SARS: Open season

writing

(I stumbled across this story when I was in Beijing in October 2005, interviewing scientists for a special package on Chinese research. I had lunch with Hongkui Deng, a rising star, who took me completely by surprise when he told me his lab had shifted focus from stem cells to SARS. When I looked into it and discovered he wasn’t alone, I knew I was on to a nice story about Chinese science, a rarity in those days. You can download a pdf of the article.)

SARS caught China unawares. But the ensuing struggle to characterize and contain the virus has put the country’s work on infectious diseases back on target.

Like anyone who was in Beijing in the spring of 2003, Hongkui Deng remembers it vividly. The Chinese government could no longer deny that the country was in the grip of a new and potentially fatal disease: severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). By July, the epidemic would have spread, affecting more than 8,000 people worldwide and claiming 813 lives; but in April, the panic was already palpable.

Normally bustling, the streets of Beijing were virtually deserted. The few people who ventured out wore masks and gloves, and avoided even eye contact with others. Cinemas, schools and shops were closed. It was, as many describe it, frightening and eerie — even apocalyptic. “Everyone was scared,” Deng recalls.

Deng, a cell biologist, had returned home in 2001 after more than a decade in the United States. Now based at Peking University, he was pursuing his research on embryonic stem cells. Returning from a conference in April 2003, he learnt that the mother of one of his students had SARS. Once officials had sprayed the lab, Deng’s students began asking if they could work on the disease that was paralysing the nation.

“Everybody wanted to do something,” he says. Deng had limited experience in virology, apart from a short stint working on HIV, and his students had even less. But like many other scientists in China, the team saw research on SARS as both an opportunity and a duty, and set about mastering the basics — fast.

Feverish activity

For at least six months, Deng’s lab stopped working on stem cells and focused entirely on SARS. It wasn’t alone. Across the country, scientists trained in protein science, anatomy, immunology and biochemistry — almost anybody who could contribute in any way — were shelving their normal projects. “Everyone was working on SARS,” says Deng. “You just had to.”

That commitment has paid off. Although China still faces a great many hurdles, its government and scientific community are becoming better prepared to combat epidemics, say some US scientists. Long after global interest in SARS has waned, Chinese scientists are still publishing important work on the disease.