UKRI initiative comes as the agency launches genomic study and citizen science call
Biomed charity the Wellcome Trust and UK Research and Innovation have brought together a consortium of centres of protein engineering and production to provide scientists with free and reliable protein reagents that are crucial to work on Covid-19.
They hope the initiative, dubbed the Covid-19 Protein Portal, will make it quicker and easier to carry out such research.
Requests will be peer reviewed and prioritised based on scientific merit and urgency, and recipient labs will be required to provide feedback on their results and to share outcomes.
“This consortium is an ideal demonstration of collaboration and coordination across the research community, aiming to accelerate progress towards treatment of Covid-19,” said Fiona Watt, executive chair of the Medical Research Council, part of government funding agency UK Research and Innovation.
UKRI has also announced a £28 million study to sequence genomes of 35,000 of people to help understand how genetics influence susceptibility to coronaviruses.
“This is a ground-breaking and far-reaching study which will harness the UK’s world-leading genomics science to improve treatments and ultimately save lives across the world,” health secretary Matt Hancock said in an announcement on 13 May.
The study is backed by Genomics England, the Department of Health and Social Care and the National Institute for Health Research, and it will be carried out by Genomics England, GenOMICC consortium, Illumina and the National Health Service.
Elsewhere, UKRI has launched a £1.5m call for Citizen Science Collaboration Grants to “support the expansion of citizen science approaches into new disciplines, involving more members of the public in the creation of knowledge that will transform society”.
“With this funding call we want to support new collaborations in citizen science, building links between researchers who have deep knowledge of these methods and researchers who want to explore new approaches to involving the public in their work,” said Tom Saunders, head of public engagement at UKRI.