• How Zhengli Shi and her important collaborators (Lanying Du, Shibo Jiang, Ralph Baric, Fang Li, etc.) learned early on the two most essential elements in Spike engineering for human infection: receptor binding and presence of human protease-cleavage site25. (It is also worth mentioning that, Yusen Zhou, husband of Lanying Du and an AMMS expert in the understanding of immune evasion strategies of coronaviruses, suddenly passed away in summer 2020. Right before his passing, on April 29th, 2020, a manuscript was submitted by his research group to Science26. This work described the Spike N501Y mutation, which was later shown to be the determining mutation of the prevalent UK variant B.1.1.7. that emerged in the human population a few months afterwards in the fall.)
