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McMaster University got nearly $1.8 million in research dollars Thursday to help combat COVID-19.

Two McMaster projects were among 49 given a total of $25 million across the country to study medical countermeasures, antivirals and vaccines.

"The additional teams of researchers receiving funding will help Canada quickly generate the evidence we need to contribute to the global understanding of the COVID-19 illness," federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu said in a statement. "Their essential work will contribute to the development of effective vaccines, diagnostics, treatments and public health responses."

Nearly $1 million is going to Gerry Wright, director of McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.

His team will apply genomics-based tools and drug-screening platforms to rapidly pinpoint new targets for antiviral agents and to identify potential therapeutic compounds.

"Our project will identify new therapeutic strategies that may help to treat COVID-19 patients," reads a description of the research. "These strategies will also help mitigate newly emergent coronavirus-associated diseases that will undoubtedly continue to cause outbreaks in the future."

The research is significant because "the main challenge in addressing these new coronavirus-associated outbreaks is a lack of suitable therapeutics to treat active disease — antiviral drugs — or to prevent disease — appropriate vaccines," states the description.

The second project, getting nearly $800,000, is going to Karen Mossman, who is part of the McMaster Immunology Research Centre. Her work will develop animal models to facilitate rapid testing of potential vaccines and treatments.

Her group has extensive experience studying coronaviruses in bat and human systems. It's significant because the virus that causes COVID-19 shares 96 per cent similarity with a coronavirus found in bats, states a description of the research.

"Bats have been shown to carry a diversity of viruses including coronaviruses globally, without showing signs of disease. Also, major circulating and endemic coronaviruses that are causing disease in humans are speculated to have evolved in bats."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave $275 million on March 11 to COVID-19 research. The new projects brings the total to 96.

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