Zhang Yu

JeniZhang13@163.com

THE Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen has recently been awarded by the Ministry of Science and Technology for its outstanding performance in combating COVID-19.

The hospital is one of the 163 groups in China’s science and technology sector that have been recognized as excellent groups in the fight against COVID-19. A total of 314 individuals across the country have also been recognized for their efforts.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the hospital’s research team has been actively doing scientific research and has independently synthesized primers and probes based on gene sequences to detect the virus, so as to increase nucleic acid testing sensitivity.

The hospital took the lead in detecting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in feces samples from confirmed patients, which provided valuable scientific research information to study the virus’ transmission routes and adjust prevention and control strategies.

In collaboration with the Southern University of Science and Technology, the hospital obtained biological samples from clinical COVID cases, and used cryo-electron microscopy to observe the real structure of SARS-CoV-2 after inactivation, providing an important ultra-fine image basis for virus identification and clinical research.

The hospital, together with Tsinghua University and Brii Biosciences, have jointly developed the cocktail therapy of monoclonal antibodies BRII-196 and BRII-198. The therapy was China’s first approved COVID-19 virus-neutralizing antibody combination therapy with independent intellectual property rights.

The other two awardees from Shenzhen are the Huo-Yan Lab research team and the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen (Shenzhen Cloud Computing Center).