Swiss Scientific COVID-19 Task Force

Switzerland, as many countries worldwide, is facing a huge healthcare crisis. The country, but also our institutions, are challenged to find the best approach to address the current pandemic.

ETH-Bereich 19.03.2020

Mandate for the COVID-19 Task Force

The ETH Domain, as the main scientific arm of the Confederation, has a huge potential to positively influence the outcome of this crisis, be it through research, education, knowledge transfer or even simply through our activities as large institutions with many employees. The ETH Domain should have the ambition to be a role model on how we handle the current crisis.

To help it reach these goals, the ETH Domain calls into life an ad hoc task force, and gives it the following mandate:

Identify research opportunities where ETH Domain scientists can quickly make a significant contribution to the understanding of and fight against SARS-CoV-2.
Identify innovation opportunities where ETH Domain know-how can rapidly create products or services that could significantly help in the fight against SARS-Cov-2.
Identify advising opportunities, where knowledge by ETH Domain members could help in decision making by politicians, policy makers or the public.

The members of the task force are welcome to identify and invite a limited number of additional experts to join the group, also from outside of the ETH Domain, should they not already possess the necessary complement of expertise.

The task force constitutes itself and reports directly to the directorate of the ETH domain (president ETH Board, school presidents and research institute directors). Financial support necessary to complete its tasks will be provided by the ETH Board upon request.

High priority tasks

A. Tests: virus tests

Lead Didier Trono and Markus Stoffel
Goal increase capacity for virus tests

B. Serological Tests

Lead Didier Trono and Markus Stoffel
Goal increase capacity for serological tests

C. Link to clinical care

Goal information exchange with the clinics

C. Platform to exchange expertise, material, equipment and personnel

Lead Roman Stocker
Goal create a platform for equipment, reagents, expertise, personnel

D. Platform to exchange data for epidemiological modeling and decision making

Lead Sebastian Bonhoeffer
Goal collect, curate, analyse epidemiological data centrally

E. Making and reusing masks

Lead Andreas Mortensen and Peter Wick
Goal develop approaches for manufacturing and reusing tasks

F. Communication with the help of students

Lead Melanie Blokesch
Goal contribute to launching communication campaign

For all these tasks, the task force collaborates closely with the federal authorities and other institutions in Switzerland.

Members of the COVID-19 task force

Martin Ackermann, ETH Zurich & Eawag - Head of Task Force
Melanie Blokesch, EPFL
Sebastian Bonhoeffer, ETH Zurich
Detlef Günther, ETH Zurich
Christoph Hegg, WSL
Andreas Mortensen, EPFL
Annette Oxenius, ETH Zurich
Daniel Rigling, WSL
Gebhard Schertler, PSI
Roman Stocker, ETH Zurich
Markus Stoffel, ETH Zurich
Didier Trono, EPFL
Peter Wick, Empa

Supported by ETH Board Office: Michael Käppeli and Ines Egli