Community Jameel Launches New Fund to Tackle Infectious Diseases

In 2003, it was the SARS epidemic. In 2012, it was the MERS outbreak. Less than a decade later, in 2020, it was the COVID-19 pandemic. With the continued proliferation of the coronavirus in mind, Imperial College London and Saudi Arabia's Community Jameel launched the Jameel Fund for Infectious Disease Research and Innovation, which will provide awards of up to $65,000 for projects looking to research, diagnose, and ultimately eliminate the coronavirus.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief the need to be able to respond quickly to infectious diseases to prevent their spread," Professor Alice Gast, President of Imperial College London, said. "This generous grant will create new opportunities for collaboration to protect future generations against this global threat, allowing us to move faster and go further. We are very grateful to Community Jameel for supporting this urgent work.”

With the recent launch of their first round of funding, the Jameel Fund will also support complementary research projects at King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in Jeddah to enhance cooperation between KAU and Imperial College London.

“By bridging between Imperial, a global leader in the COVID-19 response, and King Abdulaziz University, on the frontline of the MERS and COVID-19 outbreaks in Saudi Arabia, the Jameel Fund will enable international, peer-to-peer collaboration between two outstanding infectious disease research institutions,” said George Richards, Director of Community Jameel.

In 2020, Community Jameel and Imperial College founded the  Community Jameel Imperial College COVID-19 Excellence Fund, which has funded a variety of projects that addressed different aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the preparation of PPE kits for healthcare workers and research into the effect of the virus on the propagation of neurological diseases.