COVIM is a collaborative research consortium within the Network of University Medicine (NUM), which was initiated in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With 27 active sites across Germany, COVIM researchers have jointly investigated immunity against SARS-CoV-2 at various levels and developed new immune interventions. In the current second funding phase, COVIM is expanding its activities to include standardised immune monitoring and AI-supported data analysis of immunological data with the aim of establishing a versatile national immunity platform.
On 6 and 7 June 2024, COVIM spokespersons Prof. Dr Florian Klein (University Hospital Cologne) and Prof. Dr Leif Erik Sander (Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin) welcomed over 120 national and international guests to the COVIM Symposium 2024 in Berlin. The aim of the event at the Kaiserin-Friedrich-Stiftung was to discuss the latest findings on antiviral immunity with renowned speakers from the COVIM consortium and beyond.
The opening speakers emphasised the current challenges in the field of One Health and the implications for the risk assessment of new pathogens in the context of pandemic preparedness. The global efforts within the framework of the pandemic agreement and the challenges of improving the diagnosis of undetected diseases were also discussed.
In other sessions, the latest findings on humoral and innate immunity, T-cell immunity and viral pathogenesis were discussed and new approaches to combating viral infections were presented. Furthermore, the discussion emphasised the need for meaningful and standardised immune analyses for the approval of immunotherapeutics, to which the planned COVIM immunity platform will make an important contribution. The expansion of the ImmunoHub to other university hospital sites will increase the possibilities for data analysis. This will make it possible to learn together from the extensive and decentralised immunity data collected and to derive new findings for infection prevention and therapy more quickly.
Further information at: https://covim-symposium2024.org/ and https://covim-netzwerk.de/
Contact: COVIM coordination team: Nicole Stobäus(nicole.stobaeus@charite.de) and Susanne Salomon(susanne.salomon@uk-koeln.de)