An epidemiologist who helped to tie the 2012 outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) to camels; a food-safety officer who studies how pathogens spread in markets; and a veterinarian who found evidence linking the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak to bats roosting in a hollow tree. These researchers are among the team that the World Health Organization (WHO) has assembled to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
Ten researchers with expertise in virology, public health and animals will seek to answer this key question.