Shanghai institute gathers top minds to combat novel coronavirus

The World Laureates Association Shanghai Center said on Monday that it has gathered top scientists and resources from around the world to aid its investigation into the novel coronavirus.

To date, scientists such as Roger Kornberg, the 2006 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Michael Levitt, the 2013 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Richard Lerner, the 1994 Wolf Laureate in Chemistry, and Raymond Dewk, the director of the Oxford Glycobiology Institute, have proposed solutions to combat the virus.

The solutions are geared toward areas such as the development of virus inhibitors for host cells and the development of specific neutralizing antibodies and virus vaccines against viral proteins.

"They are willing to actively exert international scientific power to support China in combating the epidemic outbreak," the WLA Shanghai Center, a collaboration between the Hong Kong-based World Laureates Association and the Shanghai government, said in a press release.

Led by Kornberg, who is also the WLA chairman, WLA Shanghai center had last month set up a team of Chinese researchers to meet with scientists and the world's leading scientific research institutions, including the Scripps Research Institute, the Department of Biology at Stanford University, the Virus Infection Center at the University of Oxford and the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford, to conduct extensive research into the prevention and treatment of the novel coronavirus.