Briefing 1 - JEDI Billion Molecules against Covid19 Grandchallenge

André Loesekrug-Pietri, Director of the Joint European Disruptive
Initiative provides a 100 seconds update on the JEDI Billion
Molecules against Covid19 Grandchallenge.

About the Challenge:
Mid-March 2020, as global pandemic was declared and governments
decided to confine their populations, it became clear that we
would not come out of this global crisis without a vaccine or a
therapy against Covid19.


The Joint European Disruptive Initiative (JEDI), the major,
common-good initiative for disruptive innovation supported by the
JEDI Foundation, immediately tapped into its network of 3700
technology & scientific leaders. The vision emerged that a
radically new approach to therapeutic development was needed, in
particular screening molecular compounds at a scale & speed
never seen before, with a truly interdisciplinary approach at the
convergence of dynamic modeling, molecular biology, virology,
high-performance computing, and AI. End of March, the JEDI
Billion Molecules against Covid19 GrandChallenge was started.


In just 5 weeks, the GrandChallenge has been launched on a global
basis: we structured a world-class scientific committee, put in
place an exceptional program manager, secured significant
funding, negotiated strategic partnerships (in particular for
molecular compounds and HPC resources), ensure global
collaborations, got participation from >70 teams from the best
private and public institutions in the world.