They completed a decade of work in just 18 months! They are the researchers fighting against the new coronavirus mutation

On the evening of December 8, 2021, my country's first independently developed anti-new coronavirus antibody drug was officially approved for marketing by the China Food and Drug Administration. Behind the launch of this drug, there is a group of scientific researchers who have raced against time to fight against various mutant strains in the past two years. Today's Spring Festival Grassroots Report series takes you to the scientific research team of Professor Zhang Linqi of Tsinghua University and explores the intense work of the first new coronavirus drug development team.

Tsinghua University in January was very cold, but the atmosphere in a small office on the second floor of the Medical Science Building was tense and heated. Professor Zhang Linqi and his laboratory team were discussing the reaction of the newly emerged new coronavirus variant Omicron to the new coronavirus antibodies.

Professor Zhang Linqi from Tsinghua University School of Medicine: This is the activity of Omicron. The red one is our 196/198 antibodies, which are our two drugs. What are the other colors? They are all the drugs that have been approved for clinical use. You can see that it is obviously the best.

The red color indicates the activity of the antibody, and the more these grids are filled with red, the darker the color, which means that the antibody covers more mutant strains and the stronger the antibody activity. Injecting neutralizing antibodies into the human body is one of the most effective ways to fight the new coronavirus. Since the beginning of the epidemic, Professor Zhang's team has been working on the search for neutralizing antibodies and has never stopped.

Racing against time and fighting against virus mutations have been the norm for the new coronavirus drug research and development team at Tsinghua University for the past two years. The new drug team has only a dozen students, and their average age is only 23 or 24 years old. Their daily activities are carried out in these two laboratories of less than 100 square meters.

Chen Peng, a doctoral student at Tsinghua University School of Medicine: Those who have checked the boxes are all those who have done experiments. Basically, they are one in a hundred or one in a thousand. And it seems that they are one in a thousand, but in fact, they are one in thousands here, because we have to repeat it several times.

These small blue tubes contain the sample genes of the new coronavirus antibodies. After the recent emergence of the new variant Omicron, the laboratory increased the intensity of the experiment and prepared more than 200 antibody samples within a week. Each sample had to undergo repeated tests many times, and it took two weeks to complete a wave of sample experiments.

In another laboratory, Chen Peng's partner Zhang Rui is conducting different binding tests between the prepared antibodies and the virus. He has to inject the prepared liquid into small holes one by one. When there are many samples, he has to sit here and operate manually for a whole day.

Zhang Rui, a 2017 student in the Medical Experimental Class of the School of Medicine at Tsinghua University: I think it is equivalent to a battle with infectious diseases in advance and personally.

Since the experiments need to be closely connected, students set an alarm to remind themselves for each experiment. In the past two years, the experiments have been continuous and everyone has almost no rest days.

Chen Peng, a doctoral student at Tsinghua University School of Medicine: Basically we go to work at around 7 or 8 o'clock and leave around 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, with a five or six hour break in between.

The importance of time to the team is reflected in every detail. During lunch, Professor Zhang used this free time to help students review their graduation theses.

On the evening of December 8, 2021, my country's first independently developed anti-new coronavirus antibody drug was officially approved for marketing by the China Food and Drug Administration. This drug was isolated and screened by Professor Zhang Linqi's team from the blood samples of recovered COVID-19 patients. The two most powerful neutralizing antibody combinations, BRII-196 and BRII-198, were found. After research and experiments, it was found that this antibody combination has high neutralizing activity against all virus variants found in the world, including Delta. However, the launch of the drug is only the first step. Faced with the constantly mutating virus, the team must comprehensively crack one unknown after another from more dimensions, pathogenic mechanisms, etc., and verify the effectiveness of the drug against various mutations. Failure is also commonplace. The scientific research team figuratively said that they are waging a war without gunpowder with the virus in the laboratory.

Professor Zhang Linqi from Tsinghua University School of Medicine: In the past 18 months, we have completed the workload of a normal 10 years, so you can imagine that the workload is still very intense. You must have tenacity and perseverance. I feel quite relieved that we have a very strong team. Without their hard work and selflessness, we would not have achieved what we have today.

At night, the laboratory was still brightly lit. Alarm clocks rang one after another, and students rushed around in the experimental space of only a few dozen square meters. Professor Zhang made a voice call to his family abroad as usual, and then returned to the office to continue browsing the latest scientific research papers and information.

It was close to midnight when Professor Zhang left the laboratory. For the drug development team racing against time and viruses, this was just an ordinary day in the past two years. They will start a new round of experimental tasks tomorrow.

Editor-in-charge: Tang Jiaming

Source: CCTV News Client