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The corona virus provided researchers, foundations and government agencies and institutions with a common enemy to unite against. This has led to lightning fast applications, unexpected collaborations, overwhelming collegial helpfulness and self-examination – also of the critical kind – among some of the researchers who received funding in no time.
2020.04.01 |
Four hard-working researchers in their offices at home - here in a selfie or photographed with mobile phones with help from family members. From the left Professor, DMSc Ulf Simonsen, Professor Søren Dinesen Østergaard, Clinical Associate Professor Ole Schmeltz Søgaard and Professor Søren Paludan.
Even though the corona virus brings disease, death and countless other problems, the last few weeks have taught us an important lesson: that processes we think of as normal can be changed. And that we can actually change things when it really matters. There is more or less consensus about this among Health researchers who have applied for and received urgent funding for corona-related research.
One of them is Ole Schmeltz Søgaard, associate professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University and medical doctor at the Department of Infectious Diseases at Aarhus University Hospital. Last week, he and a colleague received DKK five million from the Lundbeck Foundation to test whether the Japanese medication against heartburn, camostat mesylate, slows the disease caused by the new corona virus (COVID-19).
“It took 12 – twelve – days from a blank sheet of paper until the grant was made, the clinical protocol was drawn-up and the whole thing was approved by the Danish Medicines Agency and the health research ethics committee system. The medicine is now on the way to us from Japan, and if everything goes to plan, we’ll begin giving the pills to the first hospitalised patients with mild to moderate corona before the end of the week," says Ole Schmeltz Søgaard of his experience of urgency as a tremendous driving force against a common enemy, as it were.
"An important fact in the story is that three weeks ago, I didn’t know that my collaborative partner on the project, associate professor Mads Fuglsang Kjølbye from the Department of Biomedicine, even existed, let alone what he does. This project was the first time we met because Mads offered his biomedical knowledge and asked whether there was someone who could help transform this knowledge into a possible treatment for COVID-19," says Ole Schmeltz Søgaard. He also points out that the normal response time from the Lundbeck Foundation is five to six months from the deadline.
Professor Søren Dinesen Østergaard from the Department of Clinical Medicine and the Department of Affective Disorders at Aarhus University Hospital - Psychiatry, is also surprised by how agile a society can be, when its citizens are forced to act quickly. Last week, he received DKK one million from the Novo Nordisk Foundation to map out the impact of the corona pandemic on mental health – a study that was launched at the same moment the application to the Novo Nordisk Foundation was submitted.
"My application was a two-page PDF file, a ten line budget and a brief CV. It was sent by email on Sunday, and the following Tuesday evening I was notified that I got the grant. I have to say that I'm full of admiration for the pragmatic and ad hoc way this is being handled," says Søren Dinesen Østergaard. He adds that it is not just foundations and government agencies that are changing their normal practices at the moment:
"It's also thought-provoking how we as researchers pull ourselves together in this extraordinary situation, because the ideas are not just coming fast, they’re also good and relevant. I think this will lead to some kind of self-examination when the pandemic has passed, because how did we make all this happen so quickly? The self-examination might also include some of the meetings that never took place, because what did we really miss out on by cancelling them?" asks Søren Dinesen Østergaard.
Professor Søren Riis Paludan has also reflected on both tempo and research necessity. He is currently in the process of moving into the otherwise closed Skou Building, where he and six colleagues with special training in working with dangerous viruses, have been given special permission to conduct research into the corona virus, which has just been transported to Denmark with one of the few and increasingly rare flights from Japan and Germany.
The research is financed by a grant from the Carlsberg Foundation totalling DKK 25 million. Søren Paludan’s group will utilise a system of cells that the corona virus thrives in to test how the vaccine candidates work. In addition, they will test for new antiviral drugs as well as investigate whether patients have viruses in their samples and whether there are signs of the development of the so-called herd immunity.
"The money arrived last week, and we’re already on our way into a research building which is otherwise – rightly so – hermetically closed. Of course, this gives us a feeling of really being able to do what needs to be done when it really matters," says Søren Paludan. He was also pleased and grateful to see how the grant application could be written in just twelve hours and processed by the foundation in three hours. Overnight.
"Once this is over, it’s going to make us think about whether we built such a large paper tiger in our systems, that it’s become counterproductive. Of course, neither researchers, foundations nor government agencies can work in such an incredibly fast tempo that none of us could keep up in the long term; but the past few weeks still put some things into perspective," says Søren Paludan.
Professor, DMSc, Ulf Simonsen from the Department of Biomedicine also notes the – at least temporary – fast tempo. He was awarded funding from the Ministry of Higher Education and Science’s special funding pool and received DKK 5.3 million for a project to examine whether the drug senicapoc can reduce the damage in lungs affected by the corona virus, thereby reducing the need for a ventilator. A couple of years ago, his research group discovered that the drug blocks an ion channel in the lungs that inhibits the development of water in the lungs – a discovery which Ulf Simonsen and his colleagues have patented together with Aarhus University.
"Perhaps that’s why it was also the Technology Transfer Office that sent us the call for application which, all things being equal, was primarily addressed to clinical researchers. Fortunately, dean Lars Bo Nielsen immediately agreed that I should apply," says Ulf Simonsen about the process. The same high tempo continued after the money was granted and agreements needed preparing about the practical aspects of medical testing at the hospitals in Aarhus, Odense and Hvidovre.
"There has been outstanding collegial goodwill, which means that we can already begin testing the drug on the most severely affected intensive care patients from next week. These are patients who have water in the lungs and who, in some cases, die from this because their level of oxygen saturations falls," says Ulf Simonsen, before adding another example of collegial helpfulness that went far beyond what is customary
"Very recently, I received a call from a colleague who asked whether I’d considered who should produce the drug in large batches for patients with the COVID-19 infection, if it turns out to work in the new context. And that is indeed a very relevant question which, if I’m honest, I’ve not even had two seconds to consider, and which I will now try and find out,” says Ulf Simonsen.