Preventing the next pandemic: The EU project funding research into infectious diseases
In this episode of Smart Regions, we find out how the European PerForM-REACT project is helping two German research institutes in their quest to better understand and more effectively deal with infectious diseases.
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00:00 For some, the COVID-19 pandemic might seem like a distant memory, but the virus still
00:06 lives among us. What will cause the next pandemic and how can we be prepared to deal with it
00:12 more effectively? A European project is dedicated to answering these very questions. Two research
00:19 institutes in Munich and Augsburg in Germany use cutting edge technology to understand
00:23 how viruses work.
00:26 The next pandemic will come for sure and it will most probably be another one that is
00:32 transmitted by aerosols. And what we try now to set up is sentinels also to understand
00:39 how viral particles are dispersed in room, in airplanes, in buses. So for the next pandemic,
00:45 we do not want to shut down the life. Life should go on.
00:50 COVID-19 has caused more than 6.9 million deaths and infected more than 771 million
00:58 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. The Institute of Environmental
01:05 Medicine at the Helmholtz Center in Munich has acquired high-tech equipment thanks to
01:09 the European Perform React project. Its main objective is the early detection of disease
01:15 progression.
01:17 There are certain groups of viruses such as coronaviruses or flaviviruses which are under
01:22 very strict surveillance and we now have the tools and also the communication platforms
01:27 to be better prepared and be aware of these alarm bells which might ring.
01:33 They have a level three biosecurity laboratory with sealed entry locks, negative pressure
01:39 rooms, a thermal virus inactivation system, as well as other instruments such as this
01:45 microscope which is used to study viruses at the molecular level.
01:51 So we are looking at whether SARS-CoV-2 can infect different cell types in different parts
01:56 of these 3D cell system models.
01:59 The results of their research are shared with the laboratory at the Augsburg Clinical University
02:04 which is associated with the project. Here they are studying the interactions between
02:09 different viruses and the effect of climate change, pollen or pollution on how they spread.
02:15 The total budget for this project covering the two studies is 18.5 million euros. Perform
02:20 React has been fully funded by the European Union's cohesion policy.
02:26 Research is progressing in leaps and bounds. PhD student Carina is working with a robot
02:31 that can predict whether an infection will be severe or not, even in a positive but asymptomatic
02:36 patient.
02:37 With this we can predict the cause of the infection so hopefully somewhere in the future
02:42 if you go to a test centre and you get a positive test you could already get this predictive
02:47 test and then they could send you to a doctor right away, they could send you to the hospital
02:52 to get monitored to hopefully prevent a severe cause.
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