Ricerc@Sapienza

Many infectious diseases severely affect humans and cause at least 15 million annual deaths. Notably, emerging viral infectious diseases originate from (wild) animal reservoirs: among them, respiratory tract viral infections poses great threats worldwide, as exemplified by the ongoing pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. Diseases related to these emerging infectious agents can have major consequences in terms of public health. In many cases, the host response to virus infection (rather than the direct effects of virus replication) dictates the type and extent of subsequent illness. To achieve important advancements of the host-pathogen interactions, it is essential to examine biological samples from infected patients, studies that complement those performed in in vitro models. There¿ s an urgent need of integrated knowledge from a multidisciplinary research approach, including all expertise from the different microbiology specialties (bacteriology, virology, mycology and parassitology) together with immunologists, infectivologist and other clinicians, in order to face present and future infectious threats. In this scenario, a class III biological cabinet is crucial for a proper handling of biological samples from different infectious diseases to ensure all the safety aspects during operator work practices, even when the experimental procedures requires a BLS2 facility, according to the present regulatory guidances. This class III biological cabinet would permit to study biological features, genomic variability, and the host immune response working with long-standing human pathogens hitherto regarded as controlled, also in the adverse events of an increase in virulence or in the presence of other unknown emerging microbes