CoVaRR-Net Funded Research Results

Vaccines have been instrumental in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time of publication (January 2022), more than 300 vaccine candidates had been designed, produced, and tested in animals.

CoV-2 can survive on surfaces for days. The pressing need for efficient high-touch surface disinfection and sterilization methods has led to a flood of unproven radiation-emitting UV lights and handheld UV devices on the market.

Most antiviral drugs inhibit viral enzymes. A good example of this is Paxlovid, the front-line antiviral drug of the COVID-19 pandemic that has an active ingredient that directly inhibits the activity of a SARS-CoV-2 protease enzyme, thereby inhibiting an essential early step in viral replication.

The rapid advancement of DNA sequencing technology has revolutionized biological research, allowing scientists to conduct complex experiments that produce a vast amount of data.

Clonal heterogeneity underlies diverse biological processes, including viral infection, cancer progression, cell differentiation, and microbial evolution.

Over the past 20 years, intense research efforts have focused on understanding and developing therapies for viruses with pandemic potential that have demonstrated the capacity to cross the species barrier, spread through respiratory routes, and lead to high hospitalization and mortality rates, such as coronaviruses and influenza viruses.

The persistence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, despite vaccines and some level of immunity in the population, is because the virus is changing over time, making vaccines and treatments less effective.

Wastewater-based surveillance (WBS) is an important epidemiological and public health tool for tracking pathogens across the scale of a building, neighbourhood, city, or region.

COVID-19 has become endemic, with dynamics that reflect the waning of immunity and re-exposure, by contrast to the epidemic phase driven by exposure in immunologically naïve populations.