From CON-VINCE to ORCHESTRA       

• Transversal Translational Medicine (TTM)

New EU-wide follow-up project to further evaluate the COVID-19 situation in Luxembourg

In April 2020, the CON-VINCE project was launched to capture the COVID-19 spread in Luxembourg. Now, in the footsteps of its predecessor, ORCHESTRA Luxembourg builds on this work to follow the immune response to COVID-19 vaccination over time and to provide evidence for the prevention and treatment of infections caused by SARS-CoV-2. 

Led by the Research Luxembourg COVID-19 Taskforce, the CON-VINCE project assessed the prevalence and dynamics of the COVID-19 spread within the Luxembourgish population over more than 12 months. CON-VINCE was officially launched at the beginning of April 2020 and rapidly recruited more than 1800 participants. Based on the volunteers’ samples, the CON-VINCE project provided essential data about many aspects of the pandemic in Luxembourg to scientists all over Europe. These included the progression of the infection while confinement measures were in place and the evolution of antibodies in the population following SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination. Furthermore, the information collected during the study will continue to help answer questions on immune response, infection pathways, genetic predisposition, mental well-being and the socio-economic impact of COVID-19.

Building on the data and information acquired from CON-VINCE, the European ORCHESTRA (Connecting European Cohorts to Increase Common and Effective Response to SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic) project was launched with the aim to further evaluate the long-term consequences of COVID-19 in the general population, with a focus on post-vaccination monitoring of participants, and the mid-to-long-term psychosocial impact of the pandemic on Luxembourg residents.

Participants of the CON-VINCE study are exclusively invited to join ORCHESTRA Luxembourg and to continue their journey to advance research on the pandemic. These volunteers have the opportunity to complete specific questionnaires and provide dried blood spot samples, as well as optional stool samples, four times over the course of 24 months via easy-to-use collection kits delivered at home.

The continuation of CON-VINCE participants in ORCHESTRA Luxembourg is the key to the whole project, as they already provided essential information that can be translated through ORCHESTRA to improve our understanding of the vaccination effectiveness and the overall long-term impact of COVID-19 in the general population. By agreeing to enrol, ORCHESTRA participants can contribute to determining how well and how long people are protected from COVID-19 by getting vaccinated, and help to both control the current pandemic and prepare for potential future pandemics

concludes Prof. Rejko Krüger, Principal Investigator of ORCHESTRA Luxembourg and Director of Transversal Translational Medicine (TTM) at LIH[1].

CON-VINCE participants will be contacted by convince@orchestralux.lu. CON-VINCE participants interested in finding out more about ORCHESTRA Luxembourg and enrolling in this follow-up project can find additional information on the dedicated webpage.

ORCHESTRA Luxembourg is part of the pan-European ORCHESTRA consortium, involving 26 partners from 15 countries, which is funded under the European Commission Horizon 2020 “ERAvsCORONA Action Plan” in 2020.

[1] Prof Krüger’s additional affiliations are as follows: FNR PEARL Chair and Head; Clinical and Experimental Neuroscience, Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB), University of Luxembourg; Coordinator National Center for Excellence in Research – Parkinson’s disease (NCER-PD), Parkinson Research Clinic, Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg.