Sunway Group is in talks with Cambridge University for potential collaboration opportunities to fight the current pandemic.
Led by over 150 scientists and clinicians, Cambridge University's main response team against Covid-19 is working at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID).
They are housed at the Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre (JCBC), which is located on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in United Kingdom, the largest biotech cluster outside the United States.
Sunway Group founder and chairman Tan Sri Dr Jeffrey Cheah said Cambridge University is playing a leading role in understanding and controlling the coronavirus infection in the United Kingdom.
"We hope the research team will be able to successfully generate research data that will be crucial to fight Covid-19. We are also in discussions with the university for potential collaboration opportunities to bolster Malaysia's currently successful fight against the pandemic."
Cambridge University vice-chancellor Professor Stephen J. Toope thanked Cheah and Sunway for JCBC's contribution to international efforts in fighting Covid-19.
"The Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre has become absolutely pivotal to our clinical medicine response to Covid-19. On the Biomedical Campus, we are launching multiple pre-clinical and clinical research studies and trials, many in close partnership with our teaching hospital, Addenbrooke's."
The studies and trials include improved diagnostics, experimental treatments, vaccine candidates and large-scale observational studies.
"CITIID is now focusing entirely on Covid-19 research. It is clear how important this new facility is in enabling us to make a substantive contribution to national and international efforts," said Toope.
CITIID is home to the largest biosafety level 3 containment facility in the UK, which was established to study the relationship between infectious diseases and human immune systems.
It is currently leading the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium project to deliver large-scale, rapid sequencing of the virus genome and inform vaccine research efforts.
The consortium brings together the UK's best scientists from the world's most-advanced centres of genomes and data, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, National Health Service, public health agencies and academic institutions.
The CITIID team has successfully set up a Point of Care test system at Addenbrooke's Hospital using SAMBA II machines, enabling rapid diagnostic testing for patients. The team also developed new tests for infection with a four-hour detection rate to screen frontline healthcare workers treating Covid-19 patients.
Developed by spin-out company, Diagnostics for the Real World, the SAMBA II machines can produce results for Covid-19 infection in under 90 minutes. With the rapid testing capabilities, hospitals will be able to identify which healthcare workers are infected and direct them to dedicated wards.
Opened in September 2019, JCBC brings under one roof the CITIID, the Wellcome-MRC Stem Cell Institute and the Milner Therapeutics Institute.
JCBC is situated within a group of state-of-the-art laboratories and hospitals, including the renowned Laboratory of Molecular Biology, which has produced 16 Nobel Prize winners, and the illustrious Royal Papworth Hospital and Addenbrooke's Hospital.
The establishment of JCBC is one of a number of partnerships between Sunway and Cambridge to expand research capabilities in Malaysia and the region.
