Integration of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine plays an important role in the prevention and control of pandemic. For years, Yang Zifeng’s research team of the State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease has been devoted to the clinical and basic research on the prevention and treatment of respiratory tract infections with the integration of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine. The team takes the initiative to combine the diagnosis and treatment of respiratory infectious diseases with warm disease theory, breaks the bottleneck of its etiology, pathogenesis, and treatment, and effectively solves the core theoretical problem of combination of Chinese and Western medicine in treating influenza. For the first time, this paper explains that excessive immune response and co-infection is actually “internal heat” in TCM, and puts forward a new mechanism of severe illness caused by “internal and external heat”, to treat critically ill patients with both internal and external strategies. Among them, the research results of the molecular characteristics of the highly pathogenic avian influenza H7N9 were written in an academic paper Human Infection with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H7N9) Virus, China, which was published in Emerge Infect Dis, and was selected as “ESI Highly Cited Paper” in 2018. Professor Shu Yuelong, Professor Yang Zifeng and Professor Malik Peiris are the co-corresponding authors of this paper.

During the fight against the COVID-19, Yang Zifeng’s research team combined the internal and external treatment strategies, syndrome differentiation of weifen and the concept of evidence-based medicine, took the lead in proving that a batch of traditional Chinese medicines such as Lianhua Qingwen Capsules exert anti-viral and anti-inflammatory activity against novel coronavirus, providing an important basis for further study and application. The research paper Lianhuaqingwen exerts anti-viral and anti-inflammatory activity against novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) published in Pharma Res is widely cited by influential journals such as Lancet, Nature, Acta Pharm Sin B and Pharma Res, and is selected as the “ESI Highly Cited Paper” in 2020. The first authors and corresponding authors of this paper are the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University/Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health/State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases/National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, Dr. Runfeng Li, Professor Huang Jicheng and Dr. Pan Weiqi are the co-first authors, and the corresponding author is Professor Yang Zifeng.

It gives full play to the advantages of both Chinese and Western medicine, actively participating in the fight against the pandemic, and improving the effectiveness of the treatment of respiratory tract infections, which can build a solid defense line for patients.