Parra News December 21 2021

LOCAL NEWS
Heroes from the lab
The researchers making a huge difference in the fight against COVID-19
NICOLA BARTON
It’s no secret our frontline healthcare
workers have been the face of
our battle against the COVID-19
pandemic, but some tend to forget the
many hidden heroes working behind the
scenes.
An army of some of the brightest minds
at the Westmead Institute for Medical
Research (WIMR) have played an important
role in our war against COVID to date
and our fight as it continues into 2022.
Parra News recently met with Professor
Tony Cunningham and Virologist John-
Sebastian Eden for a behind-the-scenes
look into the happenings of our city’s
COVID research labs.
Dr Eden runs a research group in WIMR
that sequences viruses to track how they
are evolving and spreading using their
genomes.
In the early days of COVID his team
quickly came up with a genome sequencing
method that assisted other researchers
track outbreaks in Italy, Vietnam and New
Zealand.
“If you take a swab you can have detectable
virus but amongst that is bacteria,
human cells and so the virus component
is actually miniscule; we came up with a
procedure to amplify the virus,” he said.
“It’s like enriching the sample so it’s just
that virus to sequence so you get the whole
genome and that’s how we identify the
virus and track it.”
Dr Eden’s wife was pregnant with his
first born at the time, so he had to make
the difficult decision to continue his
important work, whilst ensuring he was
still protecting her.
“Sequencing viruses is our bread and
butter, it’s what we do, so we knew we were
in the right place to contribute,” he said.
Professor Cunningham said there are
lots of projects in the works as the team
gets ready to take on the challenges of
2022.
“We’re really looking at the immune
response from those naturally infected
and those after vaccines to look at how long
and at what level the immune response
persists, particularly in older and younger
people,” he said.
“We are also looking at responses to
boosters and then finally we are taking
lymph nodes from volunteers who have
Virologist John-Sebastian Eden and Professor Tony Cunningham.
breast cancer to see how COVID vaccines
actually work.
“We are doing a number of other projects
with people around Australia to look at
vaccination in immunocompromised
people, people with transplants, Leukemia
and pregnant women.”
Dr Eden is now working on research to
pioneer a method to assist in diagnostics
for other novel viruses in the future.
parra news » Tuesday, December 21, 2021
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