New Infectious Diseases Suite opens

The University of Bristol’s new Infectious Diseases Containment Level 3 Laboratory Suite, supported in large part by alumni and friends, has opened this month. The CL-3 Lab is one of the highest security labs used in academic research in the UK, significantly increasing the University’s capacity for critical research and strengthening Bristol as a centre for excellence on dangerous pathogen research.   (more…)

Investigating COVID-19 response in infants

(c) David Pratt

Research led by Dr Anu Goenka has shown how babies are protected from severe COVID-19 infections.

As a Clinical Lecturer in Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology, much of my clinical and research work is carried out in the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we weren’t sure how the disease would impact the young children and infants in our care.

Babies are very vulnerable to other respiratory viruses, such as the flu and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), so initially we thought that they may also be susceptible to severe COVID-19. It soon became apparent, however, that the four babies at our hospital who had tested positive for coronavirus were only mildly affected by the disease, with all of them recovering after just a few days. (more…)

Professor Sarah Purdy on the University’s brilliant alumni volunteers

As Pro Vice-Chancellor for Student Experience, I know how invaluable alumni volunteers are to our University community.

There are over 2,400 alumni across the world who act as Bristol Volunteers. These volunteers help in so many different ways, whether that be through mentoring students, organising activities for fellow alumni or sharing their experiences of Bristol. (more…)

Spotlight on COVID-19 research: Professors Imre Berger and Christiane Schaffitzel

COVID-19: Discovery of a druggable pocket in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein

When husband-and-wife dynamic duo Professors Imre Berger (Max Planck-Bristol Centre for Minimal Biology) and Christiane Schaffitzel (School of Biochemistry) found themselves in lockdown in March 2020, unable to teach or run their normal workday at the University of Bristol, they did not hang up their lab coats. Instead (while complying with all necessary safety measures) they assembled a cohort of volunteers from their teams and set to work to do what they could to stop COVID-19 in its tracks, as part of the bigger Bristol University COVID-19 Emergency Research Group (UNCOVER). (more…)

Spotlight on COVID-19 research: Professor Jonathan P Reid

 

Image of aerosol research (C) Declan Costello

COVID-19: Looking at different ways in which aerosol research can support the fight against COVID-19

As Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Aerosol Science and the Bristol Aerosol Research Centre, Professor Jonathan Reid’s approach to tackling COVID-19 is, naturally, focused on aerosols. ‘Aerosols’ is a term that is used to refer to a collection of particles that are airborne and with sizes typically smaller than the diameter of a human hair. When we speak, breathe, cough or even sing, we generate hundreds of these particles that someone else could breathe in, transmitting the virus responsible for COVID-19.

A key piece of work from Professor Reid has shown that there is significantly less risk of COVID-19 transmission from anaesthesia procedures than was previously thought. This is an important finding at a time when many operations and NHS procedures have been postponed or cancelled, causing problems for patients in the UK.

Since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been much debate about the danger to hospital staff from anaesthetic procedures. Concerns include that inserting a tube in the patient’s airway (intubation) before surgery or removing it at the end (extubation) may produce a fine mist of small aerosol particles and spread the COVID-19 virus to nearby staff.

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Spotlight on COVID-19 Research: Dr Laura Rivino

COVID-19: Immune correlates of hyperinflammation and protective immunity in COVID-19

As we grapple with the nightmare scenario of a global pandemic, scientists around the world, including at Bristol, are diving into research around as many aspects of the COVID-19 virus as possible. One of the key findings to date is that in serious cases the body’s immune system goes into ‘overdrive’. Evidence accumulated so far suggests that the life-threatening COVID-19 complications are related to immune dysregulation, arising because of viral infection in the form of a hyperinflammatory syndrome accompanied by increased plasma levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines.(1-2)

Immunologist Dr Laura Rivino is conducting a pilot study that should provide us with a clearer understanding of the immune response underlying both the immunopathology and immune protection in patients with COVID-19. Her team’s hypothesis is that it would be beneficial to use a combination of strategies where the anti-inflammatory response can be blocked while simultaneously boosting the anti-viral immune response, with an expectation of ensuring viral clearance and establishment of immunological memory.

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Spotlight on COVID-19 Research: Dr Saffron Karlsen

COVID-19: Black lives in lockdown – the pandemic experiences of people with Black, Asian and minority ethnicities living in the South West

For many people, the reports that COVID-19 was disproportionately affecting those in Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities was news to them. For Dr Saffron Karlsen, however, it was not. As Associate Professor in Sociology and a specialist in inequalities in health research, Dr Karlsen has spent over 20 years looking at how structural and societal  inequalities hamper health and healthcare for those in ethnic minority groups. (more…)

You’re rising to a global challenge

Dr David Matthews (left), Reader in Virology and Dr Andrew Davidson (right), Reader in Systems Virology in front of their new microscope. The screen shows a virus interacting with cells.

Professor Adam Finn, of the Bristol Medical School, provides an insight into an extraordinary year for Bristol’s community of biomedical researchers.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, my laboratory was focused on the impact of vaccinations on respiratory infections in children. But when COVID-19 hit, we were compelled to pause that work, and redirect our efforts. The nature of our research meant it was possible to make that shift rapidly and we weren’t alone: researchers across the University of Bristol were applying their expertise to the emerging pandemic. The University’s COVID-19 Emergency Research group (Bristol UNCOVER) emerged organically and within a month, there were over 100 researchers, from a vast range of disciplines, meeting online each day to pool resources and expertise, and share progress.

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Bristol alumni set up to help new medics during COVID-19

Junior doctorsIn response to COVID-19 our 2020 MBChB students graduated early to begin their medical careers and help during these unprecedented times. The Development and Alumni Relations Office (DARO), together with the Bristol Medical School, reached out to the doctors in our alumni community to see if they could offer their support and advice during this time, we had an overwhelming response and some truly inspiring and encouraging offers of help.

An incredible 40 alumni offered their time to support our newly graduated MBChB junior doctors, and from those we were able to match 25 students to alumni. These included alumni working in hospitals such as the; BRI, Swindon, Southmead and Taunton. We even had offers of remote support from doctors working outside the Severn Deanery hospitals which was fantastic to receive.

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COVID-19 Research Appeal goes from strength to strength

As we reach the end of another strange month in 2020, with the UK still in lockdown, it is wonderful to report that alumni and friends’ support for our appeal for COVID-19 research continues to be an enormous success.

If you are perhaps feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, please take some comfort in the fact that Bristol’s team of COVID-19 scientists, researchers and academics – over 147 of them – are working hard to tackle this enormous global challenge. They are helped, in no small part, by the £200,000 donated so far to our COVID-19 Research Appeal, an astonishing outpouring of support and belief in Bristol.

Professor Jeremy Tavaré, Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences, recorded a thank you message this week for the 600 donors who have given to Bristol’s COVID-19 research.

It’s important to remain hopeful that Bristol’s research, in collaboration with partners in the UK and around the world, could be key in getting us back to some kind of normality. Support from alumni is crucial, because like many universities in the UK and around the world, Bristol has had to freeze capital budgets as we wait to understand the full impact of the pandemic on higher education. The passionate interest that alumni and friends are showing for our research is certainly spurring on our COVID-19 team at Bristol.

Progress to date on ramping up our research

From the donations coming in to our appeal we have so far managed to achieve the following:

The installation of a new incubator into Drs David Matthews and Andrew Davidson’s secure laboratory, to enable their teams to scale up their research. David and Andrew’s work on SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID- 19, is focused on understanding the pathogenesis of the virus. Their work is taking place in Bristol in one of only two specialist university labs in the whole of the UK and is critical to the development of diagnostic tools, drugs and vaccines to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

Setting up additional secure (Category Level 3) laboratories at Bristol University’s Langford site to facilitate research into the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV2, led by Professor Jonathan Reid and colleagues from the Bristol Aerosol Research Centre.

The purchase of a state-of-the art microscope, which will enable the rapid imaging and screening of cells, providing critical data for researchers working on COVID-19 at Bristol and much further afield.

The purchase of an ELIspot Reader, a highly sensitive instrument for measuring immune responses to infection and vaccination. This instrument can extract large amounts of data from very small numbers of cell samples, so it is key for developing new vaccines and treatments for the virus at speed.

The acquisition of an RNA extraction instrument, which prepares cell samples for COVID-19 diagnostic testing. The University will now be ideally placed to test and validate new approaches to the diagnosis of the virus, while also being ready to contribute to the national capability for COVID-19 testing.

Critical funds for the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute, which is supporting researchers across the University who are applying their expertise to the pandemic.

Bristol’s researchers in the fields of immunology, infectious diseases and public health continue to contribute to the world’s understanding and control of this shocking epidemic. It is truly an interdisciplinary project and there’s real momentum behind the work. Bristol is incredibly well-placed to take advantage of this and to use our expertise to help the world through this pandemic. You can read about everything we’re doing as it happens on our web page dedicated to the University’s COVID-19 research and on this blog.

Bristol is one of the few centres in the UK with such specialist expertise in the study of coronaviruses. This appeal is a great opportunity to make a difference in the race to unlock valuable new information about the COVID-19 virus, which we believe can result from Bristol’s expertise.

– Dr Jonathan de Pass (MBChB 1979) and Mrs Georgina de Pass, COVID-19 Research Appeal donors