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Can you introduce yourself and your role at the Doherty Institute?

My name is Dr Jennifer Audsley and I am a Clinical Research Fellow in the HIV/Hepatitis group of the Lewin laboratory and Project Manager and Research Fellow for the Sentinel Travellers and Research Preparedness Platform for Emerging Infectious Disease (SETREP-ID) 

What is SETRIP-ID?

SETREP-ID is a platform that enables a broad range of biological sampling in returned travellers who might present with a new disease, whether it be a respiratory infection, an undifferentiated fever or encephalitis. It was set up in 2017 by Dr Irani Thevarajan after she watched the Zika epidemic unfold in South America two years earlier. Concerned that a lack of existing protocols would prevent any real-time research being conducted should a patient present with Zika in Victoria, she took it upon herself to establish one so that when the next disease came through the door, they were ready to go.

How did you become to be involved in the project?

In January 2020 shortly after reports of an undiagnosed pneumonia in Wuhan, Dr Thevarajan made the strategic decision to activate the emerging disease phase of SETREP-ID. She needed assistance and quickly. Thanks to funding provided by the Jack Ma Foundation, they were able to immediately bring me on as Project Manager and Research Fellow to support the study.

In my role for the Lewin group, I’m involved in clinical research however a lot of it was delayed or put on hold, because we didn’t want people coming into the hospital for the research visits during the pandemic. So, it was fortuitous that firstly, I was available, and secondly, we were able to get funding to have me start immediately.

Can you explain what you do for the project?

To begin with it, it was all about project management. As the emerging disease arm of the study was activated and the pandemic was declared, we were suddenly swamped. Initially we had just one hospital involved, but we quickly added new sites. This required logistical management of setting up these sites, submitting ethical and governance approval, recruiting patients making sure samples and data were coming through. SETREP-ID underwent exponential growth and it was a huge task which would have fallen over without support.

As the studies progressed, my background as a Research Fellow meant I could also assist with analysing data and writing papers.

What has come out of the study so far?

Because we were able to scale so quickly, recruit patients from multiple sites and begin biological sampling, researchers were immediately able to begin characterising COVID-19 This enabled efficient and effective decisions to be made around which research pathways should be pursued.

We have already had three research papers that used SETREP-ID samples published, and another two in the works. Primarily, researchers have been looking at the body’s immune response, potential biomarkers to predict disease severity and clotting issues associated with the COVID-19.

With fewer COVID-19 cases in the country is SETREP-ID still active? What are you focusing on now?

SETREP-ID recruits hospitalised patients, and because such cases are very sporadic now, we are looking at a range of other things.

Firstly, we have just received approval to extend our study of patients out from six months to 24 months, which will allow us to examine the effects of long COVID.

We are also looking at ways to strengthen collaborations both within Victoria and interstate. It’s so important that researchers produce robust  data and sometimes that can require larger numbers of patient samples. Currently there are  many individual COVID-19 cohorts and biobanks around the country. We are focusing on linking together so we can provide a greater resource to researchers. Having a unified approach will mean that researchers will easily be able to access a large sample size and that will improve research outcomes.

SETREP-ID isn’t COVID-19 specific either. It was initially set up to examine returned travellers with any  infectious disease so we are always examining our procedures and protocols to ensure they are ready for whatever comes next.

How important is philanthropic support, like that provided by the Jack Ma Foundation?

The work that I did could not have happened without the Jack Ma Foundation. And it happened straight away. Once it was confirmed that SETREP had been awarded funding from the Jack Ma Foundation, I was able to start.

Philanthropy can respond very quickly, whereas if you are looking at Government support or grant applications, they take time. They don’t have the capacity built into them to quickly respond to a need in the same way as philanthropy.

You need immediacy with projects like this. I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t been able to get on top of it so quickly and it was the funding from the Jack Ma Foundation which enabled that.