REMODEL and COVID-19

Recently, the European Commission sent us an email reminding us about the impact Covid-19 is having in all research activities. Specifically, the Commission requested us to share information about the EU effort for research and innovation helping society to deal with the public health crisis. Taking this opportunity, REMODEL will not only reflect on Covid-19 impact, but as well as on how the REMODEL project is adapting to this new normal. In March 2020, the REMODEL team switched to working from home – but that didn’t mean we slowed down! Of course, being outside our normal workplaces affected the project in different ways. On one hand, partners maintained their productivity either by submitting abstracts to conferences and workshops, or by integrating REMODEL in several submitted grant proposals. On the other hand, we had to find a flexible and safe approach for our first Workshop on Organoids – one of the key tasks of REMODEL.  This workshop was initially planned to take place in June as a face-to-face workshop – something that of course needed to change. Due to all the travel and confinement restrictions, we had to postpone it. However, when times are hard, surprisingly simple solutions may appear. In the last couple of months, the scientific community has embraced the confinement and changed the paradigm of conferences. Every day, free webinars, workshop and symposia are available at the internet, just by a simple registration. We are able to deliver and participate in seminars just like we did, but this time, from home. And the REMODEL partners did not stop meeting just because we were not in the same place. In the same way as we are using online conferencing technology to interact in the project team, we will be able to bring our international project team to contribute online to the first workshop.

REMODEL is a WIDESPREAD project, aiming to build capacity at his host institution, i3S, on advanced 3D models and organoids. Thus, it is supposed a lot of traveling by the partners’ labs, learning protocols and improving skills on those models, something that it is not possible at the moment. REMODEL partners are then working on a different strategy: the Workshop on Organoids is still on, during late September or October, but will be performed by teleconference. Moreover, practical classes will be performed in E-learning format. REMODEL team at i3S is working on the videos scripts, and preparing the shooting set up.

One of the challenges that EU posed to researchers was to help society to deal with the impact of Covid-19. The local REMODEL team includes researchers in infection, cancer and tissue regeneration, who have been involved in different ways in the i3S Covid-19 outreach activities.  Margarida Saraiva, Cristina Barrias and Anna Olsson contributed to preparing videos (in Portuguese), disseminated by Youtube. Moreover, Margarida also led the “Covid-19 task force” on i3S, where researchers on a volunteer basis performed Covid-19 diagnosis tests for the healthcare system.

The Commission message is urging us to share the news about EU supported research and innovation projects and initiatives to tackle the spread of coronavirus and preparedness for other outbreaks. Of course we will. And of course that REMODEL team will contribute in their major expertise: 3D models and organoids that are currently being used for studying Covid-19. How? Stay on, and you will find out more in our next publications!