Wouter Roos and Rifka Vlijm partner in consortium receiving an NWO XL grant

Rifka Vlijm and Wouter Roos are partners in a consortium that was recently awarded an NWO XL grant. The research project "In search of the coronavirus Achilles’ heel" is led by Dr. David Dulin of VU Amsterdam. Vlijm and Roos will both receive a PhD position within the project.

COVID19 is the disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection and is responsible for the ongoing pandemic. Though vaccines are available, we need to understand how the virus replicates within the cell in order to develop new antiviral drugs. New drugs will protect people against lengthy hospitalizations, long-COVID, and future new variants that make vaccinated people ill. We will investigate the coronavirus Achilles’ heel, namely how coronaviruses multiply their genetic material and how genetic material is packed into new viral particles. We bring together an interdisciplinary team of biologists,experimental- and theoretical physicists to uncover the very early stages of coronavirus infection.