New COVID-19 screening hub to be established in Scotland
pharmafile | January 7, 2021 | News story | | COVID-19
A new COVID-19 drug screening and resistance hub, funded by medical research charity LifeArc and the Medical Research Council, is to be established at Scotland’s MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR).
The project, CRUSH (COVID-19 Drug-Screening and Resistance Hub), has received £2.5 million in funding to establish a national resource which will initially be dedicated to supporting and accelerating vital COVID-19 antiviral innovation drug translation.
CVR CRUSH will be delivered by the University of Glasgow in collaboration with partners LifeArc and the University of Dundee Drug Discovery Unit, and will provide a fully integrated hub for pre-clinical drug screening and resistance assays for SARS-CoV-2, as well as providing the same services for other dangerous and deadly viruses in high containment facilities.
Work in the CVR facility will include studies to investigate promising drug candidates for COVID-19 treatment – and the mechanisms of how they work – alongside the integration of drug screening with the early identification of any possible drug and immune-resistant virus variants to accelerate the investigation process.
Professor Massimo Palmarini, Director of the CVR, said: “The establishment of CRUSH is an exciting development for the CVR and we are delighted to be partnering with LifeArc on this initiative.
“Whilst CRUSH activities will initially focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, the CVR and the CRUSH facility are well positioned to rapidly respond to future viral outbreaks, delivering innovation to address public health crises caused by high consequence viruses. We look forward to working with academic and industry partners to develop CRUSH as a national facility.”
Michael Dalrymple, Executive Director Diagnostics and Science Foresight at LifeArc, also commented: “We have now allocated more than £22 million to the search for new medicines and diagnostics to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, and this project is the latest example of that commitment.
“Our partnership with the CVR to establish CRUSH will provide the virology research community in the UK with much-needed infrastructure and facilities to progress essential research for COVID-19 drug development, other anti-viral therapies and diagnostics, towards patients.”
Darcy Jimenez
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