Experts honored for fighting COVID-19

After the epidemic broke out, Chen Wei, a researcher with the Institute of Military Medicine under the Academy of Military Sciences, rushed to Wuhan, tasked with conducting research on coronavirus and developing a COVID-19 vaccine.

On Jan 26, Chen, leading a team of experts, headed to the frontline of the battle in Wuhan to support scientific research on fighting the epidemic.

Chen and her team established mobile nucleic acid test labs in tents in just one day and increased Wuhan's test capacity to up to 1,000 samples per day by using test kits independently developed by the Institute of Military Medicine and automated nucleic acid extraction. This greatly eased Wuhan's stress in nucleic acid test in late January and early February.

Chen's team also joined hands with colleagues at the scientific research base in Beijing to develop COVID-19 vaccine candidates.

The adenovirus vector vaccine candidate developed by Chen was the first to enter first-stage clinical trials in China in March and the first to begin second-stage trials worldwide on April 12.

It uses a weakened common cold virus to introduce genetic material from the novel coronavirus into the human body and was found to be safe and able to trigger an immune response in first and second stage trials.

On Aug 11, the vaccine was granted China's first COVID-19 vaccine patent. The vaccine has now been approved to conduct phase-three clinical trial in Russia and Pakistan.