Just three week ago Amsterdam UMC established their Corona Research Fund. With this fund the academic community in Amsterdam has joined forces in the battle against corona. As of yesterday, the Corona Research Fund announced that they start their support with funding three studies. Amongst those studies Diederik van de Beek, co-director of Amsterdam Neuroscience and specialized in neurological infectious, leads the COVID-19 Biobank project.

In order to support fundamental and clinical research related to COVID-19, a biobank has been initiated by clinical departments, laboratories and the central biobank facility. This should help researchers from Amsterdam UMC and other research institutes to find answers on critical questions, like ‘What determines the sensitivity of the coronavirus?’ or ‘Why does one person have minor symptoms and the other person's disease is fatal?’ ‘What should we do to improve this outcome?’ A lot of data and materials are needed to answer these important questions.

The COVID-19 Biobank is set up with the aim to enable as much research as possible in patients with COVID-19. The biobank collects a.o. clinical data, DNA and blood samples from COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Amsterdam UMC. With all this material, a lot of different research is possible, such as research into antibodies, diagnostics or new treatment. This data will be made available to all researchers. Together, we’ll get corona under control.

Watch the video below where Diederik van de Beek explains the importance of the biobank (in Dutch).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5ckuYivZE

Interested in the two other studies? Read more or watch their video (in Dutch):