Professor of the Department of Chemistry, and member of NanoQAM, Steve Bourgault, holder of the Canada Research Chair in the chemistry of biological nano-assemblies, and his colleagues Denis Archambault and Benoît Barbeau, of the Department of Biological Sciences, received a grant major of over $ 1 million from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), as part of the Exceptional Opportunities Fund -COVID-19 competition launched last June.

This infrastructure grant will make it possible to acquire cutting-edge equipment in chemistry and immunology necessary for the pursuit of research projects on COVID-19 carried out at UQAM, including the development of innovative vaccines and the identification of synthetic peptides. which may inhibit the virus’ infectivity.

The CFI grant comes on top of that from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) obtained last June by Denis Archambault to develop, in collaboration with Steve Bourgault, a nanovaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In recent years, these two professors have jointly developed nanovaccine platforms against infectious agents.

Other researchers collaborating on the CFI-funded research project are Dr Bradley Pickering, Head of the Special Pathogens Unit at the National Center for Foreign Animal Diseases of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Dr Darwyn Kobasa, Head of the High Containment Respiratory Virus Group Special Pathogens at the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada. Darwyn Kobasa has been a major player in the development of the Ebola virus vaccine.

Source : Actualités UQAM