"Identifying SARS-CoV-2- host cell interactions exploiting CRISPR/Cas9 engineered human organoids: through the development of specific therapies against COVID19"

To combat COVID-19 it is important to prevent the virus from entering cells, but also to understand what happens when it is already inside: what mechanisms of the cell the pathogen hijacks to replicate and continue infecting. This highly multidisciplinary project is led by researchers from three centers in different countries, who in the past months have already made key contributions to face the pandemic. The principal investigator Nuria Monserrat, an expert in developmental biology at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia, demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 also infects other organs, in addition to the lungs; Josef Penninger, from the Austrian Institute for Molecular Biotechnology, confirmed in vivo that the ACE2 protein is the main gateway to the new coronavirus cell; Ali Mirazimi, from the Karolinska Institute, in Sweden, he is an expert virologist in emerging viruses. In this project, they will study how SARS-CoV-2 infects mini-kidney cells, made by bioengineering from human stem cells. In these organs, it will be possible to open or close at will, using the CRISPR gene editing technique, the proteins that the virus uses as a gateway to cells -ACE2 and others-, and to study the consequences in each case. They will also be able to study the molecular pathways that are activated once the virus infects the cell. The use of mini-kidneys to model the SARS-CoV-2 infection thus allows accelerating a type of research that would otherwise take years - with genetically modified animal models. In this project, they will study how SARS-CoV-2 infects mini-kidney cells, made by bioengineering from human stem cells. In these organs, it will be possible to open or close at will, using the CRISPR gene editing technique, the proteins that the virus uses as a gateway to cells -ACE2 and others-, and to study the consequences in each case. They will also be able to study the molecular pathways that are activated once the virus infects the cell. The use of mini-kidneys to model the SARS-CoV-2 infection thus allows accelerating a type of research that would otherwise take years - with genetically modified animal models. In this project, they will study how SARS-CoV-2 infects mini-kidney cells, made by bioengineering from human stem cells. In these organs, it will be possible to open or close at will, using the CRISPR gene editing technique, the proteins that the virus uses as a gateway to cells -ACE2 and others-, and to study the consequences in each case. They will also be able to study the molecular pathways that are activated once the virus infects the cell. The use of mini-kidneys to model the SARS-CoV-2 infection thus accelerates a type of research that would otherwise take years - with genetically modified animal models. the proteins that the virus uses as a gateway to cells -ACE2 and others-, and to study the consequences in each case. They will also be able to study the molecular pathways that are activated once the virus infects the cell. The use of mini-kidneys to model the SARS-CoV-2 infection thus accelerates a type of research that would otherwise take years - with genetically modified animal models. the proteins that the virus uses as a gateway to cells -ACE2 and others-, and to study the consequences in each case. They will also be able to study the molecular pathways that are activated once the virus infects the cell. The use of mini-kidneys to model the SARS-CoV-2 infection thus accelerates a type of research that would otherwise take years - with genetically modified animal models.