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Funding schemes for such rapid-response research

Posted by Mietchen on 13 Sep 2011 at 01:43 GMT

I am interested in funding schemes allowing researchers to rapidly react to events like this outbreak, and I would thus like to know more about how the funds for performing this research have been secured.

I found grant 01KI1020 mentioned at http://www.gesundheitsfor... as running from January 2011 till December 2012 and being about the sequence-based study of zoonoses, which is interesting because the paper states that "there is no evidence of zoonotic origin". I personally welcome such broadening of the scope of your research on the occasion of the outbreak, but how did the funder (BMBF) react?

This also raises the broader question as to how flexible the use of such funds should be. I do not expect a definite answer from your side on this one, but I would welcome your insights on the matter.

As the second source of funding, "Medical Faculty Muenster (grant BD9817044 to AM)" is given - what was/ is the focus and time frame of this grant, especially in relation to this paper?

No competing interests declared.
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RE: Funding schemes for such rapid-response research

dharmsen replied to Mietchen on 21 Sep 2011 at 14:24 GMT

Dear Dr. Mietchen,

well, you are absolutely right. We did not get any funding specific devoted to this outbreak. However, we did use resources (personnel and consumables, IT) for conducting the study from the stated funding sources. Both have related topics, i.e. EHEC research and/or zoonotic diseases. We did not yet communicated this with the funding agency specifically. However, they noticed and welcomed in general our contribution (e.g, see http://www.biotechnologie... and http://www.zoonosen.net/N...). Hope this information is answering your question.

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