This webinar, hosted by Cardiff University on 26th January 2021, saw 6 presentations by Members of Academia Europaea, who have all recently published papers on various biomedical aspects of COVID-19. Over 100 attended the live session from 27 countries across the world.

The presentations addressed a wide range of issues, including the genetics of the disease, how the virus enters cells, a focus on the vulnerable lipid envelope of the virus, how to explain the mysterious silent hypoxemia that gives rise to uncompensated low oxygen levels in the blood, a new ion channel target in the airways and how to understand the psychiatric aspects of COVID-19. The short presentations were followed by a discussion session. The webinar was moderated by the Hub’s Director, Professor Ole Petersen.
Watch the webinar
This webinar is part of a series of COVID-19 related webinars organised by the AE Cardiff Hub.
More about the panellists

Ole H Petersen MAE: Chair and Introduction
Ole Petersen is Professor of Physiology in the School of Biosciences at Cardiff University. Professor Petersen is Vice-President of Academia Europaea and Director of the AE Cardiff Knowledge Hub. He is Chief Editor of American Physiological Society’s Open Access flagship journal ‘Function’ which was launched in 2020.

Valerie O’Donnell MAE: Targeting the viral lipid envelope of SARS-COV-2
Valerie O’Donnell is Professor of Biochemistry and Co-Director of Cardiff University‘s Systems Immunity Research Institute.

Giuseppe Novelli MAE: Genetics underlying severe COVID-19
Giuseppe Novelli is Professor of Medical Genetics and former President of the Giovanni Lorenzini Medical Foundation.

Jose Lopez-Barneo MAE: Silent hypoxemia in COVID-19
Jose Lopez-Barneo is Professor of Medical Physiology and Biophysics. He is former Director of the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville.

Bernard Rossier MAE: COVID-19: critical role of sodium transport in the airways
Bernard Rossier is Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and former Dean of the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne.

Alex Verkhratsky MAE: Psychiatric face of COVID-19
Alex Verkhratsky is a Professor of Neurophysiology at the University of Manchester.
Publications on COVID-19 by Members of Academia Europaea

There has been a very positive response to the request from the Academia Europaea Board for published papers relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. You may find a summary of the papers received to date here, including those of our speakers.