Illustrative stock photo (source: TASR)
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Virologists from the Institute of Virology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) managed to isolate the first Slovak coronavirus strains.
After their successful characterisation, the strains will be submitted to the European Virus Archive.
“Thanks to this, the international scientific community will be able to use them for further research,” said Boris Klempa of SAV, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
The strains could be isolated thanks to close collaboration with the Public Health Authority, while the samples were provided by the National Reference Centre for the Flu. In Klempa’s opinion this proves that the public and academic institutions in Slovakia can join forces for a good cause.
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After the successful isolation of the strains, scientists prepared non-infective samples of their genetic material, which are currently being processed by the team led by Tomáš Szemeš from Comenius University’s Science Park. The goal is to identify the complete virus genome, TASR wrote.
