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... According to the South China Morning Post, the study was led by Shi Zhengli, a renowned virologist known as "batwoman" due to her extensive research on bat coronaviruses.

The research involved scientists from the Guangzhou Laboratory, Guangzhou Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Their findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell on Tuesday.

The newly discovered virus belongs to the merbecovirus subgenus, which includes the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) virus. It is a new lineage of the HKU5 coronavirus, initially identified in Japanese pipistrelle bats in Hong Kong.

The research found that HKU5-CoV-2 can bind to the human angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE2) receptor, the same receptor used by SARS-CoV-2 to infect human cells. "We report the discovery and isolation of a distinct lineage (lineage 2) of HKU5-CoV, which can utilise not only bat ACE2 but also human ACE2 and various mammalian ACE2 orthologs," the scientists wrote.

Potential spillover risk

The study warned that bat merbecoviruses "pose a high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts." ...