Director General
Wang Yan-yi: Director General, WIV. The photo looks like she's about 17 years old but she's actually 40.
BSc (Beijing University), M.S. (Colorado Uni, School of Medicine), PhD (Wuhan Uni) then joined WIV 2012
Young Scholar Awards 2013, 2014, WIV since 2012, Director since 2018
Involved in the promotion of antiviral drug Shuang-huang-lian, a Chinese traditional medicine patent, repurposed as a Covid treatment as early as Jan 31, 2020, causing a rush on the drug, though efficacy was later questioned.
Interestingly, a Chinese language article criticizes her as:
a post-80's woman who was relying on her husband's superior position
She did have a meteoric rise from completing academic training at Wuhan University to WIV Director in 6 years:
Her husband is Shu Hong-bing, a renowned scientist at Peking, then Wuhan University -where Yanyi received her BSc, then Phd, respectively, coinciding with Shu's tenures. (MSc Colorado)
In an NBC video, Aug 2020, Wang is asked: What is your theory on how the virus was able to make it to a city like Wuhan? Did you ever, at one point, worry that it might have come from your lab?
The response is great. She pauses to think - you can see her mind ticking over - her smile flickering off - she remembers Shi Zhengli's answer - how that turned out ... her eyes roll top left - accessing a memory...
She finds her answer- the faint smile returns like it never left - she lists ways it could have arrived in Wuhan, such as the Cold-Chain Hypothesis, then says:
Wang Yanyi (vid, 2:23): It's certainly impossible the virus was made by, or leaked by, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We did not worry that the virus may have been leaked from the institute. Mainly because the management has always been very strict and standardized. In the past there have never been any bio-safety accidents such as pathogen leak, or even infection.
Wang Yanyi, different Interview: The current consensus of the international academic community is that the virus originated from wild animals. But we still don't clearly know what kind of viruses that all different wild species carry across the globe and where the viruses that are highly similar to SARS-CoV-2 are. This is why the cooperation between scientists all over the world is needed to find the answers. Therefore, the issue of origin-tracking is ultimately a question of science, which requires the scientists to make judgments based on scientific data and facts.
Key points: Fast-tracked millennial talent parachuted into management at WIV due partially to husband's influence. WIV benefited from promotion of dubious Covid treatment - not an interfacer - not on the Linfa/Zhengli level.