Woman Scientist Contributes to Hubei's Fight Against COVID-19

Wu Chen, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) and Peking Union Medical College and a researcher of the CAMS Cancer Hospital, signed up to assist Central China's Hubei Province in the fight against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) earlier this month.

After being approved by the college's Party committee, the post-80s scientist, also a Party member, was designated to lead a team to help carry out medical tests in Hubei. Wu has been researching cancer genetics and genomics for 13 years and has won many national-level honors.

She immediately began to prepare for the mission, offering training courses to her team members, making plans and to-do lists and collecting daily necessities.

The team members arrived in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, on February 5, and they started right away to help identify those patients infected with the virus through tests at a mobile cabin hospital.

The nucleic acid detection is complicated, involving a series of processes such as sample transportation, data entry and reaction sensitivity control.

As a scientist engaged in theoretical and practical research on nucleic acid detection for many years, Wu led her team members to set up a laboratory and make personnel arrangements, set guidelines on test processes, formulated rules and regulations, and determined detailed protective measures in just a few days.

In order to maximize detection efficiency, Wu led the team in striking a balance between speedy work progress and careful procedures, always ensuring the accuracy of tests by strictly following biosafety and operational requirements.

Since disposable protective outfits cannot be used again after being taken off, the team members drink and eat less to cut the frequency of going to the toilet for saving the outfits.

Long-time exhaustion and high-intensity work, as well as pressure from the complicated environment in the laboratory once made the team upset.

Wu cheered up her members with inspiring words on WeChat, hoping to relieve their fatigue and anxiety and encourage them to keep up high morale in the anti-virus battle.

Based on the nucleic acid detection results made by the team, 17 patients in the mobile cabin hospital were discharged on February 17.

According to Wu, as a Party member, she is obliged to take the lead to shoulder responsibilities in difficult times and crises.

(Source: China Women's News/Translated and edited by Women of China)