COVID-19
When a crisis such as that of COVID-19 arises, it is essential that all research organisations and Luxembourg Research institutions work together and collaborate. This is the spirit of the Research Luxembourg Group, which includes LIST, the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), the Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR), the University of Luxembourg, the Laboratoire National de Santé (LNS) and the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB), all supported by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research.
LIST carries out a number of projects and activities, coordinated by the COVID-19 Task Force within Research Luxembourg, with the aim of providing relevant strategic advice and support to the Government in the current COVID-19 crisis. Find out more about these activities, broken down by theme:
A Cross-Functional Dashboard
LIST has set up a Cross-Functional Dashboard, which is designed to support decision-makers in crisis situations such as COVID-19, by offering them (1) a synthetic but nonetheless as complete as possible view of the current situation and (2) a means of visualising the impacts of different scenarios (scenario-based collective decision support system) in order to reach a compromise that takes into account the various trade-offs to be made. On the other hand, it aims to support researchers in refining their models, validating the underlying hypotheses and assessing the quality of the data they use.
Waste water monitoring
Leslie Ogorzaly's team is on a real hunt for COVID-19 in Luxembourg's wastewater. Complementary to the clinical tests developed by its partners, the methodology developed by LIST is able to go back in time and track down the outbreaks of infection in Luxembourg in near-real time. The results obtained show a detection of SARS-CoV-2 in waste water as early as 24 February 2020.
Supply chains and logistics
- The Supply Chains and Logistics working group has carried out two surveys and published a detailed document analysing both the impact of the pandemic and the potential risks to supply chains. The aim of this document was to provide guidance on the various characteristics of different supply chains depending on the product. The paper also analyses the various risk factors and provides recommendations to government, as well as private operators, to increase their resilience now and in the future.
- The ACTING NoW project, funded by the FNR, aims to anticipate the closure of a border or the halt of exports from a country to Luxembourg to guarantee the country's supply at a time of health crisis. Cindy Guerlain and her team have thus created a control tower: a digital decision-making tool for the Luxembourg government and companies.
Detecting an infection
- Muhannad Ismael and his team are developing an intelligent system capable of identifying a COVID-19 infection through patient’s voice signature. An innovative approach that could limit the dangers of physical exposure, but also help health professionals to manage congested call centres during a pandemic.
- Sivashankar Krishnamoorthy and Cesar Pascual Garcia want to create a technology capable of detecting infection at an early stage. Their goal: to provide a reliable, easy and quick to use diagnostic device for better health care management and clinical outcomes.
Data visualisation
- Today, research is pursuing a common goal: to stem the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this can only be achieved through easy and rapid access to the thousands of scientific studies available to researchers, health professionals and policymakers. Mohammad Ghoniem's team is adapting and making available to all, its data visualisation and search software, Papyrus.
- Through his project, Cédric Pruski is transforming the thousands of data sources, concepts and terminologies previously describing COVID-19, into comprehensive graphs. This is an essential means to correctly capture our knowledge on the new coronavirus and obtain a snapshot of the evolution of the subject over time.
Decision-making tools
- In order to contain a crisis such as that of COVID-19, it is essential to be able to detect and map the evolution of the virus in space and time. This is precisely the objective of Ulrich Leopold's project through the development of a web platform and decision-making tools.
- Within the framework of the Work Package dedicated to the socio-economic impact of the crisis, complementary work has been carried out by LIST and the University of Luxembourg through the REBORN project, co-financed by the FNR. In order to ensure a revival of economic activity in Luxembourg while minimising the risk of a new pandemic, Jean-Sébastien Sottet's team is helping to create predictive scenarios. Their innovative hybrid technological approach will enable policymakers to predict what might happen when taking a particular deconfinement measure.
Decontamination of masks
LIST and Molecular Plasma Group (MPG) are teaming up to find a plasma-based method to decontaminate used masks and personal protective equipment in order to reuse them. The project also aims to create masks with antimicrobial/anti-viral coatings. LIST’s Environmental Research and Innovation department puts its extensive experience in validating antimicrobial treatments at the service of the project.
