In response to the recent outbreak of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), i-sense researchers have been working collaboratively to rapidly adapt our tools and technologies to support development of emergency diagnostics and surveillance to assess the prevalence of the virus.
“Today i-sense members are working with the World Health Organization, Public Health England and Africa CDC on COVID-19 and advising funders,” says i-sense Director, Prof Rachel McKendry.
i-sense researchers have been adapting our agile track, test, treat platform technologies to detect COVID-19.
“Adaptive tools and technologies are crucial to aid in an emergency epidemic response, helping patients and protecting populations."
This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (orange)—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19—isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells (green) cultured in the lab. Credit: NIAID-RML https://www.flickr.com/photos/niaid/49531042907/in/album-72157712914621487/
COVID-19 news |
|
i-sense COVID-19 dashboard highlights gaps in data for England needed to address the pandemicResearchers within i-sense have developed a new public health data visualisation dashboard for COVID-19. Developing the dashboard has highlighted issues regarding the quality, consistency and availability of reliable data needed to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts. |
|
Google funding for modelling OCVID-19 using web search datai-sense members, Dr Vasileios Lampos and Prof Ingemar Cox at UCL Computer Science, have received USD$200,000 in funding to support their research into modelling the prevalence and understanding the broader impact of COVID-19 using web search data. |
|
Digital technologies and data privacy in the COVID-19 pandemicA Nature Medicine review, led by researchers in the EPSRC funded i-sense project, looks at how digital technologies have been mobilised for a global public health response to COVID-19 and the associated concerns with privacy and efficacy in an evolving digital world. |
|
Community-based study seeks to understand COVID-19 spreadUCL has launched Virus Watch, inviting 50,000 households to take part in one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of COVID-19 in the UK. The study, which will require participants to complete regular online symptom surveys, seeks to better understand community spread of the virus. |
|
Go local: the key to COVID-19 lockdown release (2020)The piece, published as a pre-print on arXiv, draws on geospatial data highlighting local variation in mobility across the country, as well as case rate data, which shows potential hotspots of COVID-19 infection. |
|
Working on COVID-19 diagnostics in lockdownThe team at i-sense have been working collaboratively across institutions to develop point-of-care diagnostic tests for COVID-19. When the UK went into lockdown in mid-March, a small group of researchers were given special access to i-sense labs in London and quickly implemented appropriate measures to ensure they could continue this important work safely.
|
|
Tracking COVID-19 using online search data (2020)i-sense researchers from University College London, led by Dr Vasileios Lampos, in collaboration with Public Health England, Microsoft Research, and Harvard Medical School are looking at ways of tracking COVID-19 using online search data to better understand the true extent of community spread. |
|
Focusing on COVID-19 at UCLH Advanced Pathogen Diagnostics UnitWorking to actively curb the COVID-19 pandemic, i-sense researchers in partnership with UCLH Advanced Pathogen Diagnostics Unit (APDU) are developing new diagnostic technologies to improve clinical care and outcomes. |
|
|
|
Calling on collaboration from tech companies to help curb the COVID-19 pandemicScientists from i-sense are calling on technology companies to work with researchers and governments to help curb the COVID-19 pandemic by sharing their data in a legal, proportionate, ethical and privacy-preserving manner. Writing in Nature, the group from UCL, Imperial College London, Chatham House, Diagonal Works and the London School for Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, led by Professor Rachel McKendry (Director of i-sense EPSRC IRC), says that with access to relevant and vital information, technology companies have an important role to play in ensuring patients and populations are protected. |
Adapting i-sense technologies for the detection of COVID-19In response to the recent outbreak of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), i-sense researchers have been working collaboratively to rapidly adapt our tools and technologies to support development of emergency diagnostics and surveillance to assess the prevalence of the virus. |
|
COVID-19 funding |
|
Imperial's President's Excellence fund speeds up research for COVID-19Professor Molly Stevens’ team have been awarded £50,000 in funding from the new Imperial College COVID-19 Response Fund to develop point-of-care diagnostics for the current pandemic. |
|
i-sense research receives funding from EIT for COVID-19 Rapid Response CallLed by Prof Molly Stevens, the i-sense team at Imperial College London have received over €500,000 in funding from the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) as part of their COVID-19 Rapid Response Call. |
|
New funding for collaborative research into tools and technologies for COVID-19 responsei-sense has received £500,000 in funding from the Engineering and Physical Research Council (EPSRC) to urgently assist with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. |
|
