ULB, Hôpital Erasme - FNRS
Lung injury, endothelial dysfunction and the role of RAAS during SARS-CoV-2 invection. " The first case of a person infected with SARS-Cov-2 virus can be tracked back on November the 17th, 2019, in China. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. On April 13, COVID-19 is affecting 210 countries and territories worldwide, about 2 million positive cases have been officially declared along with 115.000 deaths. The real number of infected and deaths is scarily higher, considering that up to 65% people are asymptomatic and thus, not tested. The percentage of patients with COVID-19 needed for intensive care unit (ICU) varied from 5 to 32% in Wuhan, China. It was up to 9% in Lombardy, Italy. According to available data from Lombardy, 99% of patients admitted to the ICU needed respiratory support (88% invasive ventilation, 11% non invasive ventilation). In this unprecedented time, while SARS-Cov-2 virus is halting...

Read more: Sofia Morra, FNRS Research Fellow

ULB, UCLouvain, UNamur - FNRS
" Since early March, we have monitored spatial features of the epidemic, and various possible spatial determinants of its progression, including demographic, socio-economic and environmental indicators. We are also investigating the predictive and explanatory value of various indicators of mobility. Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic in Belgium, we observed strong spatial patterns in the disease case incidence. Before confinement measures came into effect mid-March, spatial predictors such as population density, as expected, were correlated to incidence. After the confinement came into effect, many such predictors no longer affected recorded incidence. We have assembled a rich database of demographic, socio-economic, and environmental indicators at the municipality level to identify spatial correlates of disease transmission. These are expected to differ pre- and through confinement, and to change further after confinement. We are also working...

Read more: Sophie Vanwambeke, Professor - Catherine Linard, Professor - Marius Gilbert, FNRS Senior Research...

GIGA-Institute, ULiège - FNRS - Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
" The main objective of our research program is the identification of human genetic factors impacting the COVID19 pandemic. Within the COVID-19 host genetics initiative (https://www.covid19hg.org/), we will establish a shared set of phenotypes to be combined with genomic data for standard GWAS and further meta-analysis. Field of expertise of our laboratory : genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, immune-response related diseases. In addition, the GIGA Institute is an interdisciplinary research institute from the ULiege devoted to academic excellence in the biomedical sciences to foster ground-breaking medical innovation. It comprises 583 members attached to six faculties (Medicine, Science, Veterinary Medicine, Engineering, Agbiotech, Psychology) that are organized in four disease-based (neuroscience, cancer, infection-inflammation-immunity, cardiovascular) and two method-based thematic units...

Read more: Souad Rahmouni, Doctor

UCLouvain - Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium

Determination of Germ-Line Variations and Pathological Gene Expression that May Contribute to Immunopathology in COVID-19." The SARS-CoV-2 infection (1, 2), can be followed by a severe evolution with severe respiratory distress. We hypothesize that germline variants in genes involved in innate immunity, especially type I interferon induction and actions, predispose to delayed pathological response/cytokine storm. Our aims are to identify: i) such germ-line variants and ii) peripheral leukocyte gene expression that can predict unfavorable SARS-CoV2 infections. A group of SARS-CoV2 patients with unfavorable evolution, young and without co-morbidities (25) will be compared with an aged matched group of 25 SARS-CoV2 individuals with absence or a minimum of symptoms. Germ line DNA obtained from peripheral blood (PB) will be whole exome sequenced (WES) and analyzed with bioinformatics tools that are used for rare disease germline...

Read more: Stefan Constantinescu, Professor

UMONS and Ambroise-Paré Hospital Mons
" Predictive plasma signature of the clinical behavior of COVID-19 patients. The clinical presentation of COVID-19 infection varies from mild to asymptomatic to pneumonia, which can be complicated by severe respiratory failure and/or cardiovascular, renal, hepatic and cutaneous involvement. The understanding of such a polymorphism is very incomplete and the prognosis is difficult. Several tracks involving inflammatory reactions are currently favored to better explain this disease. In particular, the significant increase in plasma cytokines IL2, IL7, IL10, GSCF, IP10, MCP1, MIP1A and TNFα, known as "cytokine storm", seems to be significantly associated with the ARDS and multi-organ onsets. In this context, IL6 seems to play an important role and targeted treatments against this cytokine seem promising. Also, the infection of endothelial cells by the coronavirus causing endothelium inflammation have been suggested as one of the fundamental...

Read more: Stéphane CARLIER, Prof - Jean-Marie COLET, Prof - Fabrice JOURNE, Dr - Sven SAUSSEZ, Prof- Vincent...

Materia Nova
" Based on its expertise on surface treatments and biotechnology, Materia Nova is actively working on the development of decontamination process or anti-viral surface treatments. On the one one hand, plasma technology can be used to decontaminate surfaces or fabric, like sanitary masks. Beyond masks, this technique can be used for the sterilization of medical parts (respirator tubing, surgical instruments...) even sensitive to temperature. The technology can be declined in the form of a small system that could also be useful in structures other than hospitals such as nursing homes, shops... On the other hand, the knowledge of Materia Nova in wet and dry functional coatings dedicated to various properties and applications (transport, health, energy,…) helps to investigate the anti-viral surface treatment. Due to this large panel of technologies (plasma deposition, sol-gel, organic coating or electrodeposition), the coatings or the combination of coatings can be applied on...

Read more: Stéphanie Roosa, Program Leader Biotechnology - Thomas Godfroid, Scientific Leader Plasma...

UMONS, CHU Ambroise Paré
" Following the observation of clinical cases of rashes at Ambroise Paré Hospital, the University of Mons and the team of dermatologists of the hospital initiated a research project to study various rashes that may be related to the current COVID-19 infection. These suspicious rashes are: acute urticaria, Gibert's pink pityriasis, frostbite, urticarial vasculitis, erythema multiforme and other atypical rashes. These rashes are known to accompany several viral infections, their current high number is of concern and we wish to evaluate whether COVID-19 infection could be the cause of them. "
Funding: internal funding
Contact: Pr. Sven Saussez, head of the laboratory of Human Anatomy and Experimental Oncology This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

UMONS/ Epicura/ CHU Ambroise Paré/ Hôpital Foch
" In recent weeks, many European ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialists and infectious diseases specialists have observed that patients infected with coronavirus (COVID-19) had impaired sense of smell and taste. These symptoms of anosmia and dysgeusia were found in a large number of patients infected in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, England and the USA. Faced with the multiplication of declarations medical press, a group of ENT specialists from IFOS (the International Federation of ORL Societies), has developed a survey to investigate these sense of smell and taste disorders in patients infected with COVID-19 (infection being proven by PCR test). Pr. Sven Saussez and Dr. Jérôme Lechien from the University of Mons coordinated this study which was conducted by 33 ENT physicians and researchers in 12 European hospital "
Funding: CUR project submitted UMONS funding
Publication References: Olfactory and gustatory dysfunctions as a clinical...

Read more: Sven Saussez, Professor - Jérôme Lechien, Doctor

UCLouvain
" On the one hand, we are developing a safe, middle throughput seroneutralization assay to correlate standard serology to seroneutralization and to enable vaccine response analysis. On the other hand, we develop a basic research project on the identification of a promising drug target site in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of positive-stranded RNA viruses, conserved in SARS-CoV-2. During researches performed in the framework of an EOS program, we seredendipitously discovered a conserved region of viral RNA-dependent RNA-polymerases that has properties to be targetable by drugs. This site appears to be conserved in several viruses including SARS-CoV-2 and other important human pathogens. In collaboration with a swiss group working on coronaviruses and other partners, we plan to examine the impact of this polymerase target site on the replication of several viruses, its drugability and the reason for its conservation during evolution. "
Funding: - contribution to a small...

Read more: Thomas Michiels, Professor

UNamur
" Understanding the evolution of the epidemic spreading using simple mathematical models to overcome of the biaises in the data "
Funding: UNamur
Publication References: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340610501_UPDATE_Italy_now_two_weeks_past_the_peak
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ULiège
" The definition of populations at risk for severe Covid-19 might help to improve health care and to propose specific treatments. We investigate candidate genes that could be associated with these severe forms. "
Funding: Walloon Region (WALGEMED project) Fonds Léon Frédéricq (ULiège)
Contact: Vincent Bours, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

UCLouvain
" Abstract Aims. Billions of individuals have been confined to their homes as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. This kind of exposure of the population to social distancing is unusual in its scale and in its potential effects on social and mental health. The main aim of this paper, accordingly, is to investigate the effects of confinement on the social and mental health of individuals during the first days of confinement. First, we compared the prevalence of psychological distress before and at the beginning of the confinement period. Then, we assessed three groups of risk factors for psychological distress: changes in social activities and support, exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic, and changes in occupational status. Methods. An online survey was distributed to the general population in Belgium three days after the beginning of the confinement period. 20,792 respondents participated in the survey. The prevalence of psychological distress was measured using the GHQ-12...

Read more: Vincent Lorant, Professor

ULB - FNRS
" Germanium is widely used for attenuated total reflection (ATR) Fourier infrared transform spectroscopy (FTIR). We developed a simple way using calixarenes to functionalize these Ge surfaces and transform them in high quality and sensitive biosensors. The detection being done by ATR-FTIR allows the high sensitivity but also can quantify different molecular species in a mixture as well as their different secondary structures, both being extremely important for epidemiology study (it has been demonstrated that FTIR can discriminate different Ig proteins in a mixture). The recording of the spectra takes only few seconds and their analysis can be easily automatized. Furthermore, our laboratory is equipped for rapid and high-throughput analysis (fabrication of protein micro-arrays, infrared microscope able to record hundreds of spectra simultaneously, …). This new generation of biosensor has also the great advantage of being extremely stable and recyclable . All these...

Read more: Vincent Raussens, FNRS Senior Research Associate - Ivan Jabin, Doctor - Gilles Bruylants, Doctor -...

ULB and Sciensano - FNRS
" La spectroscopie IR fournit des signatures spectroscopiques spécifiques permettant une détection rapide de biomolécules dans un échantillon complexe, tout en ne requérant que très peu de matériel. La création d'un biosenseur basé sur cette méthode et appliqué aux anticorps contre le SARS-COV-2, permettrait d'étudier de manière beaucoup plus sensible, spécifique et quantitative les réponses immunologiques de la population contre le SARS-COV-2 que les tests sérologiques actuels. C'est un enjeu majeur pour gérer la période de déconfinement. "
Funding: Demande en attente auprès de l'AUF
Contact: Vincent Raussens Senior Research Associate (FRS-FNRS Belgium) Université libre de Bruxelles Structure and Function of Biological Membranes bd. du Triomphe, Access 2 - 1050 Brussels, Belgium T : +32 (0)2 650 53 86 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

UCLouvain
" To confirm endothelial dysfunction in severe covid-19 patients admitted in Intensive Care Unit "
Funding: actually private; but waiting answer for credit urgent de recherche by FNRS
Publication References: 1) Manoury B, Montiel V, Balligand JL (2012). Nitric oxide synthase in post-ischaemic remodelling: New pathways and mechanisms. Cardiovascular Research, 94(2), 304-315. 2) Montiel V, Leon Gomez E, Bouzin C, Esfahani H, Romero Perez M, Lobysheva I, Balligand JL (2014). Genetic deletion of aquaporin-1 results in microcardia and low blood pressure in mouse with intact nitric oxide-dependent relaxation, but enhanced prostanoids-dependent relaxation. Pflugers Archiv European Journal of Physiology, 466(2), 237-251. 3) Montiel V, Robinson E, Bella R, Michel L, Esfahani H, De Mulder D, Deglasse JP, Jonas JC, Steinhorn B, Michel T, Beauloye C, Bertrand L, Farah C, Dei Zotti F, Bouzin C, Brusa D, Bergmann O, Gilis D, Rooman M, Roderick L, Devuyst O, Balligand JL. Cardiac...

Read more: Virginie Montiel, Professor