Qatar Foundation Endowment, the Hamad Medical Corporation and the Mater Olbia Hospital in Sardinia are co-funding a 500,000 euro research project on using antibodies in plasma to treat critically ill Covid-19 patients.
The study will involve 100 Covid-19 critically ill patients and 100 plasma donors who are convalescing from the virus, and will be coordinated by Hussam Al Soub, Ali S. Omrani from Hamad Medical Corporation, Stefano Vella, professor of global health at the L'Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, and Giovanni Delogu, a lecturer in microbiology at UCSC.
Under the project, the Hamad Medical Corporation will collect plasma from donors in the study cohort, give it to severely ill Covid-19 patients and monitor them. Plasma samples will be sent to Mater Olbia Hospital for qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Sars-Cov-2 antibodies.
Mater Olbia Hospital will use ELISA tests to gauge the immune profile and response of the cohort of patients in the study and on the basis of these results to select representative samples to measure the 'neutralising' activities of plasma from a group of donor and recipient patients.
Mater Olbia is the result of a partnership between the Qatar Foundation Endowment and the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS in Rome.
