Multiple laboratories pivot to SARS-CoV-2 research to accelerate critical discoveries
Scientists at the Frederick National Laboratory are collaborating with government, academic, and industry partners on multiple studies to learn more about SARS-CoV-2 and contribute to the rapid development of treatments and a vaccine. As a Federally Funded Research and Development Center, the Frederick National Laboratory is poised to rapidly and flexibly addresses urgent public health priorities. Today that is the coronavirus pandemic. FNL has leveraged the expertise and advanced technology it applies to cancer research to investigate the virus at the cellular and molecular levels, and to develop and standardize critical assays that may contribute to diagnostic tools. FNL is pivoting resources in an interagency collaboration responding to COVID-19, including:
- Applying the HPV Serology Laboratory’s expertise and resources to work on antibody testing for the novel coronavirus.
- Using FNL's screening library to identify compounds that could potentially provide new therapies against the novel coronavirus.
- Conducting studies alongside and at the behest of the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Human Genome Research Institute to rapidly identify genetic variants associated with a person’s severity of infection.
- Supporting human clinical trials for investigational treatments such as the antiviral drug remdesivir.