Tuesday, 18 August 2020, 3:28 PM
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LEIDEN –
Researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) will play a leading role in one of the largest corona studies to date in Europe. Together with 36 other healthcare parties and pharmaceutical companies in the European Union, research will be conducted over the next five years into the effect of existing and new medicines on the treatment of viruses such as COVID-19.
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The LUMC will be involved in the research from the beginning to the end, from the first experiments to the actual testing on test subjects. The aim is to provide solutions for the current virus outbreak, but also to investigate how these types of pandemics can be prevented. The EU has released nearly € 78 million for the research.
“Hopefully, this research will yield a handful of antiviral drugs to treat current COVID-19 patients,” Professor of Molecular Virology Eric Snijder explains. “In a broader sense, we want to develop drugs that inhibit a whole family of coronaviruses, so that we can quickly suppress impending future outbreaks.”
Four million for improvement medication
The LUMC will receive about four million euros from the total budget of millions. This will also enable the Molecular Virology research group at the center to examine the question of how the coronavirus multiplies and how it uses the human cell to do so. According to the researchers, this information is important for improving medicines and virus inhibitors.
In March it was announced that the LUMC joined another European study into corona medication. According to the center, this new study is the largest so far in terms of size.
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