Coronavirus Response: Rising to the Challenge of our Lifetime

Fast Response From Our Alumni, Scientific And Healthcare Communities

As you know, our priority in the early days of lock-down was our students who faced severe financial hardship with very little warning. We heard worrying stories from students, some of whom considered leaving Higher Education as it just seemed impossible to continue. Your response to our request to help students experiencing financial hardship has been overwhelming. You have enabled students to focus on their studies and complete this academic year in a time when uncertainty is everywhere. Our Student Funding team have used your donations to help students with no other means to pay rent, utility bills, access broadband and eat. Thank you! 

From the very beginning, as the impact of the outbreak became apparent, your University was determined to play its part in helping the country, and the world, face up to the threat posed by the virus. When students and University staff packed away their computers and began to study and work from home, a core team of world-leading experts and academics remained on campus, using their knowledge and skills to unlock the mysteries of Covid-19.

Healthcare professionals around the world, including NHS staff here in the UK, have been on the frontline of tackling the virus. Preparing these keyworkers for the challenge formed one our first major projects, working with colleagues at NHS Tayside to establish a new Covid-19 Training and Education Hub at Ninewells Hospital, reducing risk to both healthcare professionals and their patients.

When the UK Government put lockdown measures in place, the University donated two highly-sophisticated Thermo Kingfisher Flex robots to support the UK Covid-19 test programme. The technology, described as  “gold dust”, was transported by the Royal Navy from our School of Life Sciences to Milton Keynes where the machines – known affectionately by staff as Bert and Ernie - have played a key role in accelerating the scale of the nation’s virus testing capacity.

In the weeks and months that followed, a succession of further studies and initiatives were launched by our experts, with scientists and researchers working around the clock. And it’s not just within laboratories that we’re making a difference. Students and staff from our Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design and School of Social Sciences have utilised their skills to support our community, from producing PPE equipment, to providing art supplies to keep local children entertained during lockdown.

“In January, some of our scientists realised that Covid was going to be a problem,” said Professor Inke Näthke, Interim Dean of the School of Life Sciences.

Funding Vital Research Into Long Term Healthcare Solutions

As the threat from Covid-19 remains, our work to tackle the challenges of the present run parallel with that to address future tests to our health and wellbeing. That is why we launched our Coronavirus Research Fundraising Campaign to provide funding that will ensure our science does not stand still and that we do not have to endure the painful separation from loved ones and day-to-day sacrifices of recent months.

“There is amazing work going on here,” says James Chalmers, Professor of Respiratory Research within our School of Medicine.

Science has never faced a more urgent challenge to develop treatments and find a vaccine. That is why research into coronaviruses has never been more important than it is right now.

The Coronavirus Research Fundraising Campaign hopes to raise £300,000 from Trusts and Foundations, from our local community and our Alumni groups to allow our scientists to explore emerging concepts quickly in a rapidly changing landscape.