During a pandemic there is a need for timely and accurate collection, reporting and sharing of Individual Participant Data (IPD) from clinical trials. IPD should be stored in trustworthy data repositories that have been certified, are subject to rigorous governance, committed to longer-term preservation of their data and compliant with the relevant regulations (e.g. GDPR). This will facilitate reanalyses, secondary analyses and patient-level data meta-analyses. With the help of EOSC-Life, our partners are currently developing such a repository using the TSD platform for sensitive data. The repository will be part of the European COVID-19 Data Portal.
Extension of the COVID-19 Data Portal The COVID-19 Data Portal brings together relevant datasets submitted to major centres for biomedical data, with the aim to facilitate data sharing and analysis, and to accelerate coronavirus research. Within EOSC-Life the COVID-19 Data Portal is extended to mobilise open biomolecular data (500,000 records from the biomolecular and literature domains are available openly to users), to mobilise new SARS-CoV-2 data (currently >160,000 viral isolates with raw sequence data; 75% of the world’s data flows through the Data Hubs) and to connect to clinical and epidemiological data.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus shifted towards providing tools and workflows to tackle analyses of COVID-related data in an open and reproducible way. The WorkflowHub was accelerated by 6 months and released early to provide a registry for COVID-19 workflows. In collaboration with the global Galaxy community, workflows have been made available on public Galaxy instances worldwide.
Our Training Open Calls offer funding to support training activities and provides expertise and guidance to help awardees organise successful and impactful training. Examples of funded projects are training and mentoring for Open Life Science Ambassadors, COVID-19 modelling, and cross-cluster training on modelling workflows with FATES for improving climate models.
A collection of 100 diverse data resources (each containing thousands of datasets) following FAIR principles, produced by EOSC-Life partners.
EOSC-Life believes that connecting digital life science data will transform our societies and allow us to address major challenges facing humanity, now including COVID-19
To support the global effort to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, the Life Sciences Research Infrastructures (LS RIs) involved in EOSC-Life have been prioritising COVID-19 research, as detailed in the actions below. The benefits of using established Research Infrastructures are clear: they are ready and able to provide expert advice and resources to meet a variety of research needs. Although in-person visits to facilities may be restricted, many infrastructure services are still available via remote access and, where possible, the cost of access will be minimised or waived.
Please follow the links provided by each LS RI for more information and to request access to their services.
The video on the right presents 10 services of the European Life Science Research Infrastructures that can be used to advance research on coronavirus and other diseases.
The Research Infrastructure for biobanking and biomolecular resources has a network of over 600 biobanks across Europe, which can provide key services to researchers, such as:
Read more and download the document here.
EU-OPENSCREEN, which integrates high-capacity screening networks throughout Europe, and its partner sites are actively involved in a range of activities to study the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, identify therapeutics and search for diagnostics. Efforts include:
Read more here.
COVID-19 Fast Response Service is a coordinated and accelerated procedure for researchers to access the academic facilities, services and resources of the three medical research infrastructures: the European Research Infrastructure for Translational Medicine (EATRIS), the European Clinical Research Infrastructure network (ECRIN) and the European research infrastructure for biobanking (BBMRI), working together under the umbrella of the Alliance of Medical Research Infrastructures (AMRI). Services include:
Read more here.
Biological and biomedical imaging technologies are essential for addressing many research questions – such as those related to the virus, SARS-CoV-2, and the COVID-19 disease it causes – from fundamental research at the molecular and cellular level to medical applications and diagnostics.
Currently, computed tomography (CT) is the imaging method of choice to diagnose and monitor patients with COVID-19 because of its resolution, availability in intensive care units, and cost-effectiveness. However, most of the available imaging modalities will be centrally involved in research projects aimed at the development of therapeutics and diagnostics to combat coronavirus infection. The need for an in-depth understanding of the molecular processes of the infection will require the design and testing of innovative imaging probes and the access to proper cellular and animal models that are in the domain of Euro-BioImaging Nodes. Moreover the skills in image analysis together with the access to the powerful AI tools will represent an area where our research infrastructure aims to support the biological and biomedical communities.
Euro-BioImaging continues to support life science research throughout the current pandemic crisis and, where possible, will give priority access to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 related research. Euro-BioImaging’s support includes:
Read more here.
EATRIS mission is to accelerate the translation of promising scientific discoveries into benefits for patients. We focus our main activities on bridging the innovation gap between the lab and the clinic and we offer services and expertise to increase chances of research to successfully reach patients.
The EATRIS infrastructure’s resources are therefore highly relevant for the research community in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and include the following expertise and services:
These services are available for any researcher or research team (academic or industrial) that is developing a potential therapy, vaccine or tool for use against the current COVID-19 pandemic, with secured funding. We can also put in touch with the right partners if you are preparing a funding proposal.
Research requests will be handled via a single point of contact, with a targeted turnaround time of 48 hours or less. This means that applicants will receive details of available services and suppliers within 2 days of the first request. For more information contact Chris Tieken, EATRIS Business Development Manager. Read more here.
Instruct-ERIC is committed to the use of its infrastructure in response to emerging societal needs. In the case of the COVID-19 virus, Instruct-ERIC would like to ensure that resources are made available to support researchers in their efforts to study the virus, working towards the development of an effective vaccine or treatment.
Where possible, Instruct-ERIC is offering priority access for research directly related to COVID-19. Priority access ensures a faster review of research proposals relating to COVID-19. In order to protect staff and users, physical visits to Instruct Centres has been suspended but it may be possible to undertake research remotely during the restricted access period, subject to individual Centre availability.
In addition, Instruct-ERIC has compiled a list of resources for COVID-19 research, which may be of interest to the wider life science community.
For enquiries relating to Instruct-ERIC services during the restricted access period, please contact support@instruct-eric.eu.
Clinical research is a critical step for the development and optimisation of solutions for treatment, prevention and diagnostics of COVID. ECRIN provides support to the planning and design of multinational clinical studies, and operational services to the management of the trial. This includes clinical trials on any intervention (medicines, medical devices, procedural intervention), on diagnostics, or on prevention (from behavioural measures through vaccines), and observational studies.
In the COVID-19 context, ECRIN has established, with its national partners, a COVID-19 taskforce whose mission is to:
Read more here or contact Sabine Kläger, Head of clinical operations unit
As a contribution to the global fight against COVID-19, Instruct-ITALIA has extended its portfolio of services available to users by including a variety of computational services mostly aimed at drug development. The new services include 3D structural modeling, analysis of high-throughput NMR-based screening and modeling of ligand-protein interactions, based also on screening data. Proposals can be submitted via the form at https://access.cerm.unifi.it
ELIXIR Nodes provide researchers and consortia working on SARS-CoV-2 with a range of services such as:
For further information on ELIXIR services related to COVID-19, please visit our dedicated page.
INFRAFRONTIER, the European Research Infrastructure for the generation, phenotyping, archiving and distribution of model mammalian genomes, is fully committed to support researchers around the globe to develop a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 and to find treatments for COVID-19.
Resources include:
And many more. See detailed resource list here.
Research carried out in the ERINHA infrastructure is intended to contribute to the overarching mission of protecting human health by increasing Europe’s preparedness for and capability to respond to an existing high consequence infectious disease or a newly emerged infectious disease threat. Therefore, ERINHA member capacities are highly involved in SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 research activities.
Antiviral discovery, drug repurposing and vaccine development are critical to stop pandemics and limit the spread of COVID-19.
European Research Infrastructure on Highly Pathogenic Agents (ERINHA) provides access to its members – leading European high containment facilities (BSL3 and BSL4) – as well as expertise and project management services to advance research on SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19.
Our high containment research capacities include:
In vitro research capacity:
In vivo research capacity:
Additionally ERINHA provides support for:
For more information see our COVID-19 research webpage
To access services, contact ERINHA CCU: contact(at)erinha.eu
Researchers developing vaccine candidates against COVID-19 can benefit from TRANSVAC2 services, namely but not exclusively:
Animal models
Adjuvant formulation
Clinical Trial Support
Regulatory support
TRANSVAC is an H2020 project dedicated to accelerate vaccine candidates across the R&D pipeline, by offering services to vaccine developers in academic and industry settings. Visit www.transvac.org for more information.
The following are more initiatives in the fight against COVID-19 within the life science and the research infrastructure communities. To add your initiative, please contact us.