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Lipkin was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended the University of Chicago Laboratory School and was president of the student board in 1969. He relocated to New York and earned his BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 1974. At Sarah Lawrence, he "felt that if I went straight into cultural anthropology after college I’d be a parasite. I’d go someplace, take information about myths and ritual, and have nothing to offer. So I decided to become a medical anthropologist and try to bring back traditional medicines. Suddenly I found myself in medical school."[1] Returning to his hometown Chicago, Lipkin earned his MD from Rush Medical College, in 1978. He then became a clinical clerk at the UCL Institute of Neurology in Queen Square, London, on a fellowship, and an intern in Medicine at University of Pittsburgh (1978–1979). He completed a residency in Medicine at University of Washington (1979–1981), and completed a residency in Neurology at University of California, San Francisco (1981–1984). He conducted postdoctoral research in microbiology and neuroscience at The Scripps Research Institute, from 1984 to 1990, under the mentorship of Michael Oldstone and Floyd Bloom. In his six years at Scripps, Lipkin became a senior research associate upon completing his postdoctoral work, and was president of the Scripps' Society of Fellows in 1987.
Career
Lipkin has earned the reputation of a "master virus hunter" due to his speed and innovative methods of identifying new viruses, and has been lauded by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony S. Fauci. As director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Mailman School of Public Health; Lipkin, from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, has led CII researchers collaborating with researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in China. Dr. Lipkin had also advised the Chinese government and the World Health Organization (WHO) during the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak.[2][3] Dr. Lipkin described his own infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, beginning mid-March 2020, which resulted in a case of COVID-19 and necessitated his recovering from the illness at home, on the podcastThis Week in Virology.[4]
Lipkin was the Louise Turner Arnold Chair in the Neurosciences[5] at the University of California, Irvine from 1990 to 2001 and was recruited shortly thereafter by Columbia University. He began his current tenure at Columbia as the founding director of the Jerome L. and Dawn Greene Infectious Disease Laboratory from 2002 to 2007, which transitioned to the John Snow Professorship he holds at present.
A physician-scientist, Lipkin is internationally recognized for his work with West Nile virus and SARS, as well as advancing pathogen discovery techniques by developing a staged strategy using techniques pioneered in his lab. These molecular biological methods, including MassTag-PCR, the GreeneChip diagnostic, and High Throughput Sequencing, are a major step towards identifying and studying new viral pathogens that emerge locally throughout the globe. A major node in a global network of investigators working to address the challenges of pathogen surveillance and discovery, Dr. Lipkin has trained over 30 internationally based scientists in these state-of-the art diagnostic techniques.
Lipkin is the director for the Center for Research in Diagnostics and Discovery, under the National Institutes of Health Centers of Excellence for Translational Research program.[6] The Center for Research brings together leading investigators in microbial and human genetics, engineering, microbial ecology and public health to develop insights into mechanisms of disease and methods for detecting infectious agents, characterizing microflora and identifying biomarkers that can be used to guide clinical management. Lipkin was previously the Director of the Northeast Biodefense Center,[7] the Regional Center of Excellence in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases which comprised 28 private and public academic and public health institutions in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Within this consortium, his research focused on pathogen discovery, using unexplained hemorrhagic fever, febrile illness, encephalitis, and meningoencephalitis as targets. He is the Principal Investigator of the Autism Birth Cohort, a unique international program that investigates the epidemiology and basis of neurodevelopmental disorders through analyses of a prospective birth cohort of 100,000 children and their parents. The ABC is examining gene-environment-timing interactions, biomarkers and the trajectory of normal development and disease. Lipkin also directs the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Diagnostics in Zoonotic and Emerging Infectious Diseases, the only academic center, and one of two in the US (the other is CDC), that participates in outbreak investigation for the WHO.
Lipkin was co-chair of CDC Steering Committee of the National Biosurveillance Advisory Subcommittee (NBAS).[8] The NBAS was established in response to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 21 (HSPD-21),[9] "Public Health and Medical Preparedness."
He is Honorary Director of the Beijing Infectious Disease Center, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institut Pasteur de Shanghai and serves on boards of the Australian Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre for Emerging Infectious Disease, the Guangzhou Institute for Biomedicine and Health, the EcoHealth Alliance,[10] Tetragenetics, and 454 Life Sciences Corporation.
While not quite a medical anthropologist, Lipkin specializes in infectious diseases and their neurological impact. His first professional publication came in 1979 during the time of his fellowship in London as a letter to the Editor at the Archives of Internal Medicine (now JAMA Internal Medicine), where he poses a potential correlation between eosinopenia and bacteremia in diagnostic evaluations for a bacteremic patient.[12] While at UCL, he worked with John Newsom-Davis, who was utilizing plasmapheresis to better understand myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease.[13]
In 1981, Lipkin began his neurology residency and worked in a local San Francisco clinic, which was about the time AIDS began to affect the local city population. Because of the social view of homosexual people at the time, very few clinicians would see patients with these symptoms. He "was watching many patients fall ill with AIDS. It took years for scientists to discover the virus responsible for the disease... 'I saw all of this, and I said, 'We have to find new and better ways to do this.'"[14] It was during this epidemic that Lipkin took the approach of looking for a virus’ genes instead of looking for antibodies in infected people as a way to speed up the diagnosis process. By the mid-1980s, Lipkin had published two papers specifically about AIDS research[15][16] and transitioned into utilizing a more pathological approach to virus identification. He identified AIDS-associated immunological abnormalities and inflammatory neuropathy, which he showed could be treated with plasmapheresis and demonstrated early life exposure to viral infections affects neurotransmitter function.
Bornavirus
In 1989, Lipkin was the first to identify a microbe using purely molecular tools.[17][18] During his time as Chair at UC Irvine, Lipkin published several papers throughout the decade dissecting and interpreting bornavirus.[19] Once it was apparent the viral infections could selectively alter behavior and steady state brain levels of neurotransmittermRNAs, the next step was to look for infectious agents which could be used as probes to map anatomic and functional domains in the central nervous system (CNS).[20]
By the mid-1990s, it was asserted that "Borna disease is a neurotropic negative-strand RNA virus that infects a wide range of vertebrate hosts," causing "an immune-mediated syndrome resulting in disturbances in movement and behavior."[21] This led to several groups across the globe working to determine if there was a link between Borna disease virus (BDV) or a related agent and human neuropsychiatric disease.[22] The group was formally called Microbiology and Immunology of Neuropsychiatric Disorders (MIND) and the multicenter, multi-national group focused on using standardized methods for clinical diagnosis and blinded laboratory assessment of BDV infection.[23] After nearly two decades of inquiry, the first blinded case-controlled study of the link between BDV and psychiatric illness[24] was completed by the researchers at Columbia University's Center for Infection and Immunity in a joint effort that concluded there is no association between the two. Lipkin noted that "it was concern over the potential role of BDV in mental illness and the inability to identify it using classical techniques that led us to develop molecular methods for pathogen discovery. Ultimately these new techniques enabled us to refute a role for BDV in human disease. But the fact remains that we gained strategies for the discovery of hundreds of other pathogens that have important implications for medicine, agriculture, and environmental health."[25]
West Nile Virus
West Nile Virus in New York
In 1999, West Nile virus was reported in two patients in Flushing Hospital Medical Center in Queens, New York. Lipkin led the team identifying West Nile virus in brain tissue of encephalitis victims in New York State.[14] It was determined potential routes for the spread of West Nile virus throughout New York (and the Eastern United States) originated from predominantly mosquitoes, but also possible from infected birds or human beings. There is a high likelihood the two international airports nearby the initial reported cases were also the initial points of entry into the United States.[26] During the five years after the first reported case, Lipkin worked on a study with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Wadsworth Center at the New York State Department of Health to determine how a vaccine could be developed. While they had some success with the immunization of mice with particles resembling the structural protein prME of West Nile Virus,[27] as of 2018, there is still no human vaccine for West Nile Virus.[28]
SARS-CoV
Sars-corona
Chinese scientists first discovered the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus in February 2003, but due to initial misinterpretation of the data, the information of the correct agent associated with SARS was suppressed and the outbreak investigation had a delayed start. Advanced hospital facilities were at the greatest risk as they were most susceptible to virus transmission, so it was the "classical gumshoe epidemiology" of "contact tracing and isolation" that brought swift action against the epidemic.[29] Lipkin was requested to assist with the investigation by Chen Zhou, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Xu Guanhua, minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology in China to "assess the state of the epidemic, identify the gaps in science, and develop a strategy for containing the virus and reducing morbidity and mortality."[30] This brought the development of real-time polymerase chain reaction technology, which essentially allowed for the detection of infection at earlier time points as the process, in this instance, targets the N gene sequence and amplify the analysis in a closed system. This markedly reduces the risk of contamination during processing.[31] Test kits were developed with this PCR-based assay analysis[32] and 10,000 were hand-delivered to Beijing during the height of the outbreak by Lipkin, whereupon he trained local clinical microbiologists on the proper usage. He became ill upon his return to the U.S. and was quarantined.[33]
Lipkin was asked to join the Defense Science Board Task Force on SARS Quarantine Guidance during the height of the SARS outbreak between 2003 and 2004, to advise the U.S. Department of Defense on steps to domestically manage the epidemic. As part of the EcoHealth Alliance, Lipkin's center worked in conjunction with an NIH/NIAID grant[34] assessing bats as the reservoir for the SARS virus. 47 publications resulted from this grant, which also included assessment on Nipah, Hendra, Ebola, and Marburg viruses. This proved to be significant research on the overall study of viral reservoirs as it was determined that bats carry coronaviruses and either directly infect humans with an exchange of bodily fluid (such as a bite) or indirectly by infecting an intermediate host, such as swine.[35] Lipkin addressed a health forum in Guangzhou in January 2004 where China Daily reported him as saying: "SARS virus is probably rooted and spread by rats."[36]
In 2016, the Chinese government awarded him the International Science and Technology Cooperation Award, the nation's top science honor for foreign scientists,[37] and in January 2020, it awarded him a medal marking the People's Republic of China's 70th Anniversary, both awards for his work during the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak and in strengthening China's public health system.[38]
MERS-CoV
Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) was first reported in Saudi Arabia during June 2012 when a local man was initially diagnosed with acute pneumonia and later died of kidney failure. The early reports of the disease were similar to SARS as the symptoms are similar, but it was quickly determined these cases were caused by a new strain called MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Given Lipkin's expertise with the SARS outbreak in China nearly ten years prior, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health granted Lipkin and his lab local access to animal samples related to the initial reported cases.[39] With the rare opportunity, Lipkin's team created a mobile lab able to fit in six pieces of personal luggage and was transported from New York to Saudi Arabia via commercial flight to complete the analysis of samples.[40]
It seemed unlikely that bats were directly infecting humans, as the direct physical interaction between the two is limited at best.[39] A study was completed in more local proximity, examining the diverse bat populations in southeastern Mexico and determining how diverse the viruses they carry could be.[41] However, it became apparent that dromedary camels were the intermediary in the transmission between bats and humans, since camel milk and meat are dietary staples in the Saudi Arabian region.[42] The instances of human-to-human transmission appeared to be isolated to case-patients and anyone in close direct contact with them, as opposed to a broad open-air transmission.[43] By 2017, it was determined that bats are most likely the evolutionary original source for MERS-CoV along with several other coronaviruses, though not all of those types of zoonotic viruses are direct threats to humans like MERS-CoV[44] and "[c]ollectively, these examples demonstrate that the MERS-related coronaviruses are high associated with bats and are geographically widespread."[45]
Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a chronic condition characterized by extreme fatigue after exertion that is not relieved by rest and includes other symptoms, such as muscle and joint pain and cognitive dysfunction. In September 2017, the NIH awarded a $9.6 million grant to Columbia University for the "CfS for ME/CFS" intended for the pursuit of basic research and the development of tools to help both physicians and patients effectively monitor the course of the illness.[46] This collaboration effort led by Lipkin includes other institutions, such as the Bateman Horne Center (Lucinda Bateman), Harvard University (Anthony L. Komaroff), Stanford University (Kegan Moneghetti), Sierra Internal Medicine (Daniel Peterson), University of California, Davis (Oliver Fiehn), and Albert Einstein College of Medicine (John Greally), along with private clinicians in New York City.[47]
The team of researchers and clinicians initially collaborated to de-link xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) to ME/CFS after the NIH requested research into the conflicting reports between XMRV and ME/CFS. The group "consolidated its vision with support from the Hutchins Family Foundation Chronic Fatigue Initiative and a crowd-funding organization, The Microbe Discovery Project, to explore the role of infection and immunity in disease and identify biomarkers for diagnosis through functional genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic discovery."[48] The project will collect a large clinical database and sample repository representing oral, fecal, and blood samples from well-characterized ME/CFS subjects and frequency-matched controls collected nationwide over a period of several years. Additionally, researchers are working with ME/CFS community and advocacy groups as the project progresses.[49]
Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM)
Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) is a serious condition of the spinal cord with symptoms including rapid onset of arm or leg weakness, decreased reflexes, difficulty moving the eyes, speaking, or swallowing may also occur. Occasionally numbness or pain may be present and complications can include trouble breathing. In August 2019, Lipkin and Dr. Nischay Mishra published a collaborative study with the CDC in analyzing serological data for serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples of AFM patients.[50] The Lipkin team utilized high-density peptide arrays (also known as Serochips) to identify antibodies to EV-D68 in those samples. The technology was featured on the Dr. Oz Show in mid-September, illustrating how the enterovirus affects the CSF and the actual Serochip used to do the analysis.[51][52] In October, the University of California, San Francisco published a separate collaborative study with the CDC that confirmed the presence of antibodies to enterovirus in AFM patient CSF samples using phage display (VirScan).[53] "It's always good to see reproducibility. It gives more confidence in the findings for sure," commented Lipkin in an October 2019 CNN article. "This gives us more support of what we found."[54][55][56]
SARS-CoV-2
According to the Financial Times, Lipkin first learnt of COVID-19 from contacts in China, where it first emerged, in mid-December.[57] In early January he repeatedly urged his Chinese counterparts to publish the virus's genetic sequencing to aid research, and visited senior Chinese officials, including PremierLi Keqiang,[58] to discuss the disease. Lipkin described his engagement with the early COVID-19 investigations during an April 2023 interview with the U.S. House of RepresentativesSelect Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.[59]
On January 29, 2020, Lipkin flew into Guangzhou, China to learn about the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2.[60] Lipkin met with the epidemiologist and pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan,[61] the lead advisor to the Chinese government during the outbreak.[62] Lipkin also worked with the China CDC to access blood samples from across the country for further study into the origin and spread of the virus.[63] Lipkin did not travel to Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, due to fears that this would prevent him from returning to the United States.[64] On returning to the United States, Lipkin self-quarantined for 14 days.[65] Lipkin later contracted SARS-CoV-2 in New York City,[66] refusing to go to hospital and treating himself with hydroxychloroquine at home.[57]
Lipkin criticized what he considered a xenophobic response that blames China for the virus, specifically the words of US president Donald Trump calling it the "China virus" and his decision to suspend funding to the World Health Organization for being "China-centric", calling for "global problems" to be addressed by "global solutions". He said that a series of government missteps helped spread the virus around the world very rapidly, and criticized the US and UK's responses, calling them slow, and blamed insufficient and inadequate testing and tracing for rising fatality numbers. In the US, he singled out as an issue what he saw as an inconsistency in advice, including by president Trump, and highlighted the need for national leadership, while acknowledging states had the ability to make decisions in certain areas. He praised his NIAID superior Anthony Fauci for his integrity. He also warned about the danger of future emergence of new deadly viruses.[57]
After his trip to China, Lipkin maintained links with Lu Jiahai, his research partner at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and Zhong Nanshan, to try to establish the origins of the virus.[61] Their efforts, aimed at finding out whether the virus emerged in other parts of China and circulated before it was first discovered in Wuhan in December, include antibody tests of nationwide blood bank samples from pneumonia patients which predate the pandemic, which led to a collaboration with the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.[58] According to Lipkin, this research began in early February. The international research team also began studying blood samples from different wild animals which it deemed potential origins of the virus, in order to understand animal-to-human transmission.[58]
Lipkin thinks the virus could have originated in the wild animal trade and undergone “repeated jumps” from animal to human in the weeks before the first cases were logged, such a stream of events having recent precedents in the emergence of MERS-CoV, which jumped from dromedary camels to humans in 2012, and SARS-CoV, from civet cats to humans in 2003.[57]
Lipkin co-authored a paper on "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2", which was published in Nature Medicine in March 2020.[67] The conclusion of the genomic analyses was that COVID-19 was not a case of lab leak or human-made infection. In 2023, the paper was alleged by the US Republicans as a coverup based on certain misconducts to eliminate the lab leak theory. The paper and the controversy became known as the "Proximal Origin".[68][69]
Views on gain-of-function research
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Gain-of-function experiments aim to increase the virulence and/or transmissibility of pathogens, in order to better understand them and inform public health preparedness efforts.[70] This includes targeted genetic modification (to create hybrid viruses), the serial passaging of a virus through a host animal (to generate adaptive mutations), and targeted mutagenesis (to introduce mutations).[71] Lipkin is a listed “supporter” of the gain-of-function advocate group, Scientists for Science,[72] which was co-founded by Columbia colleague Vincent Racaniello.[73] The US National Institutes of Health placed a moratorium on gain-of-function research in October 2014, and lifted the moratorium in December 2017, after the implementation of stricter controls.[74][75]
Lipkin, while not endorsing every gain-of-function experiment, has said that "[t]here clearly are going to be instances where gain-of-function research is necessary and appropriate." In the example of Ebola, which is incapable of airborne transfer, Lipkin believes that "researchers could make a case for the need to determine how the virus could evolve in nature by engineering a more dangerous version in the lab." Lipkin believes that there should be guidelines in place to govern gain-of-function experiments.[76] Lipkin has called for the World Health Organization to establish strict biocontainment criteria that can be applied globally – including in the developing world – to gain-of-function research.[77]
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the virus SARS-CoV-1, the first identified strain of the SARS-related coronavirus. The first known cases occurred in November 2002, and the syndrome caused the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. In the 2010s, Chinese scientists traced the virus through the intermediary of Asian palm civets to cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in Xiyang Yi Ethnic Township, Yunnan.
Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the common cold, while more lethal varieties can cause SARS, MERS and COVID-19, which is causing the ongoing pandemic. In cows and pigs they cause diarrhea, while in mice they cause hepatitis and encephalomyelitis.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 1 (SARS-CoV-1), previously known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), is a strain of coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the respiratory illness responsible for the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. It is an enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus that infects the epithelial cells within the lungs. The virus enters the host cell by binding to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2. It infects humans, bats, and palm civets. The SARS-CoV-1 outbreak was largely brought under control by simple public health measures. Testing people with symptoms, isolating and quarantining suspected cases, and restricting travel all had an effect. SARS-CoV-1 was most transmissible when patients were sick, so its spread could be effectively suppressed by isolating patients with symptoms.
EcoHealth Alliance is a US-based non-governmental organization with a stated mission of protecting people, animals, and the environment from emerging infectious diseases. The nonprofit focuses on research aimed at preventing pandemics and promoting conservation in hotspot regions worldwide.
An emergent virus is a virus that is either newly appeared, notably increasing in incidence/geographic range or has the potential to increase in the near future. Emergent viruses are a leading cause of emerging infectious diseases and raise public health challenges globally, given their potential to cause outbreaks of disease which can lead to epidemics and pandemics. As well as causing disease, emergent viruses can also have severe economic implications. Recent examples include the SARS-related coronaviruses, which have caused the 2002-2004 outbreak of SARS (SARS-CoV-1) and the 2019–21 pandemic of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Other examples include the human immunodeficiency virus which causes HIV/AIDS; the viruses responsible for Ebola; the H5N1 influenza virus responsible for avian flu; and H1N1/09, which caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Viral emergence in humans is often a consequence of zoonosis, which involves a cross-species jump of a viral disease into humans from other animals. As zoonotic viruses exist in animal reservoirs, they are much more difficult to eradicate and can therefore establish persistent infections in human populations.
Mady Hornig is an American psychiatrist and an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. A physician-scientist, her research involves clinical, epidemiological, and animal model research on autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions. She directs the clinical core of an international investigation of the role of Borna disease virus in human mental illness and participates as a key investigator for the Autism Birth Cohort (ABC) project, a large prospective epidemiological study, based in Norway, that is identifying how genes and timing interact with environmental agents preceding the onset of autism spectrum diagnoses. In 2006, she was appointed as guest professor at the school of basic medical science of Beijing University in Beijing, China.
Middle East respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), or EMC/2012 (HCoV-EMC/2012), is the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). It is a species of coronavirus which infects humans, bats, and camels. The infecting virus is an enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus which enters its host cell by binding to the DPP4 receptor. The species is a member of the genus Betacoronavirus and subgenus Merbecovirus.
Novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a provisional name given to coronaviruses of medical significance before a permanent name is decided upon. Although coronaviruses are endemic in humans and infections normally mild, such as the common cold, cross-species transmission has produced some unusually virulent strains which can cause viral pneumonia and in serious cases even acute respiratory distress syndrome and death.
Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory infection caused by Middle East respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe depending on age and risk level. Typical symptoms include fever, cough, diarrhea, and shortness of breath. The disease is typically more severe in those with other health problems.
Human coronavirus 229E (HCoV-229E) is a species of coronavirus which infects humans and bats. It is an enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus which enters its host cell by binding to the APN receptor. Along with Human coronavirus OC43, it is one of the viruses responsible for the common cold. HCoV-229E is a member of the genus Alphacoronavirus and subgenus Duvinacovirus.
MERS coronavirus EMC/2012 is a strain of coronavirus isolated from the sputum of the first person to become infected with what was later named Middle East respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), a virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
Daniel R. Lucey is an American physician, researcher, senior scholar and adjunct professor of infectious diseases at Georgetown University, and a research associate in anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where he has co-organised an exhibition on eight viral outbreaks.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the respiratory illness responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had the provisional name 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), and has also been called human coronavirus 2019. First identified in the city of Wuhan, Hubei, China, the World Health Organization designated the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern from January 30, 2020, to May 5, 2023. SARS‑CoV‑2 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus that is contagious in humans.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences is a research institute on virology administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which reports to the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The institute is one of nine independent organisations in the Wuhan Branch of the CAS. Located in Jiangxia District, Wuhan, Hubei, it was founded in 1956 and opened mainland China's first biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory in 2018. The institute has collaborated with the Galveston National Laboratory in the United States, the Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie in France, and the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The institute has been an active premier research center for the study of coronaviruses.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kizzmekia "Kizzy" Shanta Corbett is an American viral immunologist. She is an Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Shutzer Assistant Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute since June 2021.
Allison Joan McGeer is a Canadian infectious disease specialist in the Sinai Health System, and a professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. She also appointed at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and a Senior Clinician Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, and is a partner of the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases. McGeer has led investigations into the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Toronto and worked alongside Donald Low. During the COVID-19 pandemic, McGeer has studied how SARS-CoV-2 survives in the air and has served on several provincial committees advising aspects of the Government of Ontario's pandemic response.
Peter Daszak is a British zoologist, consultant and public expert on disease ecology, in particular on zoonosis. He is the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit non-governmental organization that supports various programs on global health and pandemic prevention. He is also a member of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He lives in Suffern, New York.
The history of coronaviruses is an account of the discovery of the diseases caused by coronaviruses and the diseases they cause. It starts with the first report of a new type of upper-respiratory tract disease among chickens in North Dakota, U.S., in 1931. The causative agent was identified as a virus in 1933. By 1936, the disease and the virus were recognised as unique from other viral disease. They became known as infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), but later officially renamed as Avian coronavirus.
Anne Moscona is an American virologist and pediatrician. She is best known for identifying cell entry mechanisms for enveloped respiratory viruses, elucidating general infection mechanisms that apply to parainfluenza virus, Nipah virus, measles virus, and other viruses, and for applying this knowledge to identify antiviral strategies to prevent infection by viruses including SARS-CoV-2. She is frequently consulted as a medical expert during viral outbreaks, including epidemic and pandemic influenza. Since 2016, she has served as the Sherie L. Morrison Professor Microbiology & Immunology, Professor of Pediatrics, and Professor of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, where she directs the Center for Host Pathogen Interaction. In 2022, Moscona was elected as president of the American Society for Virology, the nation's leading virology research organization, and will lead the organization starting in July 2023. For the last two years she has served the American Society for Virology as Councilor for Medical Virology.
↑ Lipkin, W. I.; Carbone, K. M.; Wilson, M. C.; Duchala, C. S.; Narayan, O.; Oldstone, M. B. (1988). "Neurotransmitter abnormalities in Borna disease". Brain Research. 475 (2): 366–70. doi:10.1016/0006-8993(88)90627-0. PMID2905625. S2CID8893525.
↑ Lipkin, W. I.; Hornig, M.; Briese, T. (2001). "Borna disease virus and neuropsychiatric disease--a reappraisal". Trends in Microbiology. 9 (7): 295–8. doi:10.1016/S0966-842X(01)02071-6. PMID11435078.
↑ Briese, T.; Jia, X. Y.; Huang, C.; Grady, L. J.; Lipkin, W. I. (1999). "Identification of a Kunjin/West Nile-like flavivirus in brains of patients with New York encephalitis". Lancet. 354 (9186): 1261–1262. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(99)04576-6. PMID10520637. S2CID5469505.
↑ "W. Ian Lipkin, MD | Columbia Public Health". www.mailman.columbia.edu. In 2003, Lipkin sequenced a portion of the SARS virus directly from lung tissue [...]. He became ill shortly after returning to the US and was quarantined.
↑ Anthony, S. J.; Ojeda-Flores, R.; Rico-Chávez, O.; Navarrete-Macias, I.; Zambrana-Torrelio, C. M.; Rostal, M. K.; Epstein, J. H.; Tipps, T.; Liang, E.; Sanchez-Leon, M.; Sotomayor-Bonilla, J.; Aguirre, A. A.; Ávila-Flores, R.; Medellín, R. A.; Goldstein, T.; Suzán, G.; Daszak, P.; Lipkin, W. I. (2013). "Coronaviruses in bats from Mexico". The Journal of General Virology. 94 (Pt 5): 1028–1038. doi:10.1099/vir.0.049759-0. PMC3709589. PMID23364191.
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