CARE External Newsletter – June 2024
The new issue of our biannual newsletter is out. In this edition we learn an impressive app developed by AbbVie to determine genetic factors related to COVID-19 risk, plus we share news of an exciting partnership between University of Dundee and Novartis. We also introduce CARE partner Scifeon and the important role they play in managing CARE’s laboratory informatics.
Read the Newsletter here: CARE External Newsletter – December 2024
CARE – Infographic – Work Package 8 –
Management, ethics, communication, dissemination and exploitation: focusing on laboratory and clinical data management
CARE has 8 Work Packages but do you know what each one does? Last but not least, here you can learn about the Work Package 8 team with a particular focus on laboratory and clinical data management activities, objectives, partners, breakthrough moments and more.
The infographic is also available here
Collaboration between Dundee DDU and Biomedical Research Unit of Novartis announced, to continue development of an antiviral compound for future coronavirus pandemic preparedness
The University of Dundee’s Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) and the Biomedical Research Unit of Novartis have announced a partnership to enable collaboration on a target-based project to develop a broad-spectrum antiviral compound for coronavirus pandemic preparedness.
A lead chemical series developed in CARE Work Package 3 has shown promising pan-coronavirus activity with low mutation and resistance risks. It will be taken forward by the partnership to conduct toxicology studies and complex virus efficacy models.
Dr Duncan Scott, Coronavirus Portfolio Lead, DDU University of Dundee commented, “We are very excited at the Dundee Drug Discovery Unit to be collaborating with Novartis, a world-leading pharmaceutical company, to push the frontier of coronavirus drug research and develop medicines for any future coronavirus pandemics”.
Working alongside Duncan, the DDU team in WP3 are Colin Robinson, Ian Gilbert, Irene Georgiou, Craig Smith, Sandra O’Neill, Shamshad Ahmad, Lesley-Anne Pearson, John Post, Suzanne Norval and Sean O’Byrne. The DDU is led by Prof Ian Gilbert and Dr Duncan Scott with funding by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Novartis team is part of the NIH-funded Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern which were set up to accelerate antiviral treatments for pandemic preparedness and will be bringing toxicology and virology expertise.
While attention in the healthcare sector has shifted away from COVID-19, the DDU and Novartis still recognize the risk of a future coronavirus pandemic and are prepared to continue to develop the work started in CARE WP3. This endeavour reinforces the value CARE has brought to pandemic preparedness, thus contributing to CARE’S legacy – through being a platform from which CARE’s research can continue to bear fruit.
To learn more, click here:
Publication in Vaccines: Protection of K18-hACE2 Mice against SARS-CoV-2 Challenge by a Capsid Virus-like Particle-Based Vaccine
Using a pathogenic isolate of SARS-CoV-2, this study shows that a vaccine consisting of capsid virus-like particles (cVLPs) displaying the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 (Wuhan strain) induces strong neutralizing antibody responses and sterilizing immunity in K18-hACE2 mice; also protecting them from a lethal infection and symptomatic disease, while significantly reducing inflammation and lung pathology associated with severe disease.
To learn more, click here: Protection of K18-hACE2 Mice against SARS-CoV-2 Challenge by a Capsid Virus-like Particle-Based Vaccine – PubMed (nih.gov)
CARE – Infographic – Work Package 7 – Clinical evaluation of repurposed or novel SARS-CoV-2 antivirals or antibodies
CARE has 8 Work Packages but do you know what each one does? Here, you can learn about the Work Package 7 team, their objectives, their partners, their breakthrough moments and more.
The infographic is also available here
