The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) announced the list of projects funded by its basic research program to study the origin, pathogenesis and prevention of COVID-19. Prof. Zhou Hongwei was funded with the project titled 'Study of the early serological biomarkers for the 2019-nCoV (SARS-CoV-2) Infection'. The project was approved with a funding of 1.4 million RMB for 2 years. The project focuses on the early diagnosis of COVID-19. It is well know that the NP proteins in the sera are the key biomarker for early screening and diagnosis of SARS and MERS, it is also expected to become a potential biomarker for the diagnosis of early infection of SARS-CoV-2. Prof. Zhou's research team plans to detect the expression levels of different antigens in the early and middle stages of the virus infection. Meanwhile, omics based technology will be used to screen the serum proteomics and peptidomic for biomarkers at the early stage of infection to establish a rapid screening technology for COVID-19 to provide clues for understanding the occurrence and development of the infection of COVID-19

The program 'Basic Research on the origin, Pathogenesis and Prevention of New Coronaviruses' was announced in January this year and only 20 projects were approved nationwide by NSFC in response to the recent outbreak of COVID-19. The fund supports the researchers to conduct basic and prospective researches on major scientific issues related to the etiology, epidemiology, pathogenesis, prevention, and treatment of the infection.

Adapted from:  http://www.fimmu.com/info/1139/9415.htm