. But clearly the government wanted a certain message to be conveyed, a certain narrative to be put forward about the outbreak in Wuhan… it broke that mandate by releasing the sequence of the virus, and that all stems from that,” Holmes told CNN on Monday. .
“In the old days, before Covid… it was like a machine and now the machine is broken. “He was slowly crushed by this situation.”
‘No regrets’
In the months after sharing the Covid-19 series, Zhang’s job was transferred to the Shanghai Public Health Center, where he has had a five-year collaboration agreement and a part-time professorship since 2018. It is unclear whether this move was already planned. Works before January 2020.
Since then, he has continued to publish on the existence of viruses in animals and nature in China in journals such as Cell and Nature Microbiology, and has received at least two international awards.
The most recent of his international publications, from March, examined coronavirus variants in Shanghai in the early months of the Covid-19 outbreak, and Zhang’s team continues to work on research into the virus and its emergence.
The post noted that ongoing research at the laboratory also includes a National Natural Science Foundation of China project.
In a post on Weibo on January 11 to mark the fourth anniversary of his Covid announcement, Zhang appeared to touch on the challenges he has faced since then.
“Four years ago this morning, on behalf of the research team, we insisted on prioritizing life and made the right choice,” Zhang wrote.
“Despite constant ups and downs, despite experiencing the warmth and coldness of human emotions, the harshness of the world, we have no regrets.”
But according to Holmes, recent years have taken their toll on Zhang.
“It’s not the same in terms of productivity, it’s completely different; Definitely not the same person. “It was extraordinary to watch and it was extraordinary that things had come to this,” he said.
Holmes, who had limited email contact with Zhang during this week’s protest, said the Chinese virologist recently told him he had failed in a lawsuit against the Shanghai center for honoring its contract.
“(All of this) had been going on for a long time … but I didn’t realize things had gotten this bad,” Holmes said.
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