以冠状病毒感染等为代表的病毒性传染病已经成为威胁公共卫生安全的严重隐患。申请人通过整合结构生物学、生物化学、细胞生物学等研究方法，对中东呼吸综合征冠状病毒、麻疹病毒、单纯疱疹病毒等在内的一些重要病毒性传染病病原的侵入过程进行了深入研究，取得了一系列重要进展。目前已在国际学术期刊发表SCI论文25篇，其中以第一或通讯作者（含共第一和共通讯）身份在Nature，Nature Structural Molecular Biology，PNAS，Nature Communications等国际杂志发表论文12篇，这些工作均在国内完成；主持国家自然科学基金项目1项，作为子课题负责人参加传染病防治重大专项项目1项。下一步拟将研究工作扩展到中东呼吸综合征冠状病毒所在的β-冠状病毒属。以代表性β-冠状病毒刺突蛋白的功能、结构和受体选择性为切入点，系统性研究其分子进化和跨种传播机制，为病毒防控提供理论指导。

The occurrence and re-occurrence of emerging viral diseases, as exemplified by the repeat coronavirus infections, have raised great public health concern worldwide. The applicant focused on the viral pathogens which has caused severe diseases in the past years, including the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), measles virus and herpes simplex virus etc, and combined the structural biology, biochemistry and the cellular biology methods to study the mechanisms of virus entry. These research activities enabled the applicant to publish, thus far, 25 peer-reviewed papers in international journals. Of these publications, he was the first or corresponding author in 12 papers, including one publication in Nature, Nature Structural Molecular Biology, PNAS and Nature Communications, respectively. He also has 2 grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China, respectively. In the current proposal, he plans to further extend his study from focusing on MERS-CoV to including other important β-coronaviruses (βCoVs). The spike structures, functions and receptor-binding specificities of representative βCoVs will be systematically studied and compared. The goal is to gain a comprehensive view on the interspecies transmission mechanisms and the evolutionary features of βCoVs, which would be valuable in counteracting the βCoV infections and the potential cross-species events.