RIYADH — The Research Funding Initiative, which was launched by Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University represented by the Deanship of Scientific Research, will support around 40 researches that will be nominated for the research institution following the demand of large number of researchers.

The Dean of Scientific Research, Dr. Kholoud Al-Muqrin, said that the topics of the initiative were distributed to several tracks: • Data; • Modelling the possible expectations; • Public health policies and decision making; • The virus interaction with the host: (the virus isolation, its severity, extent of spread, the response and susceptibility to infection); • Diagnostic check ups and accuracy (molecular investigations and serology); • Clinical trials of therapeutic interventions; • Prototypes manufacture in biomedical engineering and suitability (respirators & personal protective devices); • The development methods for disposing unsafe waste and • The assessment of the economical, social and physiological impact for the disease on the society.

Dr. Al-Muqrin also noted that there was a comparison between the researches on several levels. Furthermore, the number of researchers in the projects that have passed the first stage have reached 171 researchers.

More than 149 researchers from the total number were employees of Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University and King Abdullah University Hospital and the rest were from outside the university who belong to many scientific and health research centers inside and outside Saudi Arabia.

She added that the initiative objective is to invest the research capabilities of the university employees to find scientific solutions that could contribute in treating the coronavirus (COVID-19) and reduce its side effects. It is expected that the result of these projects will be scientific researches, which will be published in scientific journals. In addition, most of the researches that contain innovation and patents will be converted into industrial products with an economic value.

Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University initiative supports researches that contribute, with the international and local efforts, to fight coronavirus and reduce its impacts. This is investing the research capabilities of both employees; the university and King Abdullah University Hospital as part of series of measures that has been taken by the university to decrease the infection.

This initiative as well is going to be used to confront the pandemic and allocate a budget for funding these scientific researches in 2020 while funding a number of innovative research projects that highlight the efforts of Saudi Arabia in acing this epidemic. — SG