The innocuous title of that scientific article “Simultaneous Expression of Displayed and Secreted Antibodies for Antibody Screen,” belied its true nature.

That study was supported by a grant to Shibo Jiang from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (#81173098), which was entirely devoted to viral entry via a membrane fusion process, known to be facilitated by furin polybasic cleavage sites and enhancing viral infectivity and pathogenicity.

At the same time Shibo Jiang was conducting those experiments, he was also being funded by Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Before returning to China as a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, Shibo Jiang had been employed by or associated with the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute of the New York Blood Center for nearly twenty years.

During that time, he developed an extensive network of collaborative research with other major U.S. virus research laboratories and received more than $17 million in U.S. research grants, the vast majority coming from Fauci’s NIAID.

At the same time, Shibo Jiang maintained extensive collaborative research with People’s Liberation Army laboratories, described in detail here, while simultaneously inviting into his U.S. laboratory and training scientists linked to the Chinese military.

After the onset of the November 2002 SARS pandemic originating in Foshan, Guangdong, China, the People’s Liberation Army and Shibo Jiang would play an outsized role in human coronavirus research.

Much of his work, starting from the first SARS pandemic in 2002-2004, has focused on the coronavirus spike protein, in particular, the junction of the S1 and S2 segments, where the COVID-19 furin polybasic cleavage site is found.

Pre-adapting COVID-19 for human infection

The COVID-19 virus binds to human cells 10-20 times better than the 2002-2004 SARS virus.

From the beginning, the COVID-19 virus appeared to be well-adapted even pre-adapted for binding to human cells.

The COVID-19 virus did not undergo the same mutation and adaptation to humans over time as did the 2002-2004 SARS virus, but was already, from the beginning, resembling late-stage SARS infections, suggesting pre-adaptation.

Such pre-adaption for human infection can be accomplished in the laboratory by repeatedly exposing coronaviruses to genetically-engineered mice that have the human receptor, a process known as serial passage.

Since 2007, Chinese scientists have used humanized mouse models to experiment with coronaviruses starting with the 2002-2004 SARS virus.

It is here where the work of Ningyi Jin of the Military Veterinary Research Institute and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences intersect, in the use of animal models for serial passaging to increase virulence or to pre-adapt coronaviruses for human infection.

Serial passaging is the repeated re-infection within an animal or human population, which allows a virus to specifically adapt to the infected species.

That process occurs in nature, but it can be greatly accelerated in the laboratory by deliberate serial passaging of viruses in cell culture systems or animals, potentially leaving few or no traces as to whether the adapted viruses are naturally-occurring or laboratory-manipulated.

Dr. Chuan Qin is considered China’s foremost expert in animal models for increasing viral virulence and the use of humanized animals for testing natural or man-made viruses.