ULB, Bordet Institute and CHU Saint-Pierre
" The limited capacity of intensive care unit (ICU) beds and the high mortality of patients requiring ICU care after COVID-19 infection are major problems that urgently require solutions. Early evidence suggests that an individual patient's immune responses to this virus are a key factor in their disease pathogenesis. This response can be further compounded by underlying factors, which for patients at Bordet can be exacerbated by their cancer status. A recent study shows that some cancer patients (particularly lung, blood or metastatic cancer patients) are three times more likely to die from COVID-19 infection. Thus, there is an important need to understand and identify immune biomarker(s) that measure functionality of innate and/or adaptive immunity in the blood with rapid turnaround to provide much needed information for clinical decision making. The anticipated results of this collaborative research project include the identification of...

Read more: Ahmad Awada, Chef de Service, Medical Oncology - Karen Willard-Gallo, Laboratory Head, Molecular...

UCLouvain, CHU UCLouvain/UNamur
" Evaluation of the thrombotic risk associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and its management in the intensive care unit: a clinical and biological longitudinal study. Background Since the beginning of SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in December 2019, data accumulate regarding the high thrombotic risk associated with this infection, which could explain substantial part of the observed morbidity and mortality (1). Accordingly, a retrospective study suggested that prophylactic anticoagulation could reduce mortality in severe COVID-19 patients with sepsis-induced coagulopathy (2). Furthermore, a European cohort reported a 27% incidence of venous thrombo-embolisms (VTEs) despite systematic prophylactic anticoagulation, raising the question whether deeper anticoagulant regimen would be beneficial in severe COVID-19 (3). Some authors also suggested that fibrinolysis alterations could be a significant determinant of SARS-CoV-2 infection's prognosis, as it is in...

Read more: Francois Mullier, Prof - Alain Dive, Prof - Michael Hardy, Dr - Sarah Lessire, Prof - Isabelle...

ULiège 
Development of rapid and reliable alternative diagnostics for wide-scale COVID-19 testing. " Wide-scale implementation of rapid, reliable, low-cost diagnostic tests would help epidemic containment and mitigation strategies. The current gold standard in COVID-19 diagnostics employs quantitative reverse transcription (qRT) PCR which through cyclic reactions at different temperatures detects segments of the SARS-CoV-2 genome from RNA extracts from nasopharyngeal swabs. Though reliable, this procedure requires special sampling devices, purification of RNA, qualified personnel, sophisticated equipment, and a six hour turnaround time to result. By leveraging on university expert capacities such as molecular biology and protein science, our team has performed a series of controlled experiments to assess the specificity and sensitivity of loop- mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP)- and recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA)-based tests in comparison with the qRT-PCR procedure...

Read more: Haruko Takeda, Senior Scientist

UCLouvain
" As a technological platform of the IREC institute, CTMA offers technological support and expertise to IREC-researchers from multiple IREC Research Labs. CTMA provides to the IREC researchers access and support to use numerous molecular technologies including : quantitative PCR, LAMP (Isothermal Loop Mediated Amplification), Lateral Flow Assay developement, Sanger Sequencing, Pyrosequencing and Next-Generation-Sequencing (Illumina-Miseq), microarrays facilities (Affymetrix, Agilent, custom glass slide arrays…). The multidisciplinary team from CTMA provides a support on different aspect of the research projects from the experimental design until the data analysis and the validation of new devices. "
Contact: Professor Jean Luc Gala This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ULiège, GIGA-Research
" Development of specific antigens to allow the detection of circulating antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Our aim is to contribute to the development of serological tests that could help identifying the people previously infected by SARS-CoV-2 and detect the presence of neutralizing antibodies, which would predict an individual protection against COVID-19. With the help of local renowned companies, we are currently testing various antigens and optimizing their production. "
Contact: Dr. Laurence Delacroix (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Neurodevelopmental Biology, GIGA-Neurosciences and GIGA-Stem Cells, 15 avenue Hippocrate, CHU-B36, B-4000 Liège). Dr. Marielle Lebrun (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Pr. Catherine Sadzot (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), laboratory of Immunology and Virology, GIGA-I3, 11 Avenue de l'hôpital, 4000 Liège.

Coris BioConcept
" Early February we started the development of a rapid antigen detection assay for SARS-CoV-2. The COVID-19 Ag Respi-Strip Assay was validated in three University hospital laboratories and registered (CE mark) by end of March. The test is designed as a first line triage assay to be used for rapid (15 minutes) detection of SARS-CoV-2 on symptomatic patients. We are currently developing a serological assay that targets the immune response against several antigens of the virus. "
Publication References: https://jcm.asm.org/content/jcm/early/2020/05/11/JCM.00977-20.full.pdf https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2020.00225/full?utm_campaign=ba-cov-sci-fmed-respi-strip&utm_medium=cvlp&utm_source=fweb
Contact: https://www.corisbio.com/Products/Human-Field/Covid-19.php product-sales: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. science-R&D: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.