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COVID-19: Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste opens a priority lane for researchers from all over the world to carry out studies on SARS-CoV-2

International call for experiments submissions open on www.elettra.eu

At this time, the entire scientific world is called upon to make a useful contribution to research on COVID-19. Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste is committed to giving maximum priority to experiments aimed at identifying drugs, vaccines and diagnostic methods to tackle the current pandemic. The experimental stations of Elettra synchrotron light source and of FERMI free electron laser are open to worldwide researchers, who will have the opportunity to request access to the beamlines through a priority procedure to perform remote measurements – with no need to physically reach the Elettra laboratories – to shed some light on the molecular components of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the agent responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak. The call is now available on the homepage of the website www.elettra.eu.

The experiments will be carried out by Elettra researcher staff that the will take measures on the delivered samples by highly sophisticated techniques, speeding up the urgent studies on understanding the biological macromolecules that make up the SARS-CoV-2 viral particle responsible for COVID-19. Further experiments, aimed at studying the effectiveness of known antiviral drugs such as chloroquine will be carried out at the FERMI light source which has unique characteristics that make it possible to survey the drug-protein receptor interaction at an atomic scale.

Finally, diagnostic serological devices based on the detection of circulating antibodies useful for monitoring all the population that displayed an immune response to COVID-19, even in retrospect, will be fine-tuned at the Nanotechnologies Laboratory of Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste in collaboration with the Neurobiology Laboratories at SISSA. The research aims at introducing the use of cheap devices to quickly identify infected people and using the data for epidemiological analyses.

“All the activities will be carried out without incurring risks – Prof. Alfonso Franciosi, President and CEO of Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, stressed – because the molecular components of the virus that can be studied are proteins, macromolecular complexes or small chemical compounds which are non-pathogenic but useful to quickly identify new therapies or methods to protect from the virus.”

Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste is already actively involved as a partner in the European project EXSCALATE4CoV (E4C), coordinated by Dompé farmaceutici, and recently funded by Horizon 2020 with 3 million euro through a special procedure dictated by the need to quickly launch research activities. The main goal of the project is identifying  small molecule, safe in man, drugs active against COVID-19 and structuring a fast operational intervention platform to address future viral pandemics.

For further information

Dott. Marco Marazzi, Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste Deputy General Coordinator
mob. + 39 040 3758624

Stampa Area Science Park Press Office
tel. + 39 040 3755221
mob. + 39 335 1236284

Press release

Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 November 2020 11:02