A team from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra (FMUC) and the Centre for Innovation in Biotechnology and Biomedicine (CIBB), led by Lino Ferreira, is part of a European consortium that aims to develop a new diagnostic test to identify COVID-19 patients at risk of developing fatal cardiovascular complications.
The project, called "COVIRNA - A diagnostic test to improve surveillance and care of COVID-19 patients", is led by the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LU) and brings together 15 partners from the health, academic and industrial sectors from 12 European countries (Germany, Belgium, Bosnia, Slovenia, Spain, France, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and the UK).
The project, which has just started, will run for two years and is funded by the European Union (EU) with €3.9 million under the ERAvsCorona action plan, which promotes collaboration between European research institutions to strengthen the response to the pandemic.
The UC research team is participating in the project in two different phases. In the first phase, and in close collaboration with the Coimbra Hospital and University Centre (CHUC), it will "collect blood samples from patients diagnosed with COVID-19, which will then be analysed in order to identify biomarkers that will allow the anticipation of cardiac effects of COVID-19 disease", explains Lino Ferreira, adding that in a second phase, the UC team will be responsible for "developing therapies to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on the heart".
The consortium hopes to provide "a diagnostic test that will stratify COVID-19 patients according to their risk of developing heart disease, allowing the medical team to select the most appropriate therapy to treat the patient," Lino Ferreira stresses. In addition, the UC CIBB researcher points out that the project will also develop "innovative treatments to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on the heart".
The final goal of the project (within two years) is the market launch of the diagnostic kit.
Translation by Diana Taborda