(23.03.20) Amid the health crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, research is one of the most promising areas to help society overcome this crisis. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is participating in this vital aspect of the crisis response, and on 19 March 2020 it launched a call for multidisciplinary research into epidemics and pandemics.

Amid the health crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, research is one of the most promising areas to help society overcome this crisis. The epidemic that first broke out in Wuhan, China, has since spread to all continents, with hundreds of thousands of people being infected. The World Health Organization (WHO) has now recognised it as a pandemic. In the front line of the fight against the epidemic are health professionals (doctors, nurses and so on), but also researchers from various countries who are working hard to understand the dynamics of the virus and develop a vaccine as quickly as possible. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is among the organisations participating in this vital aspect of the crisis response, and on 19 March 2020 it launched a call for multidisciplinary research into epidemics and pandemics.

On 11 March, the Budget Committee of Germany's federal parliament, the Bundestag, made €145 million available for coronavirus research. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is supporting German researchers who are essentially working on three fronts.

The first is research that can help us understand how the virus behaves. This provides valuable insights for the development of treatments and vaccines. It is vital that scientists develop a better understanding of the biology and the mechanisms and dynamics of transmission. This knowledge is also essential to the identification of suitable preventive measures.

The second priority is the development of drugs to treat infected patients. The aim is to develop new active ingredients and to manufacture drugs using existing ones, in other words medication that is already approved for the treatment of other viral diseases.

The third priority is to provide funding for the development of an actual vaccine. Germany has learned from previous epidemics and is a founding member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a public-private initiative funded by government organisations, research institutions and the pharmaceutical industry.

The multidisciplinary DFG initiative will provide funding for research projects in Germany that deal with the prevention, early detection and containment of epidemics and pandemics, the investigation of their causes and impacts, and their management. The research will take the example of SARS-CoV-2 and other microorganisms and viruses, which are pathogenic to humans. Examples of research topics include the challenges and impacts of an epidemic or pandemic and the measures taken to manage it in healthcare systems. Other projects will address the psychological, social and cultural factors involved in its emergence, spread and clinical management, as well as legal and ethical impacts and the effects on global and regional economic development. The call for proposals also focuses on the fundamental biological and medical aspects of a pathogen and the associated clinical picture, and treatment methods or preventive measures in combination with one or more of the above topics.

In Brazil, meanwhile, the Ministry of Health together with universities and research institutions are working hard to find solutions. So far, Brazil's scientific community has played an extremely important role in the current situation. In late February, two Brazilian researchers led a team which sequenced the genome of the virus in the country's first case of COVID-19 in record time. The work of the team, led by Prof. Ester Sabino and Dr. Jaqueline de Jesus, both from the Institute of Tropical Medicine at USP, is crucial to the development of a vaccine. In an interview with Pesquisa FAPESP magazine, Prof. Sabino said: "Part of the university's role is to develop technologies for healthcare providers, who keep things functioning in times of crisis."

A Brazilian project supported by funding agency FAPESP involving researchers from the immunology lab at the Heart Institute (Instituto do Coração, INCOR) in USP's Faculty of Medicine, is also part of the race to develop a vaccine. However, the strategy adopted by Brazilian researchers differs from that used by the pharmaceutical industry in other countries. The Brazilian approach involves the use of virus-like particles or VLPs. These have similar properties to the real virus, but not its genetic material. VLPs can be easily recognised by the immune system cells, but there is no risk of a virus spreading. This makes them safer, according to researchers participating in the project. The coordinator of this research project, Gustavo Cabral, told Pesquisa FAPESP magazine: "At the moment, since we're dealing with a little-known virus, for safety reasons we have to avoid introducing genetic material into the human body to avoid undesirable events like viral spread and possibly a genetic reversion of virulence. So alternative routes to developing a COVID-19 vaccine need to focus on both effectiveness and safety."

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