Bilateral Indo-US Webinar on COVID Biology

Date- August 16-19, 2020
Time- 11.00 am EDT, 10.00 am CDT, 9.00 am MDT, 8.00 am PDT, 8.30 pm IST

Introduction

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, IISER Kolkata in collaboration with IISc, Bangalore, India, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Colorado, School of Medicine, USA are organizing a webinar series under the banner of IUSSTF on the research and educational dimensions of the novel Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The pandemic caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has already caused widespread infection and significant mortality across the globe. With no immediate therapies available, the rapid development of novel therapeutic strategies by understanding the pathogenesis of the disease is of prime importance. A mounting number of human coronaviruses (H-CoV) that have emerged from zoonotic transmission in recent decades also demands improved understanding and design of therapies that have the potential to treat standard features of common coronavirus pathogenesis, including COVID-19. Designing therapies against common pathogenesis will not only be of immense help during the current situation but also when new coronaviruses emerge in the future.

SARS-CoV-2 is related to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in pathololgy. These two older sister strains of the β-coronavirus family have been studied extensively. Most coronaviruses contain highly conserved sets of genes, with significant sequence homology in key regions suggesting critical functions that may provide substantial therapeutic targets. “ Bilateral Indo-US Webinar on COVID Biology” is being organized to provide a platform to learn from the experts working in the broad topics: a) Emergence of Human β-Coronaviruses with particular emphasis on SARS- CoV2 Origins, Evolution & Modelling; b) Clinical and Molecular Virology of SARS-CoV-2, c) SARS-CoV-2 Pathogenesis and Host response/Antivirals and d) SARS-CoV-2 Pathogenesis: Insights from other β-Coronaviruses.

Program Schedule