Three projects of the Universitat de València’s Institutes have obtained funds from Banco Santander for COVID-19 research. The three initiatives have been included in the 19 selected projects from among 700 applications. Banco Santander will invest more than 630,000 euros to the six selected research projects in the Valencian Community: three from the Universitat de València, one from the Universitat Politècnica, another from the University of Alacant and the final one from the Universitat Jaume I.
The UV projects are: COV-CRISPIS, developed at the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I²SysBio), is a new autonomous biosystem for diagnosing the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in three reaction steps after the sample has been collected without the need of sophisticated equipment; BlockAce, promoted by the Medicinal Chemistry Institute (CSIC) in order to identify compounds and proteins that slow down the viral infection by preventing the virus from entering the host cells; and the research, ‘Los ROstros del COvid-19. Género e Impactos Socioeconómicos’ (COVID-19 Faces: Gender and Socio-economic Impact).
Banco Santander, through Santander Universities, has allocated almost a total of 8,5 million from its Supera Covid 19 Fund, promoted by the entity in collaboration with Crue Universidades Españolas and the CSIC.
The Fund supports projects propelled by Spanish universities and the CSIC on the basis of three strategic aims: research applied to the virus and its prevention, to which five million euros have been earmarked; research on social impact, provided with one million euros; and strengthening the technological capacity of the universities and reducing the digital divide, for which 2,5 million have been allocated.
Spain has numerous studies and research projects on COVID-19 and its impact, both on people’s health and on the economic and social level, and the universities are playing a key role in this process.
