Trinity will “light up green” this even to show solidarity with healthcare workers on the frontline during the coronavirus pandemic.
The College announced the move on Twitter, writing that frontline staff are “doing our country proud during this pandemic”.
In an email to staff and students yesterday, Provost Patrick Prendergast hailed the “staff and students who will be working on front line activities such as the contact tracing centre on the campus, in our hospitals and in other areas such as pharmacies”.
In addition to showing solidarity to frontline workers, College is to set up a coronavirus research hub in Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) that will focus on designing drugs and a potential vaccine to fight the pandemic.
The hub – which will receive €2.4 million from AIB – will also work on new testing kits to try to discover if a healthcare worker has previously been infected by the virus, in order to determine whether or not they can return to work.
Trinity immunologists and infectious disease clinicians from St James’s Hospital will work alongside doctors from hospitals across Ireland and fellow researchers globally will also work on increasing supply of accurate antibody testing kits, to combat the recent spike in inaccurate kits.
Provost Patrick Prendergast said: “Trinity is one of the world’s leading universities when it comes to research into immunology and immunity and has the research expertise to play a major role.”
“Donations such as this are a generous, practical and timely contribution to the fight against this terrible virus”, he added.
Last month, several of Trinity’s science departments donated personal protective equipment such as masks, goggles and gloves to St James’s and Tallaght hospitals to help healthcare workers treat patients during the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to The University Times, Prof Tomás Ryan, an associate professor in Trinity’s Institute of Neurosciences, said: “We’re just doing what we can.”
“We put a call around Trinity to all the biology departments, also engineering, geography, geology”, Ryan said. “We got a response much better than expected.”
The equipment donated includes gowns, masks, visors, goggles, and gloves for healthcare workers. The majority of items were sent to St James’s Hospital, with some equipment sent to Tallaght University Hospital. Both are teaching hospitals affiliated with Trinity.
