EC awards emergency funds for COVID-19 research

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d innovate,” he added. The biggest area of innovation now is the quest for “biosourced” and biodegradable materials. But then there is a real challenge in terms of marketing. Shaver warned that when people see the “biodegradable” label on packaging, they think that it will safely decompose wherever they dispose of it. In reality, many so-called biodegradable polymers require treatment in specialized facilities. “What we need is an infrastructure that supports industrial biodegradation,” Shaver said. Is there any point in adopting these materials without that service? he asked. “We, as materials experts, need to push back against the negative press around plastics,” Shaver advised the materials experts

EC awards emergency funds for COVID-19 research

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n January 30, 2020, the European Commission (EC) launched a “request for expressions of interest” to address the pandemic of the new coronavirus-induced disease called COVID-19. EC began with a budget of €10 million, which was subsequently increased up to €48.5 million. Such a rapid reaction was made possible by the standing budget line for emergency research funds that the EC maintains as part of the Horizon 2020 annual work programs for health research. This enabled 17 projects to be short-listed for funding, which the EC announced on March 6, 2020, to which an 18th project was added in late March. In total, these 18 projects involve 140 research teams across the EU, as well as non-European collaborators. Projects that have been short-listed include rapid “point-of-care” diagnostic tests, treatment, and vaccines to combat COVID-19. Two approaches have been adopted for treatment. The first of these is to accelerate the development of new treatments currently in the pipeline (including therapeutic peptides, monoclonal antibodies, and broad-spectrum antivirals), and the second is to screen and identify molecules that could work against the virus, using advanced modeling and computational

techniques. In the development of new vaccines, research will focus on developing a preventative vaccine and a therapeutic vaccine to be used for treatment. For diagnostics, a project called CoNVat is developing advanced nanobiosensing platforms. Coordinated by Laura Lechuga of the Research Center on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the campus of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the project includes researchers from Spain, Italy, and France. Their device, based on optical biosensor nanotechnology, is expected to become massively available in less than 12 months. Another project, called CoronaDX, is spearheaded by Anders Wolff of the Technical University of Denmark. Among the devices the research group is developing is a portable instrument called PATHPOD. It contains a specially designed lab-on-achip, in which a full laboratory analysis is encoded into a microchip. The sample from a patient is placed on the chip, which analyzes by measuring the biological reactions, and the result is available on a computer or a tablet in 30 minutes. Wolff says, “In October [2020], we expect to hav