Murdoch University’s Dr Paola Magni and Dr Shadi Sahibzada will form part of an international ‘COVID-19 Research and Development Task Force’ designed to investigate how the virus jumped from bats to humans.

The team of international researchers secured significant funding as part of a rapid response initative with Khalifa University of Science and Technology in the United Arab Emirates.

Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science, Dr Magni said the research seeks to improve an understanding of the mutual relationship between the virus and its mammalian host.

“This study will help us to understand what all of these mammals have in common (from the point of view of cellular receptors) that allow or facilitate the virus to enter the host.”

The international ‘COVID-19 Research and Development Task Force' is made up of a multidisciplinary group from across the world including United Arab Emirates, United States of America, China, Singapore and Australia.

Dr Magni said the collaborative project is not only crucial in terms of its contribution towards the global fight against our common and invisible enemy, COVID-19, but has also opened avenues for future collaborative work across the continents.

“We all come from different backgrounds including medical, molecular, bioinformatics, veterinary, epidemiology and forensic disciplines, which will be very beneficial to the project,” said Dr Magni.

“The study will encompass epidemiology, wildlife forensics, modelling, simulation and prediction of propagation, digital tools for mitigation and resiliency measures to help us better understand the virus transmission.

“It is not as easy as saying we will have the answers to stop the virus - but we will have an understanding on how to make the cells harder to break into.

“Its like thieves and doors, we can’t stop the thieves, but we can make the doors stronger. To do so, we need to understand what all the doors, that the thieves can break into, have in common.”

Tuesday 21 April, 9pm AWST marked the beginning of the study with an international videocall. Dr Magni said the team aims to close the project by the end of 2020.

“We are all looking forward to beginning this new chapter of international research,” said Dr Magni.

Background 

Dr Paola Magni is a Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science at Murdoch University and Director of SCRIPT at Murdoch Singapore and Dr. Shafi Sahibzada is a Lecturer in Veterinary Public Health and Epidemiology at Murdoch University.

The study is titled ‘The identification of conserved groves in the host cell receptors that bind and facilitate coronavirus (CoV) entry into mammalian cells’, and was granted through the ‘COVID-19 Research and Development Task Force’ initiative of Khalifa University of Science and Technology in the United Arab Emirates.

Khalifa University of Science and Technology is a world-class, research-intensive institution and endeavors to be a catalyst to the growth of Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s rapidly developing knowledge economy.