By Michelle Cortez

Danielle Anderson worked at what is now considered the most infamous laboratory in the world just weeks prior to the detection of the first Covid-19 cases in central China. The Australian virologist reflects on what she might have overlooked during that period.

As an expert in bat viruses, Anderson stands out as the only foreign researcher who has conducted studies at the Wuhan Institute of Virology's BSL-4 lab, the first of its kind in mainland China capable of handling the most hazardous pathogens. Her last assignment concluded in November 2019, providing her with a unique perspective on a facility that has become central to investigations into the origins of the worst pandemic in over a century.

The appearance of the coronavirus in the same city as the lab, where scientists don protective gear to study similar viruses, has led to speculation about a possible lab leak, whether through an infected worker or contaminated materials. The lack of transparency from China since the outbreak began has intensified these theories, particularly in the U.S. This has turned the investigation into the virus's origins—a critical element for averting future pandemics—into a geopolitical battleground.

The lab's activities and those of its head of emerging infectious diseases, Shi Zhengli, a long-time collaborator of Anderson's known as 'Batwoman' for her fieldwork in caves, are now controversial. The U.S. has raised concerns regarding the lab's safety and accused its scientists of engaging in controversial gain-of-function research that could have increased the viruses' danger.

This narrative sharply contrasts with Anderson's account during her interview with Bloomberg News, where she provided her first detailed insights about her experiences at the lab.

She stated that misinformation has clouded the true nature of the lab's operations, which were more standard than the media has suggested. "It wasn’t dull, but it operated like any other high-containment facility," Anderson remarked. "What people are saying is simply not accurate."

Now at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, Anderson began her collaboration with Wuhan researchers in 2016, when she was the scientific director of the biosafety lab at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. Her research—focused on why deadly viruses like Ebola and Nipah do not cause illness in the bats they inhabit—aligned with ongoing studies at the Chinese institute, which provided funding to facilitate international collaboration.

Anderson, 42, who is emerging as a prominent figure in virology, regards her work on Ebola in Wuhan as the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition. Inspired by the film "Outbreak," she has always aspired to respond to new viral threats, which for her meant working with Ebola in a secure laboratory.

Her career has taken her across the globe. After obtaining her undergraduate degree from Deakin University in Geelong, Australia, she served as a lab technician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, before returning to Australia to pursue a PhD under distinguished virologists John Mackenzie and Linfa Wang. She undertook post-doctoral research in Montreal before moving to Singapore, where Wang described her as "very committed and dedicated," likening her personality to that of Shi.

"They're both straightforward individuals with strong ethical standards," Wang noted from Singapore, where he leads the emerging infectious diseases program at Duke-NUS Medical School. "I'm very proud of what Danielle has accomplished."

On the Ground Anderson was present in Wuhan as experts believe SARS-CoV-2 was beginning to spread. Daily visits in late 2019 placed her among many others at the 65-year-old research center. Each morning, she joined a group at the Chinese Academy of Sciences to take a bus to the institute, located about 20 miles away.

As the only foreigner, Anderson attracted attention, and her fellow researchers looked after her. "We shared meals and socialized outside of work," she recalled.

Impressed by the institute's maximum biocontainment lab from her first visit before its opening in 2018, Anderson noted the building's robust design, featuring the highest biosafety classification, requiring air, water, and waste to be filtered and sterilized before exiting the facility. She emphasized the strict protocols for containing the pathogens studied, with researchers undergoing 45 hours of training to work independently in the lab.

The induction process necessitated that scientists prove their understanding of containment practices and their proficiency in wearing air-pressured suits. "It’s an extensive process," she stated.

Entering and leaving the facility involved a carefully planned routine, with exiting complicated by the requirement of both a chemical and personal shower, timed precisely.

Special Disinfectants While such safety protocols are standard in BSL-4 labs, Anderson identified distinctions from similar facilities she had worked in across Europe, Singapore, and Australia. The Wuhan lab employs a unique method for daily creation and monitoring of its disinfectants, a system she aimed to implement in her own lab. She maintained constant communication with colleagues in the lab's command center to ensure safety and vigilance.

However, during the Trump administration's focus in 2020 on the potential of a virus escape from the Wuhan lab, it suggested major failures at the institute, which specializes in virology, viral pathology, and virus technology among the approximately 20 biological and biomedical research institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Initially, virologists and infectious disease specialists dismissed the lab leak theory, pointing out the common occurrence of viruses moving from animals to humans. There was no compelling evidence within SARS-CoV-2's genome to suggest it had been artificially altered, nor that the lab housed precursor strains of the pandemic virus. Political analysts proposed that these allegations were strategically motivated to apply pressure on Beijing.

Nonetheless, China's actions prompted scrutiny. The government denied entry to international scientists in early 2020 as the outbreak escalated, including experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who were already in the area. Beijing delayed allowing World Health Organization experts into Wuhan for over a year, providing only limited access. The WHO's final report, created with input from Chinese researchers, downplayed the lab leak theory, suggesting instead that the virus likely spread from a bat through another animal and endorsed a favored Chinese hypothesis regarding frozen food transmission.

Never Sick China's lack of transparency prompted external researchers to reassess their views. Recently, 18 scientists published a call in the journal Science for an investigation into Covid-19's origins that would fairly consider the possibility of a lab accident. Even WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged that the lab theory had not been sufficiently explored.

However, it is President Joe Biden's renewed interest in this theory—previously labeled a conspiracy theory by many—that has lent it new credibility. Last month, he instructed U.S. intelligence agencies to intensify their efforts to trace the origins of Covid-19 after a Wall Street Journal report suggested that three lab researchers were hospitalized with flu-like symptoms in November 2019.

Anderson stated that none of her acquaintances at the Wuhan institute exhibited illness toward the end of 2019. Furthermore, there exists a protocol for reporting symptoms related to the pathogens handled in high-containment labs. "If anyone were sick, I would have likely been ill too—I wasn’t," she affirmed. "I was tested for the coronavirus in Singapore prior to my vaccination and had never contracted it."

Additionally, many of her colleagues from Wuhan traveled to Singapore at the end of December for a conference on Nipah virus, and she heard no reports of illness circulating within the laboratory. "There was no buzz," she remarked. "Scientists are typically talkative and enthusiastic, but nothing unusual was happening from my perspective."

The identities of the researchers reportedly hospitalized have not been disclosed. Both the Chinese government and Shi Zhengli, the lab's prominent bat-virus researcher, have consistently denied that anyone at the facility became infected with Covid-19. Following the emergence of the pandemic, Anderson's work at the lab and her funding concluded, allowing her to focus on the novel coronavirus.

‘I’m Not Naive’ While it is not out of the realm of possibility that the virus escaped from the lab, Anderson, who understands the risks of pathogen containment better than most, acknowledges the potential for accidents. The earlier SARS coronavirus, which surfaced in Asia in 2002 and resulted in over 700 deaths, had escaped secure facilities on multiple occasions, she noted.

"If presented with evidence that such an incident led to Covid-19, I could envision how it might occur," she said. "I’m not naive enough to dismiss this possibility entirely."

Nevertheless, she maintains that it most likely originated from a natural source. Given that it took nearly ten years for researchers to determine the natural source of the SARS virus, Anderson is not surprised that the "smoking gun" bat related to the current outbreak has not yet been identified.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is large enough that Anderson was not aware of all the projects underway at the end of 2019. She knows of published studies from the lab involving the testing of viral components for their ability to infect human cells. Anderson is convinced that no virus was deliberately created to infect humans and released—a theory that has emerged as particularly disturbing regarding the pandemic's origins.

Gain of Function Anderson did acknowledge that it could theoretically be possible for a scientist in the lab to unintentionally infect themselves while working on a gain-of-function project and subsequently infect others in the community. However, she rated this scenario as extremely unlikely and noted that there is no evidence to support it.

Gaining approval for such work typically involves numerous layers of oversight, with strict scientific best practices limiting this kind of research. For instance, a moratorium was placed on research involving the 1918 Spanish Flu virus after it was isolated decades later.

Even if such gain-of-function research received clearance, executing it is challenging, Anderson explained. The technique, known as reverse genetics, is notoriously difficult to implement successfully.

"It’s incredibly challenging to achieve the desired outcomes," she stated.

Anderson's lab in Singapore was among the first to isolate SARS-CoV-2 from a Covid patient outside of China and subsequently cultivate the virus. This process was complex and demanding, even for a team experienced with coronaviruses and familiar with their biological characteristics, including the specific protein receptor they target. These critical details would be unknown to anyone attempting to engineer a new virus, she added. Moreover, the materials researchers study—the virus's essential components and genetic makeup—are not initially infectious, requiring substantial cultivation to create a viable infection source.

Despite her insights, Anderson believes a thorough investigation is essential to clarify the virus's origins definitively. She expressed disbelief at how the lab has been depicted by certain media outlets outside of China, as well as the hostile backlash directed at scientists.

As one of a dozen experts appointed to an international task force in November to investigate the virus's origins, Anderson has refrained from seeking public attention, especially after facing threats from U.S. extremists in early 2020 for countering misinformation about the pandemic. The hostility she faced prompted her to file a police report. The violence that many coronavirus researchers have encountered in the past 18 months has made them reluctant to speak out due to the risk of misinterpretation.

The factors known to contribute to infectious outbreaks—such as the interaction between humans and animals, particularly wildlife—were present in Wuhan, creating favorable conditions for the emergence of a new zoonotic disease. In this regard, Covid-19's emergence follows a familiar trajectory. What astonishes Anderson is the manner in which it evolved into a global pandemic.

"The scale of this pandemic is beyond what anyone could have anticipated," she remarked. Researchers need to analyze Covid's devastating journey to understand what went wrong and how to prevent the spread of future pathogens with pandemic potential. "The virus was in the right place at the right time, and all the elements converged to create this catastrophe."