Tim Walz promoted the group’s cooperation with the Chinese laboratory in Wuhan

A facility in Walz’s home state of Minnesota, the Hormel Institute, is a frequent research partner with WIV, the Wuhan, China, institute at the center of the COVID-19 lab leak theory. For more than a decade, Walz has met with the Hormel Institute and toured the research facility, which has thanked Walz for securing millions of dollars in funding, records show.

News of the links between a Walz-linked research facility and WIV comes as the Democratic vice presidential candidate faces a congressional investigation into his “extensive” ties to China. This year, the U.S. government withheld federal funding for the nonprofit that worked with a lab in Wuhan — where the FBI has said COVID-19 likely originated. Walz reportedly traveled to China 30 times, including for his honeymoon, and said in 2016 that he “doesn’t fall into the category where China necessarily has to have an adversarial relationship” with the United States.

“For over 80 years, the Hormel Institute has helped lead Minnesota to being a leader in biomedical innovation,” Walz said in April of the Minnesota group, which Fox News previously reported was affiliated with a Chinese military-backed company called Beijing Genomics Institute. “It was great to visit their facilities in Austin yesterday and see how it works in action.”

The Hormel Institute is headquartered in Austin, Minnesota. Walz said the organization “fits into where we see ourselves as a country (in the future) … a future around … green energy, sustainable agriculture and the ability to feed a very hungry world … and the ability to be one of the designated biotechnology centers of the country,” according to a Hormel Institute press release.

As a congressman, Walz helped secure more than $2 million in technology acquisitions for the Hormel Institute and was “a strong advocate for the Hormel Institute, including by supporting its major expansions,” the Minnesota-based group said in April of this year. Furthermore, in 2008, Walz reportedly pushed for $5 million in federal funding for the University of Minnesota-based group and visited the Hormel Institute to discuss ways to increase its federal funding.

Hormel Institute scientists have collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on a variety of projects in recent years, including a 2020 study on COVID-19 and, most recently, a structural biology study this year.

The COVID-19 study, titled “The Dynamic Regulatory Interface of SARS-CoV-2 RNA Polymerase,” was authored by four WIV researchers, three Hormel Institute researchers, and a professor at Yale School of Medicine.

In 2020, the Hormel Institute also disclosed in the “funding information” section of a separate document EMBO Journal the examination showed that she had received “assistance from the Main Technical Support and Technical Assistance Center” of the WIV for “radioactive and fluorescent tests”, Washington Examiner found.

Bin Liu, a professor at the Hormel Institute who is listed as working on the 2020 project EMBO Journal study, attended Wuhan University, according to a copy of his resume. Other researchers involved in the study included people affiliated with WIV, the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China’s Zhengzhou University, federal records show.

Similarly, in January 2024, Hormel Institute scientists published a study on the WIV genes of Lin He, Wei Zhou, and Yangbo Hu. The WIV was used for “radioactive testing,” according to page 10 of the study.

Yangbo Hu of WIV collaborated with Dmytro Kompaniiets, Dong Wang, and Bin Liu of the Hormel Institute on a 2023 study titled “Structure and molecular mechanism of bacterial transcription activation,” as well as other collaborations.

Founded in 1956, the WIV is overseen by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, an institution that reports directly to the State Council of the Chinese Communist Party. The WIV “has conducted covert research, including experiments on laboratory animals, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017,” according to the State Department.

In a statement for Washington ExaminerUniversity of Minnesota spokesman Jake Ricker said the university and the Hormel Institute have “no formal affiliation” with WIV or the Beijing Genomics Institute.

“Our findings are peer-reviewed and published in the public domain with proper attribution to those who contributed to each study,” Ricker said. “The research is conducted with the full commitment of the Hormel Institute and the university to comply with federal disclosure, security, export control and sanctions laws.”

Brian Cavanaugh, a former member of the White House National Security Council, said that American entities should not be working with WIV at all. The work of the Hormel Institute with WIV researchers is disturbing.

“The Wuhan Institute of Virology has direct links to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army,” Cavanaugh said. Washington Examiner“Hormel Institute Aids Foreign Adversary.”

Meanwhile, the Hormel Institute has other ties to China that have drawn scrutiny. Its former executive director, Dr. Zigang Dong, resigned in 2019 after 18 years in the role.

This is because Dong was under investigation by the FBI for “possibly failing to report foreign support when submitting grant applications.” Austin Daily Herald reported.

Dong now works at China’s Zhengzhou University, where he continues to collaborate with Hormel Institute researchers, records show. Dong also founded the China-US (Henan) Hormel Cancer Institute, a Chinese research affiliate of the Hormel Institute, according to a 2012 press release.

“Collaboration brings more resources, brings more collaboration in terms of what the science shows,” Walz, then a congressman, said in 2012 of the partnership.

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The Chinese government maintained the Walz-backed partnership with annual funding, according to an archived version of the Chinese institute’s website.

The Harris-Walz campaign did not respond to a request for comment.