On April 15th 2020, the ANR launched the call RA-Covid-19 (Research-Action Covid-19) to support projects with possible implementation in the society within the next 3 to 12 months. The APCOD project, coordinated by Vassili Soumelis (Saint-Louis Hospital) and Frédéric Pène (Institut Cochin) was one of the 6 projects selected from the first assessment wave of 32 proposals on June 2nd 2020.
A better comprehension of the immune pathology of COVID-19 is the prerequisite step to identify new biomarker-based therapeutic strategies with significant clinical impact in severe COVID-19 disease. The APCOD project entitled “Antigen-presenting cells in COVID-19 disease at single-cell resolution” aims at studying the diversity of antigen-presenting cell subsets, their underlying molecular and functional characteristics, and the cellular networks involved in severe SARS-CoV-2 infection. It relies on complementary expertise in septic immune response and characterization of antigen-presenting cells.