A new funding opportunity for Victorian researchers has opened with the Victorian COVID-19 Vaccinees Collection (VC2) Research Seed Funding Grants open from 1 August 2022. The VC2 Seed Funding Grants are designed to support novel and impactful projects utilizing stored samples from the VC2 biobank.
The VC2 biobank, established by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute) collects samples from Victorian participants before and after vaccination. The samples are then processed into PBMC, plasma, serum, and cell pellets for DNA extraction and saliva from a subset of participants. Participants have been drawn from the general population as well as different target groups including those with past COVID infections, immunosuppression, and people living with HIV. Over 200 people have already signed up to participate in the VC2, with over 8,600 individual samples currently in storage and available for research.
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