CONSORTIUM

ASCENT is a highly integrated project that brings together scientists from two Sub-Saharan African countries including South Africa and Burkina Faso and three European countries including France, the Netherlands and Switzerland in the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

1

VRI-Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Coordinator)
Paris – France

2

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois
Lausanne – Switzerland

3

Universiteit Utrecht
Utrecht – Netherlands

4

South African Medical Research Council
Johannesburg – South Africa

5

Centre Muraz
Bobo-Dioulasso – Burkina Faso

6

Eurovacc Foundation
Lausanne – Switzerland

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6

Eurovacc Foundation (EVF) – Switzerland (Lausanne)

Principal investigator: Song Ding

 

In ASCENT, EVF will provide consortium management support.

The EuroVacc Foundation, created in 2002, is a non-profit organization, dedicated to develop vaccines against infectious diseases and to promote worldwide accessibility to these vaccines. EuroVacc Foundation derives from the cluster – European Vaccine Effort against HIV/AIDS – funded by the European Union under the 5th Framework Programme. The mission of EuroVacc is to actively pursue collaborations with leading vaccine developers in both public and private sectors to accelerate the development of affordable and accessible vaccines against emerging infectious diseases for use throughout the world. 

5

Centre Muraz (CM) – Burkina Faso (Bobo-Dioulasso)

Principal investigator: Dr Houreratou Barry

 

In ASCENT, CM will implement the two serological assays and conduct a cohort study to evaluate the evolution over time of post-vaccinal and post-infection immune response to SARS-CoV2 in the population of Bobo-Dioulasso.

Centre MURAZ is the oldest national health research institute in Burkina Faso, established in 1939 in Bobo-Dioulasso. Since 2001, Centre MURAZ is a national & public research institute for health in Burkina Faso. Its mission is to contribute to prevention, diagnosis and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases through the provision of quality health research results, training of health and research workforce, and technical expertise in clinical biology and research, human and social sciences and public health. Centre MURAZ staff is currently made up of more than 250 agents including 50 researchers organized in Department and Research Units and multidisciplinary teams. Core competencies include clinical medicine and biology, pharmaceutical sciences, field and clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, medical informatics, policy and health systems, health geography and demography, health economics, human and social sciences.

https://www.centre-muraz.bf/

4

South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) – South Africa (Johannesburg)

 

Principal investigator: Prof Glenda Gray

 

In ASCENT, SARMC will implement the two serological assays andconduct a cross-sectional observational study to generate generate seroprevalence data as well as prevalence of neutralizing antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 infected donors. SARMC will also build a mathematical model of the epidemics in the collaborative countries.

The SAMRC was established in 1969 with a mandate to improve the health of the country’s population, through research, development and technology transfer, so that people can enjoy a better quality of life. The scope of the organisation’s research projects includes tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular and non-communicable diseases, gender and health, and alcohol and other drug abuse. With a strategic objective to help strengthen the health systems of the country – in line with that of the Department of Health, the SAMRC constantly identifies the main causes of death in South Africa.

3

Universiteit Utrecht (UU) – the Netherlands (Utrecht)

Principal investigator: Prof. Berend-Jan Bosch

 

In ASCENT, UU will validate, transfer and cross-validate the neutralization assay screening of seropositive donors to define prevalence of an anti-viral neutralizing antibody response to South Africa and Burkina Faso. 

Founded in 1636, Utrecht University is one of the largest research universities of Europe, with over thirty thousand students and a staff of more than six thousand. We invest in creating the leaders of the future through innovative education of the highest quality, as reflected by the University's consistently high position in international rankings. Dedicated to performing groundbreaking research aimed at resolving large global issues, our culture of cooperation is a breeding ground for innovation, new insights and social impact.

www.uu.nl

2

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) – Switzerland (Lausanne)

Principal investigator: Giuseppe Pantaleo

 

In Ascent, CHUV will transfer and cross-validate the luminex based serological assay for binding antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 Spike and Nucleocapsid proteins to South Africa and Burkina Faso.

The Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), University of Lausanne, in Switzerland is a public non-profit institution dedicated to the improvement of human health through patient care, research and training, providing general hospital needs for the city of Lausanne and its area. 

The Service of Immunology and Allergy, headed by Prof. Giuseppe Pantaleo, is an established group of investigators supported by the Swiss National Foundation, the European Union, the National Institute of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The service provides more than 5,400 outpatient consultations per year in the areas of allergy, chronic inflammatory diseases, and immunodeficiency. This research focuses on the identification of the immunological mechanisms linked to T lymphocytes, antiviral and mucosal immunity, immune tolerance in allergy and transplantation, with strong emphasis on translational research benefiting from the direct access to patients through the close collaboration with other departments at CHUV. In the Swiss national seroprevalence and seroepidemiologic study Corona Immunitas, the CHUV Luminex Spike protein trimer assay has been selected for a 90,000 population study in Switzerland.  Since the onset of the study, CHUV has performed >60,000 tests for monitoring IgG and IgA anti-Spike protein antibody levels.

https://www.chuv.ch/fr/ial/ial-home

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VRI-Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm) – Coordinator – France (Paris)

Principal investigator: Yves Lévy (VRI), U955

Principal investigator: Rodolphe Thiébaut, U1219

 

In Ascent, Inserm will coordinate the project and build a mathematical model of the epidemics in each collaborating country augmented by a statistical model to estimate the epidemics and to forecast its dynamics with or without public health interventions, with the ultimate goal to inform the policy makers to take effective measures to control and mitigate the epidemic.

 

Founded in 1964, INSERM (French national institute of health and medical research) is a public scientific and technological institute that operates under the joint authority of the French Ministries of Health and Research. Its mission is to facilitate the exchange between basic, clinical, therapeutic and public health research leveraging on its scientific expertise in several fields and covering a very large spectrum of human diseases. In CARE, Inserm mobilizes four teams: in Créteil and Bordeaux.

The Vaccine Research Institute (VRI) Inserm U955 was created in 2011, to pursue the HIV vaccine program of the ANRS (French National Agency of Research on HIV and hepatitis). The VRI is a network of national and international clinical and research teams sharing the goal to develop innovative therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines and tools to analyze biological responses to immunotherapies and vaccines. The ultimate mission of the VRI is to conduct research to accelerate the development of an effective vaccine against HIV/AIDS and (re)emerging infectious diseases. 

https://www.inserm.fr/