InfraLife attended SciLifeLab’s Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness Retreat to learn more about the scientific research, promote the large-scale research infrastructures and participate in discussions about future pandemics.
SciLifeLab has established three capabilities to organise both their infrastructure technology and expertise, one of which is Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness. At the end of August, approximately 100 invited attendees participated in the Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness Retreat, the second installment of their annual event.
During COVID-19 pandemic, the Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness capability community, together with external partners, organizations and infrastructures, worked together to find ways of analyzing and inhibiting COVID-19 from the molecular to environmental level. The current focus is now on being better prepared for future pandemics. During this retreat, there were presentations about the research conducted, lessons learned and discussions on what the attendees, in collaboration with the Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness capability, can do now and focus on to be better prepared for future pandemics.
During InfraLife’s strategy day at the start of 2024, the InfraLife project group met with the Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness capability scientific leads and coordinator to learn more about their work. During the same event, the InfraLife project group met with members from our partner industrial organizations, SwedenBIO (Working group on Pandemic Preparedness) and LiF. This was a great opportunity for representatives from all three infrastructures to learn more about Infection and Pandemic research in Sweden and determine if InfraLife could assist with connecting people and promoting use of SciLifeLab, MAX IV and ESS in this field.
Pandemic preparedness and infection research has many areas such as pathogens, host-pathogen interactions, diagnostics and treatment. SciLifeLab, MAX IV and ESS can be used to explore the structure and function of viruses, interaction of viruses and bacteria with inhibitors, antibiotic resistance and vaccine delivery, to name a few examples. InfraLife promoted these areas when attending the Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness retreat. In order to continue our involvement in this area, InfraLife have been involved in organising and suggesting speakers for an upcoming event entitled “Infection Biology Across Scales” which is organised by SciLifeLab, MIMS (The Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden) and EMBL.
Reach out to InfraLife to learn more about how Sweden’s large-scale infrastructures can assist in your Life Science research.
Useful links
https://www.scilifelab.se/capabilities/pandemic-laboratory-preparedness/