Supporting the COVID-19 effort
We’re aware that many of our members are supporting the efforts in lots of different ways, from clinical members on the front line to members sharing their expertise with policy makers to help drive decision making. If you’d like to know how you can support activity as a pharmacologist, whether via the Society or via other organisations, take a look at the calls below. These are opportunities to support either the Society, our partners or other trusted organisations to help their efforts at this time.
Helping via the Society:
Call for Papers: Pharmacology of COVID-19
Call for Papers: BJCP
Sharing your experiences in Pharmacology Matters
Helping via other organisations:
PHE call for viable treatment submissions
NHS PPE supply
DCMS call for evidence
Advising UK Parliament
Producing test kits and services
Sharing ideas
Vaccine trials
CaSE call for evidence
Publons - crititically appraise and score COVID-19 related papers
The Academy of Medical Sciences - COVID-19 preclinical drug development database
Recommend educational resources
Helping via the Society
Call for Papers: British Journal of Pharmacology
British Journal of Pharmacology (BJP) will be publishing a special Themed Issue on the Pharmacology of COVID-19, which aims to provide insights on preclinical or early phase mechanistic clinical studies on COVID-19 and highlight potential novel methods of diagnosis, mechanisms for susceptibility to and worse outcome of infection as well as novel options for treatment and prevention.
Submissions to BJP as part of this Themed Issue will be fast-tracked (free of charge) and all papers accepted for this issue will be made available as free-to-read upon publication with no cost to the authors. Deadline for submissions is 3rd July 2020. Find out more
Call for Papers: British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
British Journal Clinical Pharmacology has opened a call for papers dealing with clinical and translational pharmacology of drugs for COVID-19. Papers can be original studies, reviews, short communications, and letters to the editor about this subject.
The purpose of this specific call for papers is to announce that the journal will offer a fast-track peer review for exceptionally high-quality and high-impact papers, free of charge. Members of the journal’s editorial board will determine if a paper indeed qualifies as such as paper and each submitting author will be informed about the qualification within 1-2 days after submission. Other papers will still be sent out for review if deemed of sufficient merit.
All COVID-19 papers accepted will be made available as free-to-read upon publication, with no cost to the author. Find out more
Sharing your experiences through Pharmacology Matters
As a Society, We recognise the unprecedented challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact it is having on daily life across the world. The need for global collaboration and communication is vital. The Pharmacology Matters team would love to hear from you if you would like to share your experiences and expert views in the area or have ideas for future articles for the Society’s online magazine. Contact us at editorialpm@bps.ac.uk
Helping via other organisations
Public Health England (PHE) gathering of promising treatements
PHE are collating promising treatments for COVID-19, and inviting companies to send them details of potential viable therapies. PHE have provided a template submission form for this initiative. The Society's President Elect, Professor Clive Page, is supporting PHE with the coordination for these submissions.
Please send your completed template, with contact information, to: clive.page@bps.ac.uk
NHS Supply Chain for PPE
Information on the supply of PPE, and facilitating mutual aid. This report shows volume of PPE delivered, by trust and by product description, during Feburary and March.
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee calling for evidence
To tackle the deliberate spread of false information about COVID-19, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee are looking for the public to send examples of false info they find about COVID-19, particularly on private channels. This will be used to ask government and social media companies how they’re tackling these issues when the House of Commons returns. Share your examples here.
Call for expertise to advise UK Parliament
The Knowledge Exchange Unit of the UK Parliament are seeking expert insights into many topics relating to COVID-19 and its impacts. If you have relevant research expertise, please join their database to help Parliament access your expertise quickly.
Producing testing kits and services
The government is asking businesses to support the manufacture and supply of testing consumables and equipment, personal protective equipment (PPE) for laboratories, and new or existing types of coronavirus tests for antigens or antibodies to ensure an increase in the number of coronavirus tests in the UK.
If your organisation can supply materials and equipment, they would like to hear from you. Find the details here
Sharing your ideas
Lord Bethell, Minister of Innovation at the Department of Health and Social Care, has shared details of dedicated hotlines that have been set up for people to share their ideas on vaccines, ventilators, innovation and technology during these times.
Vaccines – please email Nervtag@phe.gov.uk
Ventilators – please call +44(0)3004563565 or email ventilator.support@beis.gov.uk Innovation and technology – please email DNHSX@nhsx.nhs.uk
COVID-19 vaccine trials
The University of Oxford are working to develop a vaccine against COVID-19 and are looking for help in recruiting healthy volunteers for their clinical trials. Find out more about how you can support their activities using the link below. Find more information here
CaSE call for evidence
The team at CaSE (Campaign for Science and Engineering) are seeking to collate information about the effects of COVID-19 on research to help inform the government and UKRI as they prepare their responses to the current situation.
Please get in touch with them at membership@sciencecampaign.org.uk with your thoughts on:
- The short-term effects of COVID-19 on your research
- What you feel the medium and long-term impacts are likely to be on your research and research output
Publons - critically appraise and score COVID-19 related papers
Publons have created a table of papers and pre-prints that they have identified as being on the frontier of COVID-19 research. While still under development, the table enables researchers to quickly find, review and screen papers depending on their area of expertise. Want to help? Even if you're not a COVID-19 expert, you can critically appraise the latest COVID-19 papers for sound scientific practices, or score a paper you've already read.
The Academy of Medical Sciences - COVID-19 preclinical drug development database
This database maps emerging COVID-19 preclinical drug development research across the UK. Our aim is to help researchers identify collaborations, share expertise, materials and methods, avoid duplicating effort and prioritise the most promising research. Find out more.
Recommend educational resources
This resource was created to share knowledge of e-Learning resources for use as alternatives to, or in conjuction with, laboratory or fieldwork practical activities in the Biosciences.
It was developed by Dr Dave Lewis, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Leeds. It was partly funded by a British Pharmacological Society Teaching Grant.
Please email Dr Dave Lewis at d.i.lewis@leeds.ac.uk if you have suitable recommended additions to this resource.