PRiME Faculty Awarded Research Funding to Address COVID-19

PRiME faculty members Dev Sidhu and Keith Pardee received federal grant funding to address the COVID-19 outbreak, part of 47 grants totalling $26.7 million awarded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to research teams responding to the emergency.

Dr. Dev Sidhu's laboratory at the Donnelly Centre develops synthetic antibodies as novel therapeutics, having previously created anti-viral therapies for SARS and MERS. With collaborators across Guelph, SickKids, Manitoba, and Leiden University, his team received $886,090 to identify novel lead candidate drugs.

Dr. Keith Pardee's laboratory in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy uses synthetic biology to create portable, affordable diagnostics, previously tested on Zika virus. For COVID-19, the team received $1,000,000 to develop three diagnostic approaches: a lab-in-a-box for surge testing, on-site manufacturing capacity, and point-of-need tests for airports and cruise ships.