(Based on Shi Zhengli's GOF experiment article from the NATURE on 09 October 2015.)
In 2015, Shi Zhengli was involved in an investigation of bat coronaviruses, specifically gain of function experiments involving both the SARS and bat coronaviruses, a joint research of University of North Carolina and Wuhan Institute of Virology, with Ralph S. Baric as principal investigator.
The 2015 Gain-of-Function experiment by Shi and others was famously known to have created a so-called Chimeric or Hybrid Virus and a version of which was believed to have been leaked (either accidentally or deliberately) from Shi's main lab the Wuhan Institute of Virology in late 2019. That lethal and extremely contagious virus is now called COVID-19 a.k.a. Wuhan Corona Virus.