Three University of Saskatchewan research teams have been awarded a total of $900 thousand by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The money is to help strengthen Canada’s rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One team aims to identify existing drugs that can be repurposed to treat COVID infections. Another team is producing a ‘humanized mouse’ model to rapidly evaluate promising therapeutics. The mice contain two human lung implants that can be infected by SARS-CoV-2 and a human immune system that will mount an immune response to the infection. The third team will evaluate community safety policies and programs with the goal of recommending best practices for responses to future waves of pandemics.

The University of Regina is receiving close to a million dollars in federal funding for COVID-19 detection and treatment research.