University of Glasgow academics awarded €4.7m in prestigious ERC Starting Grants

Three University of Glasgow academics have been awarded more than €4.7m in the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant scheme. Dr Suzannah Rihn from the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR), Dr Anna de Jong from the School of Interdisciplinary Studies and Dr Lorenza Fontana from the School of Social and Political Sciences have each been awarded a grant from the ERC in order to further research into new coronaviruses, impacts of tourism and the issue of wildfires in the Global South. Virologist Dr Suzannah Rihn has been awarded €1.9m to improve our understanding of how new coronaviruses might be able to transmit between rodents and humans in the future. While SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, might be the most well-known coronavirus, it is actually the third coronavirus to have emerged in humans in the last 20 years alone. Of these three coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 causes the least severe disease, although it is the most widely spread coronavirus and its emergence highlights the urgent need to prepare for possible future coronavirus epidemics or pandemics. Dr Rihn's research will focus on answering questions about the potential for future coronaviruses to spill over from the animal population into the human world. At present, seven coronaviruses are known to have circulated widely in humans.