On April 22, researcher Wang Youchun, virologist, chief expert in vaccine verification of the China Institute of Food and Drug Administration, member of the World Health Organization’s Committee for Standardization of Biological Products, guested at Nankai Public Health Lecture with the topic “Research on novel Coronavirus Pseudoviruses”, which brought a vivid public health science report to teachers and students of Nankai University.

Xu Jianguo, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the State Key Laboratory of Infectious Diseases of Chinese Diseases Prevention and Control Center, attended and presided over the report. Professor Wang Shuo, deputy dean of the Institute of Public Hygiene and Health of both Tianjin and Nankai University, presented the “Nankai Public Health Lecture” commemorative certificate to Wang Youchun.

Researcher Wang Youchun is a world-renowned expert in pseudoviruses. His team has constructed the largest numbers and most types of pseudoviruses. Up to now, more than 300 new pseudoviruses of coronavirus have been constructed. The team uses pseudovirus technology to reveal the nature of coronavirus and to provide clues for monitoring, diagnosis, treatment, prevention and vaccine development.

During the lecture, Wang Youchun introduced the occurrence and development of coronavirus, the preparation and application of its pseudoviruses and the current major mutant strains of the coronavirus. Pseudovirus is a very useful virological tool, which is easy to obtain, safe, with a short cycle, quantitatively objective and simple to operate. It can detect neutralizing antibodies, ADCC antibodies and virus inhibition. At present, his laboratory has built the world’s largest pseudovirus library (more 1,300 strains of pseudovirus containing 27 different types), providing pseudoviruses and detection methods for domestic and foreign laboratories. Since the outbreak of covid-19, the existing platform technology has been used to construct a coronavirus’ pseudovirus in a timely manner for virological research, drug screening, and neutralizing antibody detection, which has played a vital role in promoting the R&D of coronavirus prevention and control products.

The event was broadcasted live on the web and the cumulative number of views on each platform exceeded 1.17 million. The Nankai Public Health Lecture, which is jointly organized by the Institute of Public Hygiene and Health of Nankai University, the Tianjin Institute of Public Health and the State Key Laboratory of the Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control, is planned to invite well-known experts in the field or related to the field of public health to talk about their academic achievements and to give Nankai’s contribution to the development of public health in China and even in the world, so as to build a shared community of human health. The lecture activities are planned to be held once a month and about ten times a year. The main venue will be located in Nankai and will be broadcasted live across the country.

(Reported by Fang Lan, translated by Wenhan Lin, edited by Davide Francolino and JianjingYun)