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A project led by a researcher from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa received $ 9 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to create a national network for better research and better response to the global threat posed by COVID-19 variants.
Led by Dr Marc-André Langlois, the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network or CoVaRR-Net, will make it possible to assess in real time both the immune response to variants of the virus and whether these variants are resistant to existing vaccines. The results will provide policy makers with advice on drug therapy, vaccine efficacy and other public health strategies.
CoVaRR-Net is poised to contribute to the Canadian effort to mitigate the effects of harmful variants of concern (VOCs) on the citizens of Canada and on the world population. This project provides a harmonized and rapid approach to real-time assessment of the possible threat of SARS-CoV-2 variants and will serve as a blueprint for future pandemics to protect the health of all Canadians. This network will serve as Canada’s integrated platform to determine the impact of VOCs on Canadians from diverse communities and demographic groups and to track the mutation of SARS-CoV-2 in real time. “
Dr Langlois, Canada Research Chair in Molecular Virology and Intrinsic Immunity and Full Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Ottawa
Dr. Langlois and his team will collaborate with the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) of the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network (CanCOGeN), provincial and territorial public health laboratories and other national and international organizations.
The project is supported by various University of Ottawa partners, including:
- Amy Hsu, Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Researcher at the Bruyère Research Institute;
- Angela Crawley, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Science at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH);
- Melissa Brouwers, Director of the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa;
- Jeremy Grimshaw, Full Professor in the Department of Medicine and Senior Scientist at TOH;
- Doug Manuel, Professor in the Faculty of Family Medicine and Senior Scientist at TOH;
- Justin Presseau, Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa and Senior Scientist at TOH.
CoVaRR-Net members and research partners include:
- Bruyère Research Institute
- The Ottawa Hospital
- Montreal university
- Dalhousie University
- University of Calgary
- Laval University
- Sinai Health System
- University of Toronto
- University of Saskatchewan
- mcgill university
- University of British Columbia
- Simon Fraser University
- University of Regina
- SPOR (Patient Oriented Research Strategy)
- Saskatchewan Health Authority
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