Spanish researchers work on coronavirus diagnosis, treatment and vaccines

The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation is maintaining permanent contact with Public Research Bodies (Spanish acronym: OPI) to mobilise both material and human resources, as well as to prioritise these lines of research.

A number of these projects have been selected by the European funding initiatives set up to deal with the coronavirus, such as the express calls for applications announced by the European Commission on 30 January and subsequently closed on 6 March under the framework of the EU Programme for Research and Innovation - Horizon 2020.

Diagnosis

The Carlos III Institute of Health (Spanish acronym: ISCIII) and the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (Spanish acronym: ICN2) are currently working on coronavirus diagnosis initiatives. At the former, the National Microbiology Centre (Spanish acronym: CNM) has launched a programme to validate commercial techniques for detecting SARS-CoV2 in clinical samples as a response to the need to produce diagnosis testing kits as quickly as possible.

More specifically, the CNM has developed a positive and negative control panel that enables the diagnostic effectiveness of commercial techniques to be analysed and data on their sensitivity, specificity and limitations to be revealed. In coordination with the Spanish Medicines and Healthcare Products Agency (Spanish acronym: AEMPS), the ISCIII will issue reports on the diagnostic reliability of these commercial testing kits, which have not yet been able to obtain the European Commission seal of approval but the potential use of which could reduce any possible lack of supply problems.

Meanwhile, Laura M. Lechuga, a professor from the National Scientific Research Council (Spanish acronym: CSIC), is leading and coordinating a project at the ICN2 to swiftly diagnose and monitor the coronavirus in partnership with Italy and France. The University of Barcelona is also working on this project as a partner through the group led by professor Jordi Sierra. It is one of the 17 projects selected by the European Commission under the urgent call for applications launched on 20 January to deal with SARS-CoV2.

This project is called CONVAT and seeks to offer a new device based on optical biosensor nanotechnology that will allow the coronavirus to be directly detected using a sample from the patient in some 30 minutes and without the need for clinical laboratory analyses. Furthermore, it will be possible to use this device for the analysis of various types of coronavirus present in animal reservoirs, thus enabling any possible evolution of these viruses to be monitored and supervised, as well as future infectious outbreaks in humans to be prevented. For their research, the ICN2 will receive 840,843 euros and the University of Barcelona will receive 400,152 euros.

Treatment

The National Biotechnology Centre (Spanish acronym: CNB) at the CSIC was also selected under the express call for applications by the European Commission to take part in the project entitled 'Monoclonal Antibodies against 2019-New Coronavirus' (MANCO) in partnership with CoV research groups, biotechnology companies and organisations for clinical research in the Netherlands, Germany and France.

This project, for which the CSIC will receive 125,000 euros, harnesses the research experience obtained from a previous project (IMI-ZAPI) to develop protective antibodies against another coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Given that some of the characterised antibodies recognised a region of the S-protein preserved in various coronaviruses, it seeks to assess their protective efficacy against SARS-CoV2. The project will enable monoclonal antibodies to be identified for preventive or therapeutic use in response to the epidemic caused by the new virus.

Another project in this field is the one involving the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre - National Supercomputing Centre (Spanish acronym: BSC-CNS), also selected under the urgent call for applications by the European Commission, to take part in EXSCALATE4CoV (E4C), which seeks to use high-performance supercomputing to enhance the intelligent design of 'in silico' drugs.

Three of the most powerful computing centres in Europe are working together on this project. CINECA and JÜLICH are working with the CNS, which will receive 232,375 euros, as well as other centres specialising in biocomputing, molecular biology and universities in Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, the Czech Republic and Sweden. In combination with biochemical screening and phenotyping, advanced computer-aided medicine design can significantly reduce the time needed to create new drugs.

Furthermore, the Carlos III Health Institute is finalising a proposal coordinated with various Spanish healthcare centres to request funding under the extraordinary call for applications from the EU's Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI) to test the activity of various antiviral molecules against SARS-CoV2. The institute will coordinate the entire in vitro and cell culture experimentation stage for finding new antirviral therapies.

Vaccines

In terms of the work being done to develop future vaccines, the research group led by the scientists Luis Enjuanes and Isabel Sola at the National Biotechnology Centre of the CSIC has been running a project since 31 January.

The project entitled PIE-CORONAVIRUS seeks to study the pathogenesis mechanisms of the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus in order to remove the genes responsible for virulence from its genome and obtain weakened derivatives that could be candidates for a vaccine. The project has been allocated 225,000 euros of internal funding from the CSIC and has requested funding under various international partnerships.

The research group has already finished designing the strategy for rebuilding the virus' genome from chemically synthesised DNA fragments and hopes to undertake the engineering of the complete genome and the weakened variants in six or eight weeks. This means they hope to have vaccine candidates within three months, which will firstly be assessed in pre-clinical trials in mice to determine their safety and effectiveness before being studied in stage I clinical trials in humans.

This centre is also taking part in various international calls for applications. Among others, it has presented a joint proposal with the team led by the Spanish doctor Adolfo García-Sastre at the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai (New York) to Centres of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS)-NIH.

Clinical and epidemiological studies at the Carlos III Health Institute is also involved in a European project that seeks to build a multi-disciplinary network for research, prevention and control of COVID-19. I-MOVE-COVID-19 is one of the projects being funded by the European Commission under its recent express call for applications, for which the ISCIII will receive 210,000 euros, and in which the Public Health and Employment Institute of Navarre is also involved (with 110,000 euros).

I-MOVE will examine the coronavirus in humans and in various animal species, will study its spread and will identify various ways to control contagion. More specifically, researchers from the ISCIII will take part in primary and hospital healthcare networks and will engage in clinical, virological and epidemiological studies.

The ISCIII has also decided to broaden the objectives of various research projects it had already allocated in order to enhance their role in handling the emergency coronavirus situation, assuming the increase in costs. As a result, various projects have included SARS-CoV2 in their field of study in order to analyse its effect on the most vulnerable population groups, to research possible co-infections with other respiratory viruses, such as flu, and to conduct efficacy studies on new vaccines under development.

Transference

Various Spanish pharmaceutical companies have expressed their interest in maintaining partnerships with the National Biotechnology Centre and they are already producing results.

More specifically, the group led by Luis Enjuanes, together with Isabel Sola and Sonia Zúñiga, has shown in vitro that the drug Aplidin (Plitidepsin) - discovered by the Spanish pharmaceutical company Pharmamar and used to treat multiple myeloma - can curb the multiplication of the HcoV-229E coronavirus, which belongs to the same family as the new coronavirus causing this pandemic. Now, researchers will study whether this drug is also effective against the SARS coronavirus, very similar to SARS-CoV2, responsible for COVID-19.

A partnership is also being maintained with Grifols to assess the neutralising potential of immunoglobulins against the new coronavirus.

Non official translation