Sunway, Cambridge University to explore potential collaborations to combat COVID-19

KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 --  Sunway Group is in talks with the University of Cambridge to explore possible collaborations in the fight against COVID-19.

Its group founder and chairman Tan Sri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah said the University of Cambridge was now playing a lead role in helping the United Kingdom control new COVID-19 infections.

“We hope that their research team will succeed in generating vital research data to combat the pandemic.

“Talks on collaborations with the university were also in progress to help bolster Malaysia’s battle against COVID-19,” he said in a statement here today.

A team of 150 scientists and clinical members from the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID) are currently housed at the Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre (JCBC) at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, England.

JCBC is the largest biotech cluster outside the United States.

CITIID is the University of Cambridge's leading response team against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, University of Cambridge vice-chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope expressed his appreciation to Cheah and Sunway for the pivotal role that JCBC had played in the fight against COVID-19.

“JCBC has become so important to our clinical response against COVID-19. At the Biomedical Campus (Cambridge), we have launched a variety of pre-clinical and clinical research as well as tests (comprising diagnostics, experimental treatments, vaccine candidates, and large-scale monitoring research.

“These have been widely shared with our teaching hospital, the Addenbrooke Hospital,” Toope added.

-- BERNAMA