News

• Four awards of up to $50,000 available
• All Victorian-based researchers are eligible to apply
• Applications from Early and Mid-career Researchers will be prioritised
• Deadline: 5pm AEST Friday 16th September 2022

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 utilising stored samples from the VC2 biobank.

Four grants of up to $50,000 are available for research. Applications are open to all researchers based in Victoria, with applications from early and mid-career researchers prioritised.

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, 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.

Clinical lead for the VC2 and Head of the COVID-19 Vaccination Program at Austin Health, Associate Professor Janine Trevillyan sees the grants as a great opportunity.

“The grant call is designed to generate interest in this incredible resource for researchers. Sourcing samples from the VC2 can accelerate lab investigations on the impact of COVID vaccines since the samples and participant data are already collected,” she explained.

The samples can be used to investigate different aspects of COVID-19 immunity, including the magnitude and longevity of vaccine-induced responses, the impact of COVID-19 or HIV infection on immunity, the genetic factors that contribute to different immune profiles and how cross-reactive immune responses are against different viral variants.

The application process is simple, with applicants required to submit a 2-page proposal by Friday 16 September 2022.

Full application details, including information on the available samples, can be found on the VC2 website: http://vc2.org.au/