NEUROCOV

Infections with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 can trigger both temporary and long-term neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms, severely impacting patients and the wider society. The presently limited insights into COVID-19 and its underlying mechanisms – especially regarding our understanding of how the central nervous system is affected – restrict therapeutic possibilities. The new research project NEUROCOV will address this major unmet need by focusing on the interplay between the nervous tissue and the immune/inflammatory response triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection. The project pursues a multi-scalar approach that reaches from epidemiology and mechanistic interrogation of host/virus interplay at single-cell resolution through predictive modelling all the way to validation of biomarkers and repurposed drugs. The aim is to anticipate and effectively manage personalized trajectories of NeuroCOVID vulnerability and their impact at population level. NEUROCOV will pioneer innovative robotics to scale brain organoid modelling and combine it with single-cell multiOMICs and AI analytics to dissect the principles of the individual host response and render experimentally actionable the authentic genetic backgrounds of differential SARSCoV-2 sensitivity.