The National Research Foundation of Ukraine has published a list of winners of the competition for research and development projects. Director of the Institute of Cell Biology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Professor and Lviv Honorary Ambassador Andriy Sybirnyi received 10 million UAH grant for the development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.
The competition was held with the aim of grant support for basic scientific research in the field of natural, technical, social and human sciences, applied research and experimental development in priority areas. Almost a thousand participants took part in the competition. Lviv scientists won for the implementation of three projects: to create a new generation of antibiotics, to develop new bioanalytical products on the basis of artificial enzymes and nanomaterials and to develop a coronavirus vaccine.
«Several countries around the world are already working on the Covid-19 vaccine . There is a so-called phenomenon of antibody dependent enhancement, which involves enhancement of the infectious process in the presence of antibodies specific for the SARS-CoV-2 «crown» protein. We have taken this experience into account in our work and, in order to obtain antibodies, we intend to use different parts of the «crown» protein to avoid this phenomenon. We will work on fragments of the coat proteins on yeast, because it is faster and cheaper than on animal cells,» – said Andriy Sybirnyi, director of the Institute of Cell Biology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Biological Sciences.
