Tuesday afternoon, the FBI disclosed they would be charging Yunqing Jian, a Chinese student and research fellow specializing in molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of Michigan, with allegedly smuggling dangerous pathogens into the United States. She made her first appearance in court later that day. The charges follow an attempt by Jian’s boyfriend Zunyong Liu, a fellow researcher from China, to smuggle samples of the pathogen Fusarium graminearum through U.S. customs at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in July 2024.

Federal agents stopped Liu at customs and questioned him about several small bags of plant material he was carrying. When questioned by Customs and Border Patrol agents, Liu initially claimed someone could have put the samples in h

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