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[Article series] The experts behind Luxembourg’s COVID-19 fight

  • Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB)
    Université / Administration centrale et Rectorat
    04 mai 2020
  • Catégorie
    Université
  • Thème
    Sciences de la vie & médecine

Prof. Jorge Gonçalves (JG) is Principal Investigator at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg, where people with broad and diverse backgrounds focus on understanding the mechanisms of diseases. Prof. Gonçalves is an engineer and computer scientist by training and his research group at the LCSB focuses on understanding the mechanisms of diseases through theoretical and computational methods. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, he is involved in the coordination of approaches for COVID-19 statistical projections and their potential support of the healthcare system including possible strategies to exit the crisis. In this short interview, he discusses his expertise and involvement in ongoing COVID-19 projects.

1)     Could you tell us more about your background and expertise?

Jorge Gonçalves: I have a background in electrical engineering and computer science and at the LCSB I am heading the Systems Controls group. With my team we collaborate with biologists and clinicians to improve our understanding of diseases, with the goal to develop new therapies. In order to do so, we produce dynamic systems or models that tell us how diseases can evolve in time. This help us to understand the mechanisms of diseases and to predict their evolution in time.

2)     How is your expertise relevant in the current COVID context?

JG: Even though at the LCSB we focus in understanding the mechanisms of neurodegenerative and heart diseases, the computational models that we usually design can be adapted to other diseases such as COVID-19 in order to understand its mechanisms. How is the virus spreading across the population? What kind of impact have lockdown measures? We work with models that capture key system dynamics in order to predict the evolution of important features over time. We can apply the same techniques to COVID-19. In this case, the system is a network of people and how they interact with each other, either at work or socially. The model aims to predict, for example, how the virus is spreading across this network and how it will impact the health care system.

 

3)     What is your specific role in ongoing COVID projects?

JG: I am involved in COVID-19 statistical projections to the support of the healthcare system. With my collaborators, we make models of the current Luxembourgish network to understand how the virus propagates and impacts the outbreak. The models are as realistic as possible and the goal is to understand whether or not certain measures (e.g. strict lockdown vs flexible lockdown) will burden the healthcare system, to avoid saturation. At the moment, we are working on models for de-confinement of the population. Which kind of measures can be implemented in a COVID-19 exit strategy while keeping the number of new infections low? These are the kind of questions our models help to answer. Our role is to provide government authorities models and predictions of a wide range of scenarios and assumptions so they can best decide on which measures to implement at a national level.

 

4)     Can you tell us a bit more about your collaborators in the ongoing COVID projects?

JG: There are over 50 people involved in the team working on modelling the projections of the pandemic, including Prof. Rudi Balling (LCSB) and Alex Skupin (LCSB). In particular, I work closely with Dr Atte Aalto, Dr Laurent Mombaerts, Laurent Heirendt, Dr Stefano Magni, Daniele Proverbio and Dr Andreas Husch. The team is working on both short and mid-term projections, cleaning and organising data, improving computational aspects, and complying with GDPR.

Picture: ©Science relations