Collaboration ‘call to duty’ to battle a deadly global threat
Researchers from around Boston are opening a new front against the deadly coronavirus by rallying the region’s biomedical science talent to develop better diagnostics, effective therapeutics, and potentially a vaccine. The effort, announced Monday, will be mounted in collaboration with scientists at China’s Guangzhou Institute for Respiratory Health, and in particular the lab of Zhong Nanshan, head of the Chinese task force fighting the disease. Those involved said an important aspect of the new international collaboration is not only its work with Chinese colleagues but also its coordination of local labs: Boston-area researchers at Harvard, its affiliated hospitals, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, area biotech companies, and others. “We’re approaching this in a very different way than business-as-usual and trying to leverage the phenomenal biotech community here in Boston to work collaboratively and have an impact on this epidemic,” said Bruce Walker, director of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT...