A team of Shanghai researchers on Thursday announced that they have successfully isolated and identified the strain of the novel coronavirus from a patient sample.
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The team consists of scientists from the Shanghai Medical College under Fudan University, and the Shanghai Municipal Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. They have completed the genome sequencing and analysis.
According to the researchers, this is the first strain of the novel coronavirus isolated in Shanghai.
“It will provide key resources for vaccine development, drug manufacturing and pathogenic mechanisms after further study.”
The Head of the team, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Wen Yumei, said the virus isolation would help monitor the virus variation in real-time, carry out drug screening/antibody neutralization tests and accelerate research progress of COVID-19.
Meanwhile, a number of Shanghai institutes were pioneering in developing vaccines and agents against the novel coronavirus. Some have already conducted pre-clinical trials on animals.