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Project Closing Press Conference
Pécs researchers conclude successful COVID-19 project with a host of new procedures
Experts from RoLink Biotechnology Ltd. and the University of Pécs (PTE) have achieved a huge breakthrough in coronavirus research over the past two years, as their research has enabled the measurement of both the antibody and cellular immune response triggered by COVID-19 with a newly developed device. As a result of the research, this procedure will also be applicable to other pathogens in the future. The project was implemented within the framework of the application entitled “COVID-19 Diagnostics and Therapy – Unified Platform Approach”, number 2020-2.1.1-ED-2020-00100, with the support of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology and the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation, using 127 million HUF.
Event details
Date: February 7, 2023
Time: 2:00 PM
Location: University of Pécs Szentágothai János Research Center
Publicable Summary Of The Project Subject
The COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. In addition to the fact that contact with an infected person is an essential part of healthcare, the risk of infection also threatens healthcare personnel working with samples taken from patients. Working with samples and research using the SARS-CoV-2 virus can only be done in a laboratory at a minimum BSL-3 level due to the infectious nature of the samples.
In the preliminary phase of our project, we aim to provide a solution to the difficulties outlined above. The process itself is an experimental validation of a UV-inactivation procedure that can be used to render human samples used in diagnostic work free of contamination. This may later enable the safe processing of human samples for diagnostic and research purposes, thus obviating the need for additional safety measures. Accordingly, the procedure may bring tangible and clear benefits to healthcare workers and research groups targeting the COVID-19 pandemic.
The inactivated virus concentrate prepared above will be used in the further phases of the research to test a system combining molecular biological techniques, which will allow for the qualitative analysis of the blood plasma of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 and to gain new immunological knowledge. In principle, it will be possible to identify plasma preparations containing large amounts of antiviral antibodies that are suitable for therapy in the future with supersensitive detection. In addition to all this, our further goal is to develop a system for understanding the cellular immune response that is triggered in the body as a result of COVID-19 infection, which may be suitable for monitoring and assessing the effectiveness of the vaccine development that is underway in many places around the world and the vaccine resulting from these efforts.
In summary, our goal is to develop a virus inactivation method to protect the health of healthcare workers and to facilitate research work with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. If the methods are successful, the observed phenomena, the supersensitive and rapid examination of the immunological processes triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in our body, may provide new knowledge for the selection of therapeutically effective plasmas and for measuring the effectiveness of vaccines to be developed.