COVID 19 Research at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
Last week we had the privilege of a talk by Dr Sarah Garner and Casey Ah-Cann from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI).
Casey gave us an overview of the Institute. Located in Melbourne, WEHI is the top-ranked Australian medical research institute, and 19th amongst not-for-profit/non-governmental organisations worldwide. WEHI has around 900 researchers and 100 of those have pivoted their programs/skills to be involved in COVID-19 research.
Sarah is extremely well-qualified with an Infectious Diseases Physician and Medical Microbiologist and also holds a Bachelor of Medical Science. Working at both the front line with COVID hospital patients, and on the research at WEHI, Sarah gave us a skilfully pitched talk covering how the COVID-19 virus acts and the main research areas at WEHI.
WEHI has COVID-19 projects in:
- Rapid Diagnostic tools,
- Clinical drug trials to prevent COVID-19 in high risk health workers,
- Screening of chemicals to act against the virus,
- Assessing antiviral medicines against the virus and developing biologic medicines to combat the virus.
You can find more information on these project at this website link.
Many thanks to Sarah and Casey for their very informative presentation.