Recently, the committee of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) selected some outstanding achievements of projects funded by NSFC between 2016 and 2020, edited and published the “Selected Outstanding Achievements (VIII)”. The “influenza virus pathogenesis and antiviral research” headed by research fellow Yang Zifeng from SKLRD with the support of NSFC was selected and included.

With the support of several programs such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Joint Fund, the team led by research fellow Yang Zifeng cooperated with the University of Hong Kong and Macau University of Science and Technology established and practiced the treatment system for severe human avian influenza around the pathogenesis of influenza, avian influenza and novel coronavirus and the direction of the prevention and treatment of respiratory virus infection with traditional Chinese medicine, to crack bottlenecks such as lack of understanding in the biological nature and laws of respiratory viruses and lack of prevention and treatment drugs; developed a highly simulated primate tree shrew influenza model with Chinese characteristics, and served the study of the occurrence, development and transmutation of new influenza. They discovered that the distribution of tree shrew’s respiratory influenza receptors was closer to that of humans, and established the respiratory glycoomics characteristics of tree shrew, laying the foundation for the molecular evolutionary mechanisms of inter-species avian influenza transmission.