136 projects
Status
Organization Type
The role of air pollution in transmission and severity of COVID-19
Based on superficial inspection and anecdotal evidence, there appears to be a close correlation between being a hotspot area for COVID-19 prevalence or severity on one hand and air pollution on the other hand. For instance, the highest COVID-19 prevalence region in Italy (Lombardy) is also one of the most polluted areas of the country. This apparent correlation has led some researchers to hypothesise that air pollution may play a causal role in increasing COVID-19 transmission and severity. While such a link is plausible, as COIV-19 is a respiratory disease and as there are well-established...
The role of environmental factors
The project aims to correlate the international progression of Covid19 as a function of a number of environmental factors: population density, temperature, absolute humidity, and pollution. Other factors may be added as the project progresses.
Toward alternative geographies of Luxembourg's relational urbanisation (ALTGEO)
This project seeks to explore the particular challenges of the COVID-19 disease for the relational urbanisation of Luxembourg and aims to identify possible alternative geographies for the Grand Duchy. It acknowledges the need to develop strategies for mid- or long-term adaptation to COVID-19 and associated policy measures, and will therefore focus on the geographical dimension of the problem. In our previous GLOBAL research project (C15_SR_10352117), we approached Luxembourg as having undergone relational urbanisation. Cities are relational in their ability to extract streams of profit from...
Towards an Integrated GEospatial corona (pandemic) Response system
The Corona pandemic has shown that rapid information integration from distributed sources is of high importance to control the spatial and temporal spread of unknown infectious diseases across different scales, from local sources of origin to the entire globe. It is of vital importance to protect the the population and in particular the most vulnerable people by having a good picture of the spatial and temporal distribution of the corona virus across local, regional, national and global areas to avoid fast spreads through e.g. social contacts resulting in overwhelmed health, emergency and s...
Tracking SARS-CoV-2 with Open Banking API
According to the health authorities , due to the highly contagious potential of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 desease), the formal preventive quarantine has been replaced by an isolation strategy early March. However, such strategy cannot last for an undetermined period of time, since there is no concrete date for releasing a vaccine or discovering an effective medicine. The return of people to normal activities will probably happen gradually, but still it will create a new potential peak of cases if not made carefully. Thus, a post-isolation strategy needs to be well planned as the next phase....
TrapNclean
Some studies have demonstrated that SARS-CoV is stable almost 2 weeks after drying in standard air conditions and 3 weeks in a liquid environment. Therefore the role of fomites and environmental contamination play a significant role in virus transmission. It has been shown that Coronaviridae is less stable in high humidity and can be easily killed by heating at 56C during 15mn. We propose a solution which combines high temperature at high humidity as a synergistic inactivation of COVID19. A functional coating could be applied to masks, filtering systems for respiratory masks or gloves in...
Ultra-high sensitivity biochemical and cellular assays for diagnostics and drug discovery against...
Sensitive detection of biomolecules is the cornerstone of diagnostic and drug discovery assays in COVID-19/ SARS-CoV-2 research. Two workpackages (3 and 4) within this special LuxCOVID-19 call focus on these areas. While diagnostic assays need to be cheap, fast and reliable, drug discovery assays ideally have a strong predictive power for efficacy. Our group has developed a palette of molecular assays in the past years, in order to detect binding of small molecules or peptides to protein pockets or to protein-protein interfaces. We have a particular expertise in providing complementary in ...
Understanding Immunity in COVID-19
Previously developed model of immune response [Abulikemu et al 2020] will be modified in the collaboration with model authors and used for understanding processes involved in SARS-CoV2. We will develop a systems immunology tool that stratifies the coronavirus patient population according to (i) their likelihood of developing the cytokine tornado and (ii) the tornado subtype they are subject to. It will insert individual patient information into our Abulikemu et al model [2020] and compute the implications for whether or not a flip from moderate ('acute') inflammation to a 'cytokine tornado...