Brock University has been awarded $200,000 for equipment to research the cell biology of COVID-19 infection.
The Canada Foundation for Innovation awarded immunologist Adam MacNeil and medical entomologist Fiona Hunter the money to buy high molecular and cellular resolution equipment for this work.
The Brock research teams will study how cells respond to infection, the impact of acquired immunity toward coronaviruses, and how interactions between the immune system and cells lining the lungs shape the inflammation characteristic of severe COVID-19.
They will also look at if and how a molecule called a peptide could be used to reduce the replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, acting as a possible therapy.
The new equipment will be housed in Brock University’s Level 3 containment laboratory (CL3).
“We are excited and honoured that the Canada Foundation for Innovation has equipped us with outstanding and sophisticated tools capable of analyzing and imaging virus-host interactions at the molecular and cellular level,” says team leader MacNeil, Associate Professor of Health Sciences. which MacNeil says is the ideal location.