Pandemics: learning from the past – anticipating the future
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CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #28 - Pandemics: learning from the past – anticipating the future
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:16:02
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery.
00:00:16:04 - 00:00:39:00
Abigail Acton
Hello. Welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Action. The COVID pandemic pushed us into new ways of doing things. For the scientific community that meant novel approaches to the vaccine development, fast tracking the use of AI to help spot patterns in large amounts of data. Innovative ways of using tech to track outbreaks. We've all learned a lot, which may be just as well.
00:00:39:02 - 00:01:04:20
Abigail Acton
Avian influenza is having a devastating impact on bird populations. The words roll by, but the statistics are astonishing. 272 million poultry died or were culled due to bird flu. Between October 2021 and April 2023, according to the World Organization for Animal Health, BirdLife International reports that over 400,000 dead non poultry birds, including wild birds, were recorded in 2022.
00:01:05:00 - 00:01:30:18
Abigail Acton
These are rising from over 2600 recorded outbreaks in non poultry birds, which is over twice as many as was seen in the two previous large waves of avian influenza in 2016-17 and in 2021. And the organization believes that giving testing limitations, that figure is vastly underestimated. Mammals are now impacted. The Peruvian government reports that since November 2022 one third of the country's sea lions have succumbed.
00:01:30:20 - 00:01:57:12
Abigail Acton
3487 Dead Sea lions have been found. While the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control assesses the risk to the general population in the EU and the wider European Economic area as low. It is low to moderate for occupationally or otherwise exposed people. Influenza viruses evolve. And the future is hard to predict. So what tools have we learned to use and how can they help us in the event of any future pandemic?
00:01:57:14 - 00:02:22:01
Abigail Acton
Our three guests today can talk us through the ways in which their work, supported by the Horizon 2020 program, has given us a solid foundation. Marina Britto is a business strategic relations officer based at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Portugal. Her background is in neuroscience, but her current focus is on getting great ideas out of the lab to where they're needed most.
00:02:22:05 - 00:02:23:14
Abigail Acton
Welcome, Marina.
00:02:23:16 - 00:02:25:07
Marina Brito
Hi, Abigail.
00:02:25:09 - 00:02:43:21
Abigail Acton
Maire Connolly is professor of global Health at the University of Galway's College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Science. And a member of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of Ireland. Her areas of expertise include global health security, emerging infectious diseases, pandemic management and humanitarian response. Welcome, Maire.
00:02:43:23 - 00:02:45:03
Maire Connolly
Hello, Abigail.
00:02:45:05 - 00:03:01:01
Abigail Acton
Professor of Health, Biotechnology and Virology at the Aix-Marseille University in France Bruno Coutard is the coordinator of the European Virus Archive, which identifies, collects and distributes viruses and related noninfectious materials for the scientific community. Hello, Bruno.
00:03:01:03 - 00:03:02:07
Bruno Coutard
Hello, Abigail.
00:03:02:09 - 00:03:25:09
Abigail Acton
Marina, I'm going to turn to you first, if I may. INNO4COV-19 project was committed to boosting the uptake of technical innovations for COVID diagnosis, prevention and surveillance. So, Marina, the COVID pandemic accelerated innovation. We had to think creatively and respond as quickly as possible to a wide variety of challenges. What did INNO4COV-19 focus on particularly?
00:03:25:11 - 00:03:51:06
Marina Brito
Yeah. Abigail Indeed, there was an urgency to act. I remember that we applied for funding in June 2020 and I remember clearly because I was very pregnant at the time and we started the approach in October 2020. So the situation there was still very critical. There was an urgent need to stop the propagation of the virus and we immediately had to start to work.
00:03:51:06 - 00:04:22:09
Marina Brito
So the first focus of INNO4COV-19 was to reach out to the technology developers and help them to fight, to help us to fight COVID. And for that we had to help them to accelerate the uptake of their solutions into the market. Our plan had two major actions create a hub or platform with various services to help them to develop the technologies and also cascade funding.
00:04:22:09 - 00:04:57:02
Marina Brito
So Cascade funding is financial support to companies so they can have the resources to develop further their solutions. And in this case, we had up to 100 K to give to each solution and that we kick off this cascade of funding immediately. So the Open Call was published in the first month that we started and we highly disseminated and this was our first action.
00:04:57:04 - 00:05:12:24
Abigail Acton
I ask, you know, you were interested in allowing or enabling good technological innovation and solutions too, to flourish through, as you say, cascade funding. But what areas were you looking at? What sort of problems were you hoping that this technology could resolve?
00:05:13:03 - 00:05:26:15
Marina Brito
So we chose four areas: innovative diagnostics and screening systems, protective equipment for people, environmental surveillance and sensors and devices for telemedicine and telepresence.
00:05:26:17 - 00:05:31:02
Abigail Acton
And when you say environmental surveillance, what sort of things would fit under that heading?
00:05:31:04 - 00:05:54:18
Marina Brito
Well, we supported software that, for instance, sewage surveillance software, environmental surveillance software to be used for territorial authorities, but also other kind of technologies that would be helping on the sampling on the environmental to monitor the spreading of the pandemic.
00:05:54:20 - 00:06:10:23
Abigail Acton
And telemedicine, I mean, you know, we are perhaps now more used in some contexts to contacting our doctors through the Internet or maybe via telephones. But at that point, that was still, I think, quite a new concept, wasn't it? So what sort of telemedicine ideas were you helping to support?
00:06:11:00 - 00:06:39:10
Marina Brito
So you always have to look at two levels. The sensors and the devices needed to do readouts in point of care technologies at home, let's say with the client directly with the patient, and then the telemedicine platforms to help the medical doctor to interact with the patient. I can give you some examples that we have supported, for instance, my health calf.
00:06:39:12 - 00:07:05:24
Marina Brito
That is a platform, a software that is delivered to clinicians so they can manage the clinical protocols that they have and also the interaction with the with the patient's sensors. All POCs actually technologies point of care is that will be more user friendly and adapted for less trained people to do the tests.
00:07:06:01 - 00:07:13:23
Abigail Acton
What sort of like the standard swab tests we all had to go through? You mean when you're saying testing that, that, that kind of testing or other type of testing, the.
00:07:13:23 - 00:07:44:17
Marina Brito
There were other type of tests and it could tell you that at that point we received around 325 proposals. So imagine 325 people responding immediately to the call with new ideas and different from the ones that we had. We chose 30 from those ones and there were different tests. Molecular tests, but in different technologies and different devices. Most of them, they all were in a low development stage, so they didn't reach out to the market.
00:07:44:19 - 00:07:57:06
Marina Brito
But for instance, I remember one workplace PCR that was based on the swap tests that, you know, but it was a specific PCR test, a very accurate PCR test that could be used by anyone without training.
00:07:57:11 - 00:07:58:02
Abigail Acton
Fantastic.
00:07:58:06 - 00:08:08:21
Marina Brito
Yeah. And other examples were like coatings for fabrics to be antivirals, UV disinfection devices for air to put in the air conditioning.
00:08:08:23 - 00:08:09:17
Abigail Acton
wonderful.
00:08:09:19 - 00:08:15:13
Marina Brito
So many face masks with nanotechnology to be reusable, etc..
00:08:15:15 - 00:08:32:16
Abigail Acton
So basically like a really intensely creative period as well. And I must have been wonderful for the people who'd got these ideas that they felt so strongly and obviously had done testing and research on beforehand and knew could offer something to actually then be given the opportunity to fast track that development.
00:08:32:21 - 00:09:08:23
Marina Brito
I think so. So they had the financial resource, the 100 K but also support. So the hub part, the hub is kind of a shopping center, a mall where you have different shops where you can pick up if you want through research and development services help on that if you need business support. And actually I can tell you that towards the end of the project that was the most requested one because COVID wave have already passed and they had something to put in the market, but the market was not prepared for it, so they had to readapt.
00:09:09:00 - 00:09:40:16
Marina Brito
And this can actually bring us to the preparedness part because most of the technologies can be easily readapt to another bug that might appear. But, you know, it's a huge shopping mall that you can enter and choose the services that you need. So we were giving that support besides of course, the financial support. And they I think that they were very happy, especially the ones that finalize the project, bringing the product to the market on time.
00:09:40:18 - 00:09:49:22
Abigail Acton
And can you think of a couple of the products that that did actually make it right the way through the process to the market and had, you know, really useful practical implications.
00:09:50:01 - 00:09:55:24
Marina Brito
So from the 30 solutions that we supported, six entered the market.
00:09:56:03 - 00:09:58:01
Abigail Acton
That's really quite a high percentage. That's great.
00:09:58:04 - 00:10:26:08
Marina Brito
Yes. Knowing that the only had one year to develop the products, the project was a two year project, but most of the grantees, so the people that got the support only had one year, one year and half to develop finally developed a solution. Some of the examples were the ones that I just referred to, but they were other that were on the certification process and that was quite delayed.
00:10:26:10 - 00:10:40:14
Marina Brito
Unfortunately, the notified bodies were full of work and there was also a change in the rules that didn't help on that stage and that delayed some of the products.
00:10:40:20 - 00:11:02:21
Abigail Acton
But they're still in the pipeline. So yeah, yeah, it just it held them up slightly, but it hasn't stalled them now. That's great. And I think it's fascinating what you say. And this is indeed the point of this episode, the fact that you know what we have achieved due to that those imperatives that we suddenly found ourselves, you know, having to reach can be recycled and turned around and adapted to a future situation.
00:11:03:02 - 00:11:12:21
Abigail Acton
It must have been very challenging getting this up and running and effective in the middle of a pandemic. And as you say, you were also taking some time from maternity leave and so on. For you, what was the toughest part of the project?
00:11:12:24 - 00:11:42:10
Marina Brito
For sure, that is not easy to work in a pandemic context, dealing with delays related to the supply chains. And there were a lot of delays in most of the sources of materials needed for the developments. But besides that, I think that the personal issues was also very challenging. You know, kids with no school lockdown, with kids jumping in your lap during teleconferences, etc., It was not an easy environment to work when you had to keep a fast pace.
00:11:42:12 - 00:12:01:15
Abigail Acton
You know, just while I'm listening to you, it suddenly occurs to me and this might be a bit of a stupid observation, perhaps it's not true at all, but sometimes that kind of chaotic emergency can cause people to think out of the box and find solutions that in a more kind of predictable traditional environment might be slower to arrive at.
00:12:01:15 - 00:12:10:16
Abigail Acton
It's a little bit as if that sort of chaos causes everybody to think differently and more dynamically. Did you find that or was everyone just absolutely exhausted?
00:12:10:18 - 00:12:38:02
Marina Brito
Well, I think that the ones that were not completely focused on following up a falling up work plan might have that creativity. We were all closed, locked at our places. We did a lot of time, most of us. So they were some creative ideas for sure. But I can tell you that the ones that were implementing the project, probably they were to focus.
00:12:38:05 - 00:12:47:20
Abigail Acton
Sure on achieving the steps that they had were obliged to achieve. Indeed. Okay. Thank you very, very much. Now, does anyone have any observations or questions to put to Marina? Yeah.
00:12:47:22 - 00:13:18:09
Maire Connolly
Hi, Marina. I think one really interesting output of your research was the development in the area of environmental surveillance. And if you look at, I think looking at influenza now and looking at how this area has advanced in terms of member states being able to monitor the presence of pathogens in in sewerage, for example, I think this is something that is really benefiting our ability to provide early warnings of future pandemic threats.
00:13:18:13 - 00:13:44:01
Marina Brito
For sure, these tools are wonderful, but we have to keep in mind that they are based on continuous testing. Okay, so this has to be implemented. So imagine that during pandemics we were getting samples from sewages every week or so. I'm sure that nowadays is not the same. We are not looking at virus or any bug on those samples nowadays.
00:13:44:03 - 00:14:20:24
Marina Brito
It is interesting. They are very powerful. We can do a lot with them and really do a surveillance work with it. But we also have to think on the right implementation for these tools. And this is having a periodic sampling on sewage or even access to databases where you can follow human samples, testing on human samples, etc. Because two of these platforms are also based not only on sewage, but also on the database that was public in the countries regarding the infection of SARS-CoV-2.
00:14:21:01 - 00:14:21:11
Abigail Acton
Yeah.
00:14:21:13 - 00:14:26:02
Marina Brito
But I completely agree with you. They are powerful tools for surveillance.
00:14:26:04 - 00:14:50:23
Abigail Acton
It's a question of not taking a step back and thinking everything is absolutely fine. Now, I suppose it's something that I've heard from other researchers as well, that lots, many, many things were developed that need now to be supported and continued. Really. Thank you very much Marina. Maire, I'm going to turn to you. You were the coordinator of the PANDEM-2 project and developed a prototype IT system to enhance planning, situational awareness and decision support for pandemic management.
00:14:51:00 - 00:15:05:08
Abigail Acton
The project had a lot of scope and there were many other very interesting things that you were doing. It was built on an earlier project of the same name. What was the what did the second phase want to add to the work done previously, please?
00:15:05:10 - 00:15:32:06
Maire Connolly
Okay. So the PANDEM-2 project built on the Phase one project which looked at pandemic surveillance, communications and governance. And one of that was three key recommendations from that Phase one project. One was, as you said, the whole area of IT systems that why there had been significant investment in biomedical research, that the area of data management for pandemic response was inadequate.
00:15:32:08 - 00:15:57:06
Maire Connolly
The second key research gap was training platforms for pandemic preparedness, which, unlike the military or defense forces who invest heavily during peacetime in these preparedness drills, that this was something that was lacking within the public health domain. And then the third area was the whole area of threat analysis. And within that, we looked specifically at influenza, as you mentioned in your introduction, but also a cruel new virus.
00:15:57:08 - 00:16:23:19
Maire Connolly
And we knew, following the experience of SARS-1 in 2003, when I was based in W.H.O. in Geneva, we knew that of the 2000 plus coronaviruses that are out there currently in the wild, circulating in bats, that they continue to pose a threat to human health. So it was only a matter of time, really, before a corona virus managed to mutate and spill over into human populations.
00:16:23:21 - 00:16:45:23
Maire Connolly
And little did we know that when we put the scenario together in the proposal submitted in August 2019 of an accidental release scenario of a novel coronavirus in South East Asia, that three months later that this eventuality would actually occur and would lead to global spread within the period of 2 to 3 months.
00:16:46:00 - 00:16:56:16
Abigail Acton
It must have been so weird for you when the news broke that this was actually happening because it was really echoing a direct echo of what you had had thought might be a problem down the line.
00:16:56:22 - 00:17:20:11
Maire Connolly
Yeah, well, we knew that coronavirus, because of SARS-1- and because of Mers-Covid 2, that it was one of those pathogens that could potentially reach pandemic potential. And unlike influenza, where we have an influenza vaccine platform and we knew that within 3 to 4 months that the vaccine for a pandemic strain would be available for a novel coronavirus.
00:17:20:11 - 00:17:43:19
Maire Connolly
We had no such infrastructure. And again, you know, it took almost a year to get a group of coronavirus vaccine up and running. There had been research done on SARS-1, but it was very much at the preliminary stage and it wasn't shown to be effective for SARS-CoV-2. So I suppose all it has done is made us realize that the threats out there continue.
00:17:43:19 - 00:18:06:10
Maire Connolly
And even though we have just emerged from the pandemic and we've learned a lot and we are in definitely a better place now in our armory for future zoonotic viral diseases, we still have to remain, maintain vigilance. And this research is really important to ensure we are, you know, prepared for the next pandemic when ever it occurs.
00:18:06:15 - 00:18:25:15
Abigail Acton
Yeah, no, absolutely. So going back specifically to PANDEM-2 tell me a little bit more about what the project was setting out to specifically achieve and what it did achieve. So, for example, I know that you drew on vast pools of data in order to work out communication patterns, whether communication was effective and other trends and tendencies.
00:18:25:17 - 00:18:27:19
Abigail Acton
Could you tell me a bit more about this, please?
00:18:27:21 - 00:19:04:18
Maire Connolly
Okay. So we were very fortunate to being given funding to develop an I.T. system and all the data sources around that during a pandemic. When we put the proposal together, we had actually looked at creating synthetic data to do a mock up of a pandemic for based on 1918 influenza, for example. And all of a sudden, we were in the middle of this project, and we have an absolute wealth of dashboards, of social media, tweets of laboratory data, of survey data, actually capturing the experience of our citizens of a pandemic.
00:19:04:20 - 00:19:22:24
Maire Connolly
So there was hugely valuable information there. And the challenge we had was or end users who were on the consortium were also involved in putting off the fire in a way. So which was quite a challenge, as Marina mentioned in her talk. It was quite a challenge to maintain the project outputs, given that the lot of them were still in the response mode.
00:19:23:01 - 00:19:48:13
Maire Connolly
But it did give us a hugely valuable position and we are now ahead of the game in the way in a way because we are now looking at preparedness materials. We were capturing the experience of COVID right from the outset, and now our system and our training platforms have taken account all that we've learned from COVID. We've developed social media analysis tools that can capture COVID data sets of tweets, and they can monitor a community.
00:19:48:13 - 00:20:19:12
Maire Connolly
The public's response to government measures. For example, we've looked at linking laboratory data with hospital disease data. So again, at the outset of the pandemic, we were able to define what or were the conditions that made people more susceptible to severe illness and following infection with SARS-CoV-2. We've also learned how to present data in a way using cutting edge visual analytics.
00:20:19:14 - 00:20:41:17
Maire Connolly
We were very fortunate in that many member states across Europe have invested heavily in their dashboards, in their data management systems. And what we've been able to do now is use the best of them and put this into a training platform which can be used by EU member states for preparedness training exercises, and that is the final output of our project will be a pandemic preparedness training platform.
00:20:41:19 - 00:20:51:13
Abigail Acton
Okay, that's fantastic. And I believe also you did a simulation exercise. Is that the platform that you're talking about or is that a sort of literally a simulation exercise with people running around? I mean, what was that about?
00:20:51:15 - 00:21:24:22
Maire Connolly
So that's exactly what it was. So the Rubber Cork Institute, which is probably one of the longest standing public health agencies in Europe, ran an exercise in March with their equivalent in the Netherlands, the public health agency of the Netherlands. And it was a two day, what we call a functional exercise where they were a team of ten epidemiologists, public health experts, clinicians, defense experts and border control experts based in each of the two public health agencies.
00:21:24:22 - 00:22:08:11
Maire Connolly
And they ran a simulation of a novel avian influenza pandemic. So we based it on 1918 with very high numbers of admissions in young adults, with high rates of admission to ICU and a high demand for ventilators. So over two days, we ran at what was essentially a nine month response going from the initial detection in animals, looking at emergence in a poultry farm and making sure that information is rapidly fed back to the public health system and then providing early warning for clinicians and general practitioners as to the emergence of avian influenza in humans and sustained human to human transmission.
00:22:08:13 - 00:22:35:21
Maire Connolly
So we learned a lot. We are in the final stages of fine tuning that the training platform, but it was the feedback from it was very positive in that it showed where the links were in terms of cross-border collaboration, what the potential was to share ventilators, to share staff, and where the communication with the public was absolutely crucial to keep them up to date and also to Lincoln with the animal sector, because again, that's where the original outbreak came from.
00:22:35:23 - 00:22:48:07
Maire Connolly
So we've learned a lot of lessons and I think simulation exercises something that the military use in peacetime and I think within the public health domain, we need to be looking at that very closely as well.
00:22:48:09 - 00:22:56:04
Abigail Acton
Thank you. That's excellent. Thanks very much. Does anyone have any comments to make on the work that Maire's team has been doing in her project? Yes. Bruno do you have a question?
00:22:56:10 - 00:23:06:07
Bruno Coutard
Yeah. I was just wondering, according to you, what would be or when would be the next pandemics, where would it come from and what kind of virus would it be?
00:23:06:09 - 00:23:30:13
Maire Connolly
Yes, well, that is the billion dollar question, isn't it? And I know when I worked in Geneva, we were accused of being shroud wavers. We would work a lot with the Ministry of Defense. And we certainly had ears that were obviously clearly listening to what we were doing in terms of our threat analysis. As we stand at the moment, the most likely source of the next pandemic would be an influenza, a novel strain of influenza.
00:23:30:15 - 00:23:54:16
Maire Connolly
And as Abigail mentioned in the introduction, it is quite worrying what is occurring. Certainly in Cambodia, for example, where there's been a cluster, a family cluster of cases with the 50% mortality rate. So we are looking at influenza as probably the most likely source. There has been about four in every century for influenza pandemics. The last one was in 2009.
00:23:54:18 - 00:24:21:06
Maire Connolly
Now, we were fortunate in 2009 because H1N1 was actually very mild and we don't know what the next strain will. You know, in terms of the clinical representation. But the work that's been ongoing on diagnostics and a disease, there could also be another coronavirus out there. This, you know, could end up spilling over. So the work, the preparedness work that you do and diagnostics is absolutely crucial to be able to confirm a diagnosis of a new disease.
00:24:21:06 - 00:24:44:02
Abigail Acton
Which actually is exactly perfect to bring in Bruno because. Thank you Maire. Bruno, I I'm going to turn to you because your project was called EVA-GLOBAL. And the E-V-A-G is the name given to the virus bank that you coordinate. Now, the project assists the works of scientists and companies researching viruses by putting the largest collection of human, animal and plant viruses at their disposal.
00:24:44:08 - 00:24:51:12
Abigail Acton
So can you tell us a little bit about what a virus archive actually is and a bit about the background of the archive?
00:24:51:14 - 00:25:17:16
Bruno Coutard
Yeah, Okay. Let me start by the by the beginning of the story. So I think the original idea came in 2005. So at that time there were two events that were very important for the concept of the European Virus Archive. So 2005 it was four year after the September 11 attacks and many borders closed, especially for the exchange of infectious materials.
00:25:17:16 - 00:25:50:10
Bruno Coutard
So how to maintain the European research submarine in terms of having access to buy your resource? So this was the first question. Then you know that later the SARS coronavirus emerged and it was very hard to find some material and to make the action over easy. So some of my colleagues say, okay, so let's, let's try to make a collection that would be completely open to the virologists and the research community at large from this original concept.
00:25:50:10 - 00:26:17:06
Bruno Coutard
Then we gathered some specialists around the world and in Europe. At first those specialists can grow some viruses and in their laboratories that could be coronaviruses, influenza, but also tropical viruses. And many of them were a kind of what we called at the time, neglected viruses. So viruses nobody cared about. And that might be of interest sometimes.
00:26:17:10 - 00:26:22:11
Abigail Acton
And I stop you for a second. Can you just tell us so what is actually a virus archive? What is this?
00:26:22:15 - 00:26:44:13
Bruno Coutard
So virus archives, a kind of collection of viruses. So you put some viruses in your in your freezer. So this is the basic idea, but it's a bit more complex because of course, if you want to have viruses, you have to grow them. So you have to start from identification of the virus. Growing production of the virus characterization of the virus and storage.
00:26:44:19 - 00:26:47:22
Bruno Coutard
Before you can share this material with the community.
00:26:48:03 - 00:27:08:17
Abigail Acton
Right. It must be a particularly challenging thing. I mean, so scientists come to you, make request research institutes come to you, make requests for certain viruses. But all the issues about refrigeration, transportation, getting stuff through borders, etc.. Tell me a little bit about the logistics of actually getting the material that you have in your archive out to researchers around the world.
00:27:08:19 - 00:27:36:13
Bruno Coutard
Well, that's an excellent question, because the way our collection is visible for the community is a website, and this website is a kind of market place. And anybody could theoretically order a virus and have access to this material. But of course, it's not as easy as it seems to be the researcher as to make sure that is allowed to work with this virus as the facility, to grow the virus and to work on it.
00:27:36:15 - 00:27:58:07
Bruno Coutard
And then you have to take this virus from one site and bring it to another site. And again, then you are facing some logistic issues or you may face some logistic issues like how to cross the border, how to make sure that the virus arrives on the right place. How long would it take from the original place to the researcher?
00:27:58:09 - 00:28:03:17
Bruno Coutard
And this is something we have to work with every day. And I can tell you that's not that easy.
00:28:03:19 - 00:28:06:10
Abigail Acton
Now. It must be a logistical nightmare from time to time.
00:28:06:10 - 00:28:21:09
Bruno Coutard
But yeah, yeah, especially if you want to cross the border. I mean, you have to face some national rules and some time. European rules and national rules are not aligned. So you have to make sure that the virus can travel properly.
00:28:21:12 - 00:28:27:21
Abigail Acton
Okay. I like the idea of it being like a living natural history museum. Yes, I think that's a nice description of it.
00:28:27:24 - 00:28:59:13
Bruno Coutard
Yes, this is a very nice description of it. And what is very funny is that we could find in in the freezers of the of the collection some viruses that were 50 years old or so. So they are kind of heritage of our collection. And this is very interesting because we can now compare this to the current circulating viruses with the original ones, and then we can see how different they are or what are the common features they have.
00:28:59:18 - 00:29:14:13
Abigail Acton
Okay. Now that's fascinating. And in fact, it leads me to my next question again for a non-technical audience. Completely. What's the benefit of sending these viruses off to various laboratories? What sort of I mean, obviously it's for analysis, but what sort of analysis is done and what can be the results of such work?
00:29:14:13 - 00:29:42:10
Bruno Coutard
Well, the first thing is obviously research and fundamental research. What is important for the preparation of the next pandemics is to have some scientific information about the virus, to know it, how it replicates, which infects cells, organisms and how it spreads. So this is the first thing. Then how could you use viruses for what we would call response to emergence?
00:29:42:12 - 00:30:04:11
Bruno Coutard
What I would say that there are two main options. One is you want to develop diagnostic tests. If you don't get the virus, it's very hard to develop it. You may use synthetic biology, it can help you for the first steps of the development, but at some point you have to validate your test or your essay on the virus.
00:30:04:16 - 00:30:33:18
Bruno Coutard
And for this you need to have the right circulating virus that is present at the moment on this or that place. So this is one example. Another example is you want to evaluate if this or that therapeutics works on this or that virus. And this was perfectly illustrated by the volumes of SARS-CoV-2 that emerged one after the other or all of the therapeutics have to be evaluated on all the volumes.
00:30:33:20 - 00:30:59:16
Bruno Coutard
And if you don't have a collection which is gathering all these variants and if they are not produced following the same process, then you cannot do this work. So this is very important. Absolutely. And I'm thinking just and lasting this vaccine development. So you know that there are many ways to develop a vaccine, and some of this way is to use either inactivated viruses or attenuated viruses.
00:30:59:18 - 00:31:04:07
Bruno Coutard
And for this, you need to have raw material. And the raw material is the virus.
00:31:04:07 - 00:31:17:17
Abigail Acton
Thank you. That brings home really clearly the importance of the archive. And I think for example, also your your project and the archive itself was quite instrumental when Zika emerged in the Americas. What happened there?
00:31:17:19 - 00:31:53:05
Bruno Coutard
Zika is a very nice story for the archive actually. When there was this pandemic and when the Zika virus which Americas, which was completely new at the time, people were looking for a virus strain and clearly it took probably one or two days in our collection to find that in one of our freezer we had the Zika Escherichia Zika strain that was isolated a few years ago in Polynesia, and this virus was available directly for the community.
00:31:53:05 - 00:32:04:00
Bruno Coutard
So even before the new strain was isolated in the Americas, the virus was already spread in different research labs so that people could start doing some research on this virus.
00:32:04:03 - 00:32:15:23
Abigail Acton
Perfect. Excellent. That's a nice concrete example of exactly the role that the archive can have. That's great. Thank you so much, Bruno, for expanding all of that to us. Do we have any observations or comments to make to Bruno? Yeah. Maire.
00:32:16:00 - 00:32:22:24
Maire Connolly
I. Bruno, I want to ask you about biosecurity measures and what challenge they pose to your work.
00:32:23:01 - 00:32:50:16
Bruno Coutard
Biosecurity is very important in our case. We need to make sure that the virus that we were sent to researchers is properly used in the researchers facility and we are tracking properly the documentation that the researcher has to provide before they can get the virus. And the researcher has to describe a research project in which it will use the virus.
00:32:50:18 - 00:33:00:03
Bruno Coutard
So what we try to do and what we want to do is to make sure that the distribution of the virus will be for the benefit of the community.
00:33:00:05 - 00:33:11:11
Abigail Acton
Perfect. Thank you. Yes, I think that makes sense. So basically, you keep very close track of where it's going and I guess the community is quite small. So you probably know the leading research laboratories that are going to be making applications for the viruses.
00:33:11:13 - 00:33:12:21
Bruno Coutard
Yes, exactly.
00:33:12:23 - 00:33:16:18
Abigail Acton
Superb. Thank you very much. Any other observations to make? Yeah, Marina.
00:33:16:20 - 00:33:50:11
Marina Brito
So actually, this was an observation for all of us. So a question for all of us. So we have platforms, shopping malls to help technology developers to bring solutions immediately to the market. We have platforms that help to be surveillance and aware of what's happening and how to kick off a plan, and then the virus that will help us on the virus bank, that will help us on the developments out of the technologies and even the therapies.
00:33:50:13 - 00:34:10:17
Marina Brito
But how can we gather this? My opinion is that we do this each time that we meet each other and we take your contacts and I know that if I need someone that needs a virus, I'll contact Bruno. I know that I want to know more about Maire's work and results because I want to be aware of what's happening, you know?
00:34:10:20 - 00:34:19:13
Marina Brito
But is there any other way? Is there any easy pathway to to, you know, to follow and to together all of this.
00:34:19:15 - 00:34:24:06
Abigail Acton
Make it more streamlined and efficient? Yeah. What do you reckon, my friends? Yeah. Bruno.
00:34:24:08 - 00:34:51:21
Bruno Coutard
Yeah, it's a very tricky point here. What is striking for me is that although we are all scientists, sometimes we don't speak the same language. And speaking the same language means that we have to understand what we are all working on and we have to be some somehow familiar with what you are doing. And for this, I think communication, of course, is important.
00:34:51:23 - 00:35:26:19
Bruno Coutard
Congresses are important. And as scientists, we are we are used to travel a lot. We are used to exchange a lot, but it's probably not enough. The last thing for me, which is important and probably something we are not working enough on, is to have some kind of procedures in which we can make sure that in any case, what I should do when the virus is emerging is to contact this person, that person, etc., put the people all together on a kind of a shield management.
00:35:27:00 - 00:35:27:24
Abigail Acton
Almost like a guide.
00:35:28:05 - 00:35:29:17
Bruno Coutard
Exactly.
00:35:29:19 - 00:35:31:10
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Maire you wanted to say something?
00:35:31:12 - 00:35:57:10
Maire Connolly
Yeah. I think this exactly what CORDIScovery is about. It's about getting awareness, raising awareness about the importance and the interconnectedness of the research that we're doing. And I think it is a challenge going forward because you learn so much more from work that's already, you know, either has been done or is about to be done. I think ECDC, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control is a key player here.
00:35:57:12 - 00:36:38:06
Maire Connolly
And obviously the ECDC have taken a very dynamic role in leading research in the area of pandemics and emerging infectious disease threats as part of the cross-border threat to health. So I think we'll see greater coordination at European level of research activities. And I think also working with the W.H.O. office in the regional office in Copenhagen, the European regional office, that again, global governance and European governance of this very important research will be crucial to ensure we're better prepared for the next pandemic.
00:36:38:12 - 00:37:06:04
Abigail Acton
Well, listen, I want to thank you all so much for the very, very important work that you're all doing. I think yeah. I mean, I think we've all lost a while. You guys probably never had that sense of naivety, but the rest of us might have been a little naive. And I think that, you know, our eyes are well and truly open and perhaps there is more motivation now to share ideas and to to maintain the drive of that we saw kick up at the start of the pandemic so impressively very impressively.
00:37:06:06 - 00:37:09:02
Abigail Acton
Okay. Well, listen, thanks for your time. Thanks for being with me today.
00:37:09:04 - 00:37:11:14
Marina Brito
Thank you. Nice to meet you all. Bye bye.
00:37:11:15 - 00:37:14:10
Abigail Acton
It's been a pleasure to have you, Marina. Bye bye. Bye bye.
00:37:14:13 - 00:37:15:12
Maire Connolly
Goodbye, Abigail.
00:37:15:13 - 00:37:38:04
Abigail Acton
Thank you. Goodbye, Maire. Thank you so much for your time. If you've enjoyed this podcast and are interested in the latest scientific research coming out of the EU, have a listen to previous episodes. You can follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or find us wherever you choose to get your podcasts. Are you curious about what other EU funded projects are doing in the area of pandemic preparedness?
00:37:38:06 - 00:37:57:16
Abigail Acton
The Cordis website will give you an insight into the results of projects funded by Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe that are working in this area. The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains and subjects from the pigmented spots on fly wings to supermassive black holes. There's something there for you.
00:37:57:18 - 00:38:19:19
Abigail Acton
Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding. Take a look at what others are doing in your domain. So come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line. Editorial@cordis dot Europa dot EU until next time.
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:16:02
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery.
00:00:16:04 - 00:00:39:00
Abigail Acton
Hello. Welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Action. The COVID pandemic pushed us into new ways of doing things. For the scientific community that meant novel approaches to the vaccine development, fast tracking the use of AI to help spot patterns in large amounts of data. Innovative ways of using tech to track outbreaks. We've all learned a lot, which may be just as well.
00:00:39:02 - 00:01:04:20
Abigail Acton
Avian influenza is having a devastating impact on bird populations. The words roll by, but the statistics are astonishing. 272 million poultry died or were culled due to bird flu. Between October 2021 and April 2023, according to the World Organization for Animal Health, BirdLife International reports that over 400,000 dead non poultry birds, including wild birds, were recorded in 2022.
00:01:05:00 - 00:01:30:18
Abigail Acton
These are rising from over 2600 recorded outbreaks in non poultry birds, which is over twice as many as was seen in the two previous large waves of avian influenza in 2016-17 and in 2021. And the organization believes that giving testing limitations, that figure is vastly underestimated. Mammals are now impacted. The Peruvian government reports that since November 2022 one third of the country's sea lions have succumbed.
00:01:30:20 - 00:01:57:12
Abigail Acton
3487 Dead Sea lions have been found. While the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control assesses the risk to the general population in the EU and the wider European Economic area as low. It is low to moderate for occupationally or otherwise exposed people. Influenza viruses evolve. And the future is hard to predict. So what tools have we learned to use and how can they help us in the event of any future pandemic?
00:01:57:14 - 00:02:22:01
Abigail Acton
Our three guests today can talk us through the ways in which their work, supported by the Horizon 2020 program, has given us a solid foundation. Marina Britto is a business strategic relations officer based at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Portugal. Her background is in neuroscience, but her current focus is on getting great ideas out of the lab to where they're needed most.
00:02:22:05 - 00:02:23:14
Abigail Acton
Welcome, Marina.
00:02:23:16 - 00:02:25:07
Marina Brito
Hi, Abigail.
00:02:25:09 - 00:02:43:21
Abigail Acton
Maire Connolly is professor of global Health at the University of Galway's College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Science. And a member of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of Ireland. Her areas of expertise include global health security, emerging infectious diseases, pandemic management and humanitarian response. Welcome, Maire.
00:02:43:23 - 00:02:45:03
Maire Connolly
Hello, Abigail.
00:02:45:05 - 00:03:01:01
Abigail Acton
Professor of Health, Biotechnology and Virology at the Aix-Marseille University in France Bruno Coutard is the coordinator of the European Virus Archive, which identifies, collects and distributes viruses and related noninfectious materials for the scientific community. Hello, Bruno.
00:03:01:03 - 00:03:02:07
Bruno Coutard
Hello, Abigail.
00:03:02:09 - 00:03:25:09
Abigail Acton
Marina, I'm going to turn to you first, if I may. INNO4COV-19 project was committed to boosting the uptake of technical innovations for COVID diagnosis, prevention and surveillance. So, Marina, the COVID pandemic accelerated innovation. We had to think creatively and respond as quickly as possible to a wide variety of challenges. What did INNO4COV-19 focus on particularly?
00:03:25:11 - 00:03:51:06
Marina Brito
Yeah. Abigail Indeed, there was an urgency to act. I remember that we applied for funding in June 2020 and I remember clearly because I was very pregnant at the time and we started the approach in October 2020. So the situation there was still very critical. There was an urgent need to stop the propagation of the virus and we immediately had to start to work.
00:03:51:06 - 00:04:22:09
Marina Brito
So the first focus of INNO4COV-19 was to reach out to the technology developers and help them to fight, to help us to fight COVID. And for that we had to help them to accelerate the uptake of their solutions into the market. Our plan had two major actions create a hub or platform with various services to help them to develop the technologies and also cascade funding.
00:04:22:09 - 00:04:57:02
Marina Brito
So Cascade funding is financial support to companies so they can have the resources to develop further their solutions. And in this case, we had up to 100 K to give to each solution and that we kick off this cascade of funding immediately. So the Open Call was published in the first month that we started and we highly disseminated and this was our first action.
00:04:57:04 - 00:05:12:24
Abigail Acton
I ask, you know, you were interested in allowing or enabling good technological innovation and solutions too, to flourish through, as you say, cascade funding. But what areas were you looking at? What sort of problems were you hoping that this technology could resolve?
00:05:13:03 - 00:05:26:15
Marina Brito
So we chose four areas: innovative diagnostics and screening systems, protective equipment for people, environmental surveillance and sensors and devices for telemedicine and telepresence.
00:05:26:17 - 00:05:31:02
Abigail Acton
And when you say environmental surveillance, what sort of things would fit under that heading?
00:05:31:04 - 00:05:54:18
Marina Brito
Well, we supported software that, for instance, sewage surveillance software, environmental surveillance software to be used for territorial authorities, but also other kind of technologies that would be helping on the sampling on the environmental to monitor the spreading of the pandemic.
00:05:54:20 - 00:06:10:23
Abigail Acton
And telemedicine, I mean, you know, we are perhaps now more used in some contexts to contacting our doctors through the Internet or maybe via telephones. But at that point, that was still, I think, quite a new concept, wasn't it? So what sort of telemedicine ideas were you helping to support?
00:06:11:00 - 00:06:39:10
Marina Brito
So you always have to look at two levels. The sensors and the devices needed to do readouts in point of care technologies at home, let's say with the client directly with the patient, and then the telemedicine platforms to help the medical doctor to interact with the patient. I can give you some examples that we have supported, for instance, my health calf.
00:06:39:12 - 00:07:05:24
Marina Brito
That is a platform, a software that is delivered to clinicians so they can manage the clinical protocols that they have and also the interaction with the with the patient's sensors. All POCs actually technologies point of care is that will be more user friendly and adapted for less trained people to do the tests.
00:07:06:01 - 00:07:13:23
Abigail Acton
What sort of like the standard swab tests we all had to go through? You mean when you're saying testing that, that, that kind of testing or other type of testing, the.
00:07:13:23 - 00:07:44:17
Marina Brito
There were other type of tests and it could tell you that at that point we received around 325 proposals. So imagine 325 people responding immediately to the call with new ideas and different from the ones that we had. We chose 30 from those ones and there were different tests. Molecular tests, but in different technologies and different devices. Most of them, they all were in a low development stage, so they didn't reach out to the market.
00:07:44:19 - 00:07:57:06
Marina Brito
But for instance, I remember one workplace PCR that was based on the swap tests that, you know, but it was a specific PCR test, a very accurate PCR test that could be used by anyone without training.
00:07:57:11 - 00:07:58:02
Abigail Acton
Fantastic.
00:07:58:06 - 00:08:08:21
Marina Brito
Yeah. And other examples were like coatings for fabrics to be antivirals, UV disinfection devices for air to put in the air conditioning.
00:08:08:23 - 00:08:09:17
Abigail Acton
wonderful.
00:08:09:19 - 00:08:15:13
Marina Brito
So many face masks with nanotechnology to be reusable, etc..
00:08:15:15 - 00:08:32:16
Abigail Acton
So basically like a really intensely creative period as well. And I must have been wonderful for the people who'd got these ideas that they felt so strongly and obviously had done testing and research on beforehand and knew could offer something to actually then be given the opportunity to fast track that development.
00:08:32:21 - 00:09:08:23
Marina Brito
I think so. So they had the financial resource, the 100 K but also support. So the hub part, the hub is kind of a shopping center, a mall where you have different shops where you can pick up if you want through research and development services help on that if you need business support. And actually I can tell you that towards the end of the project that was the most requested one because COVID wave have already passed and they had something to put in the market, but the market was not prepared for it, so they had to readapt.
00:09:09:00 - 00:09:40:16
Marina Brito
And this can actually bring us to the preparedness part because most of the technologies can be easily readapt to another bug that might appear. But, you know, it's a huge shopping mall that you can enter and choose the services that you need. So we were giving that support besides of course, the financial support. And they I think that they were very happy, especially the ones that finalize the project, bringing the product to the market on time.
00:09:40:18 - 00:09:49:22
Abigail Acton
And can you think of a couple of the products that that did actually make it right the way through the process to the market and had, you know, really useful practical implications.
00:09:50:01 - 00:09:55:24
Marina Brito
So from the 30 solutions that we supported, six entered the market.
00:09:56:03 - 00:09:58:01
Abigail Acton
That's really quite a high percentage. That's great.
00:09:58:04 - 00:10:26:08
Marina Brito
Yes. Knowing that the only had one year to develop the products, the project was a two year project, but most of the grantees, so the people that got the support only had one year, one year and half to develop finally developed a solution. Some of the examples were the ones that I just referred to, but they were other that were on the certification process and that was quite delayed.
00:10:26:10 - 00:10:40:14
Marina Brito
Unfortunately, the notified bodies were full of work and there was also a change in the rules that didn't help on that stage and that delayed some of the products.
00:10:40:20 - 00:11:02:21
Abigail Acton
But they're still in the pipeline. So yeah, yeah, it just it held them up slightly, but it hasn't stalled them now. That's great. And I think it's fascinating what you say. And this is indeed the point of this episode, the fact that you know what we have achieved due to that those imperatives that we suddenly found ourselves, you know, having to reach can be recycled and turned around and adapted to a future situation.
00:11:03:02 - 00:11:12:21
Abigail Acton
It must have been very challenging getting this up and running and effective in the middle of a pandemic. And as you say, you were also taking some time from maternity leave and so on. For you, what was the toughest part of the project?
00:11:12:24 - 00:11:42:10
Marina Brito
For sure, that is not easy to work in a pandemic context, dealing with delays related to the supply chains. And there were a lot of delays in most of the sources of materials needed for the developments. But besides that, I think that the personal issues was also very challenging. You know, kids with no school lockdown, with kids jumping in your lap during teleconferences, etc., It was not an easy environment to work when you had to keep a fast pace.
00:11:42:12 - 00:12:01:15
Abigail Acton
You know, just while I'm listening to you, it suddenly occurs to me and this might be a bit of a stupid observation, perhaps it's not true at all, but sometimes that kind of chaotic emergency can cause people to think out of the box and find solutions that in a more kind of predictable traditional environment might be slower to arrive at.
00:12:01:15 - 00:12:10:16
Abigail Acton
It's a little bit as if that sort of chaos causes everybody to think differently and more dynamically. Did you find that or was everyone just absolutely exhausted?
00:12:10:18 - 00:12:38:02
Marina Brito
Well, I think that the ones that were not completely focused on following up a falling up work plan might have that creativity. We were all closed, locked at our places. We did a lot of time, most of us. So they were some creative ideas for sure. But I can tell you that the ones that were implementing the project, probably they were to focus.
00:12:38:05 - 00:12:47:20
Abigail Acton
Sure on achieving the steps that they had were obliged to achieve. Indeed. Okay. Thank you very, very much. Now, does anyone have any observations or questions to put to Marina? Yeah.
00:12:47:22 - 00:13:18:09
Maire Connolly
Hi, Marina. I think one really interesting output of your research was the development in the area of environmental surveillance. And if you look at, I think looking at influenza now and looking at how this area has advanced in terms of member states being able to monitor the presence of pathogens in in sewerage, for example, I think this is something that is really benefiting our ability to provide early warnings of future pandemic threats.
00:13:18:13 - 00:13:44:01
Marina Brito
For sure, these tools are wonderful, but we have to keep in mind that they are based on continuous testing. Okay, so this has to be implemented. So imagine that during pandemics we were getting samples from sewages every week or so. I'm sure that nowadays is not the same. We are not looking at virus or any bug on those samples nowadays.
00:13:44:03 - 00:14:20:24
Marina Brito
It is interesting. They are very powerful. We can do a lot with them and really do a surveillance work with it. But we also have to think on the right implementation for these tools. And this is having a periodic sampling on sewage or even access to databases where you can follow human samples, testing on human samples, etc. Because two of these platforms are also based not only on sewage, but also on the database that was public in the countries regarding the infection of SARS-CoV-2.
00:14:21:01 - 00:14:21:11
Abigail Acton
Yeah.
00:14:21:13 - 00:14:26:02
Marina Brito
But I completely agree with you. They are powerful tools for surveillance.
00:14:26:04 - 00:14:50:23
Abigail Acton
It's a question of not taking a step back and thinking everything is absolutely fine. Now, I suppose it's something that I've heard from other researchers as well, that lots, many, many things were developed that need now to be supported and continued. Really. Thank you very much Marina. Maire, I'm going to turn to you. You were the coordinator of the PANDEM-2 project and developed a prototype IT system to enhance planning, situational awareness and decision support for pandemic management.
00:14:51:00 - 00:15:05:08
Abigail Acton
The project had a lot of scope and there were many other very interesting things that you were doing. It was built on an earlier project of the same name. What was the what did the second phase want to add to the work done previously, please?
00:15:05:10 - 00:15:32:06
Maire Connolly
Okay. So the PANDEM-2 project built on the Phase one project which looked at pandemic surveillance, communications and governance. And one of that was three key recommendations from that Phase one project. One was, as you said, the whole area of IT systems that why there had been significant investment in biomedical research, that the area of data management for pandemic response was inadequate.
00:15:32:08 - 00:15:57:06
Maire Connolly
The second key research gap was training platforms for pandemic preparedness, which, unlike the military or defense forces who invest heavily during peacetime in these preparedness drills, that this was something that was lacking within the public health domain. And then the third area was the whole area of threat analysis. And within that, we looked specifically at influenza, as you mentioned in your introduction, but also a cruel new virus.
00:15:57:08 - 00:16:23:19
Maire Connolly
And we knew, following the experience of SARS-1 in 2003, when I was based in W.H.O. in Geneva, we knew that of the 2000 plus coronaviruses that are out there currently in the wild, circulating in bats, that they continue to pose a threat to human health. So it was only a matter of time, really, before a corona virus managed to mutate and spill over into human populations.
00:16:23:21 - 00:16:45:23
Maire Connolly
And little did we know that when we put the scenario together in the proposal submitted in August 2019 of an accidental release scenario of a novel coronavirus in South East Asia, that three months later that this eventuality would actually occur and would lead to global spread within the period of 2 to 3 months.
00:16:46:00 - 00:16:56:16
Abigail Acton
It must have been so weird for you when the news broke that this was actually happening because it was really echoing a direct echo of what you had had thought might be a problem down the line.
00:16:56:22 - 00:17:20:11
Maire Connolly
Yeah, well, we knew that coronavirus, because of SARS-1- and because of Mers-Covid 2, that it was one of those pathogens that could potentially reach pandemic potential. And unlike influenza, where we have an influenza vaccine platform and we knew that within 3 to 4 months that the vaccine for a pandemic strain would be available for a novel coronavirus.
00:17:20:11 - 00:17:43:19
Maire Connolly
We had no such infrastructure. And again, you know, it took almost a year to get a group of coronavirus vaccine up and running. There had been research done on SARS-1, but it was very much at the preliminary stage and it wasn't shown to be effective for SARS-CoV-2. So I suppose all it has done is made us realize that the threats out there continue.
00:17:43:19 - 00:18:06:10
Maire Connolly
And even though we have just emerged from the pandemic and we've learned a lot and we are in definitely a better place now in our armory for future zoonotic viral diseases, we still have to remain, maintain vigilance. And this research is really important to ensure we are, you know, prepared for the next pandemic when ever it occurs.
00:18:06:15 - 00:18:25:15
Abigail Acton
Yeah, no, absolutely. So going back specifically to PANDEM-2 tell me a little bit more about what the project was setting out to specifically achieve and what it did achieve. So, for example, I know that you drew on vast pools of data in order to work out communication patterns, whether communication was effective and other trends and tendencies.
00:18:25:17 - 00:18:27:19
Abigail Acton
Could you tell me a bit more about this, please?
00:18:27:21 - 00:19:04:18
Maire Connolly
Okay. So we were very fortunate to being given funding to develop an I.T. system and all the data sources around that during a pandemic. When we put the proposal together, we had actually looked at creating synthetic data to do a mock up of a pandemic for based on 1918 influenza, for example. And all of a sudden, we were in the middle of this project, and we have an absolute wealth of dashboards, of social media, tweets of laboratory data, of survey data, actually capturing the experience of our citizens of a pandemic.
00:19:04:20 - 00:19:22:24
Maire Connolly
So there was hugely valuable information there. And the challenge we had was or end users who were on the consortium were also involved in putting off the fire in a way. So which was quite a challenge, as Marina mentioned in her talk. It was quite a challenge to maintain the project outputs, given that the lot of them were still in the response mode.
00:19:23:01 - 00:19:48:13
Maire Connolly
But it did give us a hugely valuable position and we are now ahead of the game in the way in a way because we are now looking at preparedness materials. We were capturing the experience of COVID right from the outset, and now our system and our training platforms have taken account all that we've learned from COVID. We've developed social media analysis tools that can capture COVID data sets of tweets, and they can monitor a community.
00:19:48:13 - 00:20:19:12
Maire Connolly
The public's response to government measures. For example, we've looked at linking laboratory data with hospital disease data. So again, at the outset of the pandemic, we were able to define what or were the conditions that made people more susceptible to severe illness and following infection with SARS-CoV-2. We've also learned how to present data in a way using cutting edge visual analytics.
00:20:19:14 - 00:20:41:17
Maire Connolly
We were very fortunate in that many member states across Europe have invested heavily in their dashboards, in their data management systems. And what we've been able to do now is use the best of them and put this into a training platform which can be used by EU member states for preparedness training exercises, and that is the final output of our project will be a pandemic preparedness training platform.
00:20:41:19 - 00:20:51:13
Abigail Acton
Okay, that's fantastic. And I believe also you did a simulation exercise. Is that the platform that you're talking about or is that a sort of literally a simulation exercise with people running around? I mean, what was that about?
00:20:51:15 - 00:21:24:22
Maire Connolly
So that's exactly what it was. So the Rubber Cork Institute, which is probably one of the longest standing public health agencies in Europe, ran an exercise in March with their equivalent in the Netherlands, the public health agency of the Netherlands. And it was a two day, what we call a functional exercise where they were a team of ten epidemiologists, public health experts, clinicians, defense experts and border control experts based in each of the two public health agencies.
00:21:24:22 - 00:22:08:11
Maire Connolly
And they ran a simulation of a novel avian influenza pandemic. So we based it on 1918 with very high numbers of admissions in young adults, with high rates of admission to ICU and a high demand for ventilators. So over two days, we ran at what was essentially a nine month response going from the initial detection in animals, looking at emergence in a poultry farm and making sure that information is rapidly fed back to the public health system and then providing early warning for clinicians and general practitioners as to the emergence of avian influenza in humans and sustained human to human transmission.
00:22:08:13 - 00:22:35:21
Maire Connolly
So we learned a lot. We are in the final stages of fine tuning that the training platform, but it was the feedback from it was very positive in that it showed where the links were in terms of cross-border collaboration, what the potential was to share ventilators, to share staff, and where the communication with the public was absolutely crucial to keep them up to date and also to Lincoln with the animal sector, because again, that's where the original outbreak came from.
00:22:35:23 - 00:22:48:07
Maire Connolly
So we've learned a lot of lessons and I think simulation exercises something that the military use in peacetime and I think within the public health domain, we need to be looking at that very closely as well.
00:22:48:09 - 00:22:56:04
Abigail Acton
Thank you. That's excellent. Thanks very much. Does anyone have any comments to make on the work that Maire's team has been doing in her project? Yes. Bruno do you have a question?
00:22:56:10 - 00:23:06:07
Bruno Coutard
Yeah. I was just wondering, according to you, what would be or when would be the next pandemics, where would it come from and what kind of virus would it be?
00:23:06:09 - 00:23:30:13
Maire Connolly
Yes, well, that is the billion dollar question, isn't it? And I know when I worked in Geneva, we were accused of being shroud wavers. We would work a lot with the Ministry of Defense. And we certainly had ears that were obviously clearly listening to what we were doing in terms of our threat analysis. As we stand at the moment, the most likely source of the next pandemic would be an influenza, a novel strain of influenza.
00:23:30:15 - 00:23:54:16
Maire Connolly
And as Abigail mentioned in the introduction, it is quite worrying what is occurring. Certainly in Cambodia, for example, where there's been a cluster, a family cluster of cases with the 50% mortality rate. So we are looking at influenza as probably the most likely source. There has been about four in every century for influenza pandemics. The last one was in 2009.
00:23:54:18 - 00:24:21:06
Maire Connolly
Now, we were fortunate in 2009 because H1N1 was actually very mild and we don't know what the next strain will. You know, in terms of the clinical representation. But the work that's been ongoing on diagnostics and a disease, there could also be another coronavirus out there. This, you know, could end up spilling over. So the work, the preparedness work that you do and diagnostics is absolutely crucial to be able to confirm a diagnosis of a new disease.
00:24:21:06 - 00:24:44:02
Abigail Acton
Which actually is exactly perfect to bring in Bruno because. Thank you Maire. Bruno, I I'm going to turn to you because your project was called EVA-GLOBAL. And the E-V-A-G is the name given to the virus bank that you coordinate. Now, the project assists the works of scientists and companies researching viruses by putting the largest collection of human, animal and plant viruses at their disposal.
00:24:44:08 - 00:24:51:12
Abigail Acton
So can you tell us a little bit about what a virus archive actually is and a bit about the background of the archive?
00:24:51:14 - 00:25:17:16
Bruno Coutard
Yeah, Okay. Let me start by the by the beginning of the story. So I think the original idea came in 2005. So at that time there were two events that were very important for the concept of the European Virus Archive. So 2005 it was four year after the September 11 attacks and many borders closed, especially for the exchange of infectious materials.
00:25:17:16 - 00:25:50:10
Bruno Coutard
So how to maintain the European research submarine in terms of having access to buy your resource? So this was the first question. Then you know that later the SARS coronavirus emerged and it was very hard to find some material and to make the action over easy. So some of my colleagues say, okay, so let's, let's try to make a collection that would be completely open to the virologists and the research community at large from this original concept.
00:25:50:10 - 00:26:17:06
Bruno Coutard
Then we gathered some specialists around the world and in Europe. At first those specialists can grow some viruses and in their laboratories that could be coronaviruses, influenza, but also tropical viruses. And many of them were a kind of what we called at the time, neglected viruses. So viruses nobody cared about. And that might be of interest sometimes.
00:26:17:10 - 00:26:22:11
Abigail Acton
And I stop you for a second. Can you just tell us so what is actually a virus archive? What is this?
00:26:22:15 - 00:26:44:13
Bruno Coutard
So virus archives, a kind of collection of viruses. So you put some viruses in your in your freezer. So this is the basic idea, but it's a bit more complex because of course, if you want to have viruses, you have to grow them. So you have to start from identification of the virus. Growing production of the virus characterization of the virus and storage.
00:26:44:19 - 00:26:47:22
Bruno Coutard
Before you can share this material with the community.
00:26:48:03 - 00:27:08:17
Abigail Acton
Right. It must be a particularly challenging thing. I mean, so scientists come to you, make request research institutes come to you, make requests for certain viruses. But all the issues about refrigeration, transportation, getting stuff through borders, etc.. Tell me a little bit about the logistics of actually getting the material that you have in your archive out to researchers around the world.
00:27:08:19 - 00:27:36:13
Bruno Coutard
Well, that's an excellent question, because the way our collection is visible for the community is a website, and this website is a kind of market place. And anybody could theoretically order a virus and have access to this material. But of course, it's not as easy as it seems to be the researcher as to make sure that is allowed to work with this virus as the facility, to grow the virus and to work on it.
00:27:36:15 - 00:27:58:07
Bruno Coutard
And then you have to take this virus from one site and bring it to another site. And again, then you are facing some logistic issues or you may face some logistic issues like how to cross the border, how to make sure that the virus arrives on the right place. How long would it take from the original place to the researcher?
00:27:58:09 - 00:28:03:17
Bruno Coutard
And this is something we have to work with every day. And I can tell you that's not that easy.
00:28:03:19 - 00:28:06:10
Abigail Acton
Now. It must be a logistical nightmare from time to time.
00:28:06:10 - 00:28:21:09
Bruno Coutard
But yeah, yeah, especially if you want to cross the border. I mean, you have to face some national rules and some time. European rules and national rules are not aligned. So you have to make sure that the virus can travel properly.
00:28:21:12 - 00:28:27:21
Abigail Acton
Okay. I like the idea of it being like a living natural history museum. Yes, I think that's a nice description of it.
00:28:27:24 - 00:28:59:13
Bruno Coutard
Yes, this is a very nice description of it. And what is very funny is that we could find in in the freezers of the of the collection some viruses that were 50 years old or so. So they are kind of heritage of our collection. And this is very interesting because we can now compare this to the current circulating viruses with the original ones, and then we can see how different they are or what are the common features they have.
00:28:59:18 - 00:29:14:13
Abigail Acton
Okay. Now that's fascinating. And in fact, it leads me to my next question again for a non-technical audience. Completely. What's the benefit of sending these viruses off to various laboratories? What sort of I mean, obviously it's for analysis, but what sort of analysis is done and what can be the results of such work?
00:29:14:13 - 00:29:42:10
Bruno Coutard
Well, the first thing is obviously research and fundamental research. What is important for the preparation of the next pandemics is to have some scientific information about the virus, to know it, how it replicates, which infects cells, organisms and how it spreads. So this is the first thing. Then how could you use viruses for what we would call response to emergence?
00:29:42:12 - 00:30:04:11
Bruno Coutard
What I would say that there are two main options. One is you want to develop diagnostic tests. If you don't get the virus, it's very hard to develop it. You may use synthetic biology, it can help you for the first steps of the development, but at some point you have to validate your test or your essay on the virus.
00:30:04:16 - 00:30:33:18
Bruno Coutard
And for this you need to have the right circulating virus that is present at the moment on this or that place. So this is one example. Another example is you want to evaluate if this or that therapeutics works on this or that virus. And this was perfectly illustrated by the volumes of SARS-CoV-2 that emerged one after the other or all of the therapeutics have to be evaluated on all the volumes.
00:30:33:20 - 00:30:59:16
Bruno Coutard
And if you don't have a collection which is gathering all these variants and if they are not produced following the same process, then you cannot do this work. So this is very important. Absolutely. And I'm thinking just and lasting this vaccine development. So you know that there are many ways to develop a vaccine, and some of this way is to use either inactivated viruses or attenuated viruses.
00:30:59:18 - 00:31:04:07
Bruno Coutard
And for this, you need to have raw material. And the raw material is the virus.
00:31:04:07 - 00:31:17:17
Abigail Acton
Thank you. That brings home really clearly the importance of the archive. And I think for example, also your your project and the archive itself was quite instrumental when Zika emerged in the Americas. What happened there?
00:31:17:19 - 00:31:53:05
Bruno Coutard
Zika is a very nice story for the archive actually. When there was this pandemic and when the Zika virus which Americas, which was completely new at the time, people were looking for a virus strain and clearly it took probably one or two days in our collection to find that in one of our freezer we had the Zika Escherichia Zika strain that was isolated a few years ago in Polynesia, and this virus was available directly for the community.
00:31:53:05 - 00:32:04:00
Bruno Coutard
So even before the new strain was isolated in the Americas, the virus was already spread in different research labs so that people could start doing some research on this virus.
00:32:04:03 - 00:32:15:23
Abigail Acton
Perfect. Excellent. That's a nice concrete example of exactly the role that the archive can have. That's great. Thank you so much, Bruno, for expanding all of that to us. Do we have any observations or comments to make to Bruno? Yeah. Maire.
00:32:16:00 - 00:32:22:24
Maire Connolly
I. Bruno, I want to ask you about biosecurity measures and what challenge they pose to your work.
00:32:23:01 - 00:32:50:16
Bruno Coutard
Biosecurity is very important in our case. We need to make sure that the virus that we were sent to researchers is properly used in the researchers facility and we are tracking properly the documentation that the researcher has to provide before they can get the virus. And the researcher has to describe a research project in which it will use the virus.
00:32:50:18 - 00:33:00:03
Bruno Coutard
So what we try to do and what we want to do is to make sure that the distribution of the virus will be for the benefit of the community.
00:33:00:05 - 00:33:11:11
Abigail Acton
Perfect. Thank you. Yes, I think that makes sense. So basically, you keep very close track of where it's going and I guess the community is quite small. So you probably know the leading research laboratories that are going to be making applications for the viruses.
00:33:11:13 - 00:33:12:21
Bruno Coutard
Yes, exactly.
00:33:12:23 - 00:33:16:18
Abigail Acton
Superb. Thank you very much. Any other observations to make? Yeah, Marina.
00:33:16:20 - 00:33:50:11
Marina Brito
So actually, this was an observation for all of us. So a question for all of us. So we have platforms, shopping malls to help technology developers to bring solutions immediately to the market. We have platforms that help to be surveillance and aware of what's happening and how to kick off a plan, and then the virus that will help us on the virus bank, that will help us on the developments out of the technologies and even the therapies.
00:33:50:13 - 00:34:10:17
Marina Brito
But how can we gather this? My opinion is that we do this each time that we meet each other and we take your contacts and I know that if I need someone that needs a virus, I'll contact Bruno. I know that I want to know more about Maire's work and results because I want to be aware of what's happening, you know?
00:34:10:20 - 00:34:19:13
Marina Brito
But is there any other way? Is there any easy pathway to to, you know, to follow and to together all of this.
00:34:19:15 - 00:34:24:06
Abigail Acton
Make it more streamlined and efficient? Yeah. What do you reckon, my friends? Yeah. Bruno.
00:34:24:08 - 00:34:51:21
Bruno Coutard
Yeah, it's a very tricky point here. What is striking for me is that although we are all scientists, sometimes we don't speak the same language. And speaking the same language means that we have to understand what we are all working on and we have to be some somehow familiar with what you are doing. And for this, I think communication, of course, is important.
00:34:51:23 - 00:35:26:19
Bruno Coutard
Congresses are important. And as scientists, we are we are used to travel a lot. We are used to exchange a lot, but it's probably not enough. The last thing for me, which is important and probably something we are not working enough on, is to have some kind of procedures in which we can make sure that in any case, what I should do when the virus is emerging is to contact this person, that person, etc., put the people all together on a kind of a shield management.
00:35:27:00 - 00:35:27:24
Abigail Acton
Almost like a guide.
00:35:28:05 - 00:35:29:17
Bruno Coutard
Exactly.
00:35:29:19 - 00:35:31:10
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Maire you wanted to say something?
00:35:31:12 - 00:35:57:10
Maire Connolly
Yeah. I think this exactly what CORDIScovery is about. It's about getting awareness, raising awareness about the importance and the interconnectedness of the research that we're doing. And I think it is a challenge going forward because you learn so much more from work that's already, you know, either has been done or is about to be done. I think ECDC, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control is a key player here.
00:35:57:12 - 00:36:38:06
Maire Connolly
And obviously the ECDC have taken a very dynamic role in leading research in the area of pandemics and emerging infectious disease threats as part of the cross-border threat to health. So I think we'll see greater coordination at European level of research activities. And I think also working with the W.H.O. office in the regional office in Copenhagen, the European regional office, that again, global governance and European governance of this very important research will be crucial to ensure we're better prepared for the next pandemic.
00:36:38:12 - 00:37:06:04
Abigail Acton
Well, listen, I want to thank you all so much for the very, very important work that you're all doing. I think yeah. I mean, I think we've all lost a while. You guys probably never had that sense of naivety, but the rest of us might have been a little naive. And I think that, you know, our eyes are well and truly open and perhaps there is more motivation now to share ideas and to to maintain the drive of that we saw kick up at the start of the pandemic so impressively very impressively.
00:37:06:06 - 00:37:09:02
Abigail Acton
Okay. Well, listen, thanks for your time. Thanks for being with me today.
00:37:09:04 - 00:37:11:14
Marina Brito
Thank you. Nice to meet you all. Bye bye.
00:37:11:15 - 00:37:14:10
Abigail Acton
It's been a pleasure to have you, Marina. Bye bye. Bye bye.
00:37:14:13 - 00:37:15:12
Maire Connolly
Goodbye, Abigail.
00:37:15:13 - 00:37:38:04
Abigail Acton
Thank you. Goodbye, Maire. Thank you so much for your time. If you've enjoyed this podcast and are interested in the latest scientific research coming out of the EU, have a listen to previous episodes. You can follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or find us wherever you choose to get your podcasts. Are you curious about what other EU funded projects are doing in the area of pandemic preparedness?
00:37:38:06 - 00:37:57:16
Abigail Acton
The Cordis website will give you an insight into the results of projects funded by Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe that are working in this area. The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains and subjects from the pigmented spots on fly wings to supermassive black holes. There's something there for you.
00:37:57:18 - 00:38:19:19
Abigail Acton
Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding. Take a look at what others are doing in your domain. So come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line. Editorial@cordis dot Europa dot EU until next time.
We hit the ground running in the COVID pandemic and EU support for scientific research helped projects develop responses rapidly and effectively. Which may be just as well. Avian influenza is having a devastating impact on bird populations and has been passed onto mammal populations. The Peruvian government reports that since November 2022 one third of the country’s sea lions have succumbed; 3 487 dead sea lions have been found. While the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control assesses the risk to the general population in the EU as low, it is low to moderate for occupationally or otherwise exposed people. Influenza viruses evolve, and the future is hard to predict. Getting funding to where it can be most effectively used, understanding the mechanisms behind public perception and behaviour, and gathering a living archive of viruses used by the scientific community across the world – in this episode we are looking at the innovations which are ready to support responses to what might be coming next. Marina Brito is a business strategic relations officer based at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Portugal. Her INNO4COV-19 project helped get innovative solutions out of the lab and onto the ground in months. Máire Connolly is professor of Global Health at the University of Galway’s College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences. The PANDEM-2 project she coordinated, developed a prototype IT system to enhance planning, situational awareness and decision support for pandemic management. They are joined by professor of Health Biotechnology and Virology at Aix-Marseille University in France, Bruno Coutard, the coordinator of the European Virus Archive EVA-GLOBAL, which identifies, collects and distributes viruses and related, non-infectious materials for the scientific community.
Happy to hear from you!
If you have any feedback, we’re always happy to hear from you! Send us any comments, questions or suggestions to the usual email address, editorial@cordis.europa.eu.
Keywords
CORDIScovery, CORDIS, INNO4COV-19, EVA-GLOBAL, PANDEM-2, COVID, avian influenza, virus, responses