Zhengli Shi, Ph.D.

Zhengli Shi, Ph.D.

she/her/hers

Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Dr. Zhengli Shi graduated from the Department of Biology, Wuhan University, China, in 1987. She earned her Master’s degree at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 1990 and Ph.D degree at the Montpellier University II, France, in 2000. She has been a permeant staff at the WIV since 1990. Her research focuses on virus identification and viral pathogenesis, including discovery of unknown viruses in wild animals, molecular epidemiology and interspecies infection mechanism of zoonotic viruses. She is in charge for the viral surveillance among bat samples leading to the discovery and new recognition of a wide-array of SARS-related coronaviruses, filoviruses, adenoviruses and other novel viruses in mainland China. Her long experience on bat coronavirus led to the rapid identification of the pathogen of COVID-19 and its probable bat origin. Shi won the second Natural Science Award of China in 2018 and was elected as fellowship of American Academy of Microbiology in 2019. She has provided editorial service to Virology, Virology Journal and has served as editor-in-chief for Virologica Sinica since 2017.