Projects within the Blavatnik Center for Drug Discovery related to curing COVID-19: fast detection using robotic systems, vaccine development and repurposing of known drugs to combat viral entry, and self-assembly using known drugs.

Initiatives to create and accelerate development of a universal vaccine that has the aspirational goal of providing long-lasting immunity against many strains of influenza.

Innovation Labs startup Accure Health is creating a COVID-19 blood test to provide rapid and automated diagnosis and real-time monitoring of vaccination effectiveness.

NYAS launched a six-week Combating COVID-19 challenge for students age 13-17 to form virtual teams to develop technology-based solutions to slow the spread of COVID-19. Blavatnik Awards Honorees are rallying to the fight against COVID-19. From predicting and detecting disease spread to identifying an effective treatment, former recipients of the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists are rising to the challenge as society calls on scientists to help repair the world.

2017 Blavatnik National Awards Laureate Dr. Feng Zhang with Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann launched a self-reporting COVID-19 tracking app called How We Feel.

2014 & 2015 Blavatnik National Awards Finalist Prof. Peng Yin in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School leads a project to create a disposable test that can help in diagnosing COVID-19 more quickly, easily, and broadly.

2015 Blavatnik National Awards Finalist Prof. Nevan Krogan, biologist at the University of California, led a team of scientists to identify 69 drugs to test against COVID-19.

Published the study Projecting hospital utilization during the COVID-19 outbreaks in the United States that used the methodology of simulating disease spread under multiple scenarios for self-isolation.

Launched the first Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker that record responses of governments worldwide to the crisis and helps researchers, policymakers and citizens understand how stringent measures to control the virus is affecting the rate of infection. The Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) systematically collects information on several different common policy responses governments have taken, scores the stringency of such measures, and aggregates these scores into a common Stringency Index.

Stanford Medicine has been at the forefront of testing in the Bay Area and has launched ELISA-based sero-testing allowing Stanford’s doctors to rapidly and accurately diagnose COVID-infected patients and enabling clinical researchers to initiate interesting observational clinical trials aimed at understanding the natural history and transmission of this virus.

Multiple teams led by biomedical and mechanical engineers at Columbia Engineering have designed, manufactured, and distributed thousands of face shields to frontline staff at hospitals in the US, Europe, Asia, and North Africa. In addition, Columbia Engineering formed the COVID Tech Innovation Group to put tools in the hands of frontline clinicians and tackle long term impacts to society, including supply chains.

Mount Sinai, at the center of treating the coronavirus outbreak in New York, is well prepared for the crisis with infectious disease specialists trained and equipped to care for patients with complex diseases such as COVID-19.

Among other initiatives, Penn Medicine launched in early April the Penn Center for Research on Coronaviruses and Other Emerging Pathogens. Harnessing the collected power of Penn Medicine’s world-class researchers in coronavirus alongside colleagues at The Wistar Institute and Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, this new Center expands and accelerates SARS-CoV-2 research and provides centralized information on SARS-CoV-2 research developments.

Many academics at the University of Cambridge have pivoted their research to work on the COVID-19 crisis, including Dr. Omer Ziv, one of the inaugural Blavatnik Fellows.