FAQ

Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness (MassCPR)

Resources FAQ – March 22, 2020

 

It is important to stress that, although these are exceptional times, the urgency of the situation does not eliminate the need for appropriate training, facilities, and regulatory approvals to be in place in order to conduct work using infectious agents, biohazards, preclinical models, and the like across the research landscape. If you are turning your laboratory’s work toward new areas of research, it is important to ensure that it is equipped and approved for such work. Preserving the safety and vitality of people is why we are doing this. When in doubt, reach out. The staff of COMS, EHS, IACUC, IRB, etc. are available to advise and provide guidance in support of your research.

Additionally, we understand the importance of access to BSL3 and BSL4 facilities for some of the research being planned by consortium members. It will take time to establish such access. Biosafety facilities at this level are currently available only via direct/existing collaborations between faculty members in the community and faculty members with laboratories in these facilities. Consortium leadership is working diligently to establish capacity within these facilities that will be available to all consortium members, and we will inform the community as soon as this capacity is available and how it is to be accessed.

We recognize that enabling assets and resources are needed by many laboratories across the consortium in order to facilitate their COVID-19 related work. Many such assets and resources are now being planned out and/or produced by individual laboratories around the consortium, and a rational distribution scheme for such materials will need to be defined. We are working to rapidly pull together a web-based interface that enables consortium members to post requests for things like the reagents, assays, protocols, and facilities they need to do their proposed experiments as well as the things that they have available and are willing to share with others. In other words, this will be a dynamic, community-facing website enabling researchers to communicate with one another regarding what they have and what they need. Such a website will enable us to best leverage one another’s talents and eliminate duplication to the highest possible degree. HMS-IT is working to bring this functionality online very soon and it promises to be of benefit to our entire community.

Initial outreach has produced the following short list of resources that have been developed by labs within the consortium and can be made available now. The interactive (and searchable) resources website is being built around this core list and will extend far beyond it. It will be available in the near future.

Please contact: MassCPR@hms.harvard.edu if you have assets or resources that you are able to contribute.

Resources Chart