PDPC Newsflash
About once every two months, a newsletter is sent out from PDPC, containing all the latest updates on pandemic and disaster news and research.
Read the first PDPC newsletter below.
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Nr. 01 – Week 10
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PDPC Kick-off Frontrunner Projects | January 31st, 2023
Principle investigators, postdocs, and freshly started PhD students alike gathered on January 31st at the Machinist in Rotterdam to kickstart the PDPC Frontrunner projects. Professor of Empirical Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and one of the PDPC leads, Pearl Dykstra said: ‘The Frontrunner projects each address crucial questions about pandemics, disasters, social sciences, policies, and so on. And each requires a new approach and transdisciplinary collaboration. That is why it is great to see all these brilliant minds gathered here today.’
Marion Koopmans, Scientific Director of the PDPC and Professor in Virology, reminded everyone of the importance of transdisciplinary research: ‘We have a lot of expertise in the room. Each and every one looks at different aspects of the problems we face. Only by working together and combining different disciplines we can take the steps needed for preparedness.’
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Kick-off PDPC Frontrunner Project 2 | March 7th, 2023
Predicting, measuring and quantifying airborne virus transmission
During the COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions were key to mitigate the impact, like keeping distance, washing hands, wearing facemasks and cleaning surfaces. These interventions will remain the key throughout many epidemics and pandemics. Many mitigation strategies target to the modes of virus transmission via direct contact, indirect contact and in large or small droplets.
There is still a lot unknown about the contribution of various transmission routes, even after the COVID-19 pandemic. In this frontrunner project we want to gain a greater understanding of the route of transmission of respiratory viruses in order to work on strategies to reduce that spread.
During the kick-off the 4 subprojects were presented by the PhD’s and the PI’s. There was a vivid discussion between the participants in which became clear that exchanging perspectives helps to improve the quality of each individual project. All participants went home inspired, with a lot of new insights and new ideas for their own research project and for important crossovers between the several projects.
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Kick-off PDPC Frontrunner Project 4 | March 7th, 2023
Social and Urban Resilience for Pandemics and Disasters
On March 7th, principle investigators, PhD students and postdocs gathered to celebrate the kick-off of the PDPC frontrunner: Social and Urban Resilience for Pandemics and Disasters (SURE) project, at the Gemaal op Zuid in Rotterdam.
Resilience is the ability of a person, household or community to offer resistance to, adapt to or recover from a crisis. Within subprojects it will be researched how society’s resilience can be improved. The knowledge gained will be used for the Living Lab.
Maarten van Ham kicked off the day, followed by a birds-eye view on the SURE project by Pearl Dykstra, where she reminded everyone that “We need ambassadors within the social sciences. We must unite”.
Next, interactive sessions took place on how we understand resilience, led by Guusje Enneking and Lotte Schrijver. Resilience needs to be studied and addressed on an individual, group, and system level.
Lastly, Kevin Pijpers gave an introduction to the Living Lab. Examples of existing living labs were given, followed by group discussions on e.g. how to actively involve the citizens in the living lab.
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Kick-off PDPC Frontrunner Project 1 | January 17th, 2023
Changes in the weather and adaptions to it in the landscape bring new opportunities for vectors of viruses
On Tuesday the 17th of January Frontrunner project 1 was launched! Changes in the weather and adaptions to it in the landscape bring new opportunities for vectors of viruses. The guest presentations of Frank Schelten (KNMI) on the expected changes of the climate in our delta and Fransje Hooijmeier (TUDelft) on the changes in land use responding to current demands, but staying within the boundaries defined in previous decades brought new questions to the table and confirmed others.
It provided valuable input for further developing the thinking in terms of ‘urban tiles’ – also used in a related project, which locations to select as living labs, and thinking about determining factors when it comes to realizing changes. Planning and design are often slow processes. Thinking ahead of how to inform relevant stakeholders on the outcomes of the project is very important. How do they want the results to be presented to them and how we can understand uncertainties and reduce these.
Urban tiles, scenarios, mosquito and bird data all combined may be very relevant input for future land use decisions.
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Kick-off PDPC Frontrunner Project 3 | December 9th, 2022
The Pandemic lessons for flood disaster preparedness project
On Friday December 9th, we celebrated the kick-off of the Pandemic lessons for flood disaster preparedness project – part of the Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness Center. Historically, floods have often disrupted the regular functioning of healthcare. So the question is: How can we better prepare the healthcare sector for largescale floods?
We are going to identify the biggest risks, look into decision-making procedures during a flood and into how to best organize the transport of people and means under difficult circumstances.
From different areas of expertise and together with relevant partners and citizens, we will learn from previous experiences – also gained during the Covid-19 pandemic – and practice with new knowledge in simulated environments. In this way, we will contribute to a resilient healthcare system.
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The Pandemic & Disaster Preparedness Center to collaborate with the Pandemic Center of the University of Bergen
Two representatives of PDPC visited the Pandemic Centre (Pandemisenteret) at the University of Bergen (Norway), in the second week of January to explore possible collaborations.
The vision of the Pandemisenteret is to initiate relevant scientific knowledge for the purpose of preventing and managing pandemics in a long term perspective. The center aims to commence and organize interdisciplinary research and education related to pandemics. Pandemisenteret and PDPC both want to achieve the same and see many opportunities for cooperation in the future.
From the left to the right: Jeanette de Boer, Esperanza Diaz, Andrea Magugliani and Linda Jansen.
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NWO Roadmap Grant for Digital Infrastructure Social Sciences and Humanities
February 28, 2023
The collaboration between ODISSEI (Open Data Infrastructure for Social Science and Economic Innovations) – and CLARIAH (Common Lab Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) and fifteen national partners has been awarded a Dutch Research Council (NWO) Large-scale Research Infrastructure Grant of €15.2 million. This new collaboration, Social Science and Humanities Open Cloud for the Netherlands (SSHOC-NL) will make it possible for researchers to securely and ethically link and analyse a huge range of data such as historical records, textual data, images, survey data, and social media data. This will help researchers address some of the most pressing issues that society faces such as polarisation, social inequalities, and environmental changes. SSHOC-NL builds the digital infrastructure to help researchers do that.
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“SSHOC-NL is an internationally unique effort, and an exciting one. The social sciences and humanities have joined forces to provide researchers with the computational skills, enriched data and secure services that will help them analyse societal transformations, crises and divides in ways that were impossible before. I am therefore very pleased with this wonderful grant that makes it possible to achieve this.” tells Pearl Dykstra, Scientific Director ODISSEI.
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New report: towards a resilient healthcare system
February 2, 2023
Researchers from the Erasmus University, Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management, released a report on resilient healthcare systems.
From the start of the corona pandemic, researchers from Erasmus University shadowed the healthcare crisis organization. This week they released their final report: ‘Naar een veerkrachtig zorgsysteem: Lessen uit de pandemie’, in Dutch. PDPC researcher Roland Bal collaborated on this report, which builds on an earlier interim report, a symposium, and several international publications.
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Beijerinck Virology Prize awarded to Ron Fouchier
January 18, 2023
Leading virologist Ron Fouchier awarded Academy’s M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize. The €35,000 monetary award and a medal will be presented at the Dutch Annual Virology Symposium (DAVS) on 10 March 2023.
Ron Fouchier (born 1966) began his career researching HIV/AIDS but later switched to respiratory viruses such as influenza. Now he is one of the leading authorities on respiratory viruses and their impact on human and animal health.
Fouchier set up a research group within the Department of Viroscience at the Erasmus University Medical Centre (Rotterdam) to study the molecular biology and evolution of influenza viruses. With his team, he discovered and characterised a number of newly emerging respiratory viruses, including several corona viruses and a new avian influenza (“bird flu”) virus.
As professor of molecular virology at the Erasmus Medical Centre, Fouchier studies how viruses evolve and can become pathogenic, switch hosts, become airborne, and escape the host’s immune system. He uses his findings to develop applications for human and animal health. As managing director of the national influenza centre, he improved the methodology for selecting the optimum flu vaccine each year. In 1998, he launched a Dutch avian flu monitoring network, one of the world’s most effective and longest-running programmes.
Fouchier is also principal investigator of the research project Predicting, measuring and quantifying airborne virus transmission of the Pandemic & Disaster Preparedness Centre. In this project, new methods for predicting, measuring and quantifying the spread of airborne viruses will be developed.
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NWO grant for flood protection research
December 14, 2023
How do we use smart solutions to keep our feet dry? In the new NWO-funded program Future Flood Risk Management Technologies, program lead Bas Jonkman and his colleagues will create knowledge for flood protection of the river and coastal areas in the Netherlands and abroad.
Large areas of the Netherlands are at risk of being flooded. It was only last year, 2021, that rivers in the province of Limburg overflowed. A rise in sea levels and weather extremes caused by climate change calls for new technical and nature-based solutions for flood risk management and climate adaptation. The Future Flood Risk Management Technologies programme will receive an NWO Perspectief grant to work on flood-resilient and climate-adaptive coasts and rivers. Four Dutch universities and twenty-eight partners from companies, governments and abroad are participating in the program. They will research smart technical solutions, natural solutions and their implementation.
Want to know more? In the video that you can find in the button below, professor of hydraulic engineering and one of the initiators of the PDPC, Bas Jonkman, provides a two-minute overview of the program.
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BBC – How worried should we be about avian flu? Podcast
February 9th 2023, Marion Koopmans
The Economist – Could avian flu cause the next human pandemic? Podcast
February 15th 2023, Interview with Marion Koopmans
Al Jazeera – Could bird flu become a pandemic? | Inside Story
February 16th 2023, Marion Koopmans
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The chances of another pandemic are small, but getting a little bigger every day
February 14, 2023
Interview with Thijs Kuiken
The bird flu virus has jumped to mammals, and that is worrisome. Will there be a variant infectious to humans and will we soon have a new pandemic?
Not a foregone conclusion, says virologist Thijs Kuiken, the bird flu expert. But the chance is growing. Vaccinating animals certainly helps. Still, the only sustainable solution is: far fewer poultry.
Prof. Thijs Kuiken is Professor of Comparative Pathology. Department; Viroscience; Focus area; Comparative pathology and Pathogenesis.
Listen to the podcast of ‘De Correspondent’ (in Dutch)
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Preparing for the next pandemic
December 24, 2023
An eminent panel of disease detectives – including our PDPC Science Director prof. Marion Koopmans – spells out why the risks are increasing and most importantly, what we can do to predict, prepare and protect ourselves against potentially devastating new outbreaks.
Will the next infectious disease to wreak havoc across the globe again jump from animals, a zoonotic jump across species?
Listen to the podcast from the BBC
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The Hour (‘Het Uur’) with virologist Marion Koopmans
December 19, 2023
A podcast from the NRC with PDPC initiator and scientific director Prof. Marion Koopmans
“The last three years feel like a rollercoaster. Deploying everything you know and actually more than that.
To be better prepared for new pandemics and disasters in the future, it is important to reflect on what we have experienced, what are we going to do with the experience of the past years? What knowledge do we want to try to strengthen for the future? What do you need to organize now, to be able to do certain things better in the future?
With the PDPC I would like to establish a stable institute, a knowledge institute that incorporates that complexity and multidisciplinarity that we need in disasters and pandemics. A nice running dynamic “beehive” for collaboration and thinking about the future.”
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Get to know PDPC
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PDPC PhD’s and Postdocs!
A first selection of introductions of PhD and postdoc candidates
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Welcome in the PDPC team
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PhD Integrated Early Warning Surveillance
Develop and Refine Sampling Systems for Water- and Airborne Viruses
Postdoc on the development, validation and application of serological assays to understand epidemiology and spread of viruses in the human and animal populations
More information
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September 19th, 2023 – PDPC Annual Meeting