On Mar. 6, 2020, University of British Columbia (UBC) researchers Yue Qian, Dr. Richard Lester, Dr. Srinivas Murthy, Natalie Prystajecky and Dr. Mel Krajdenﾗwho were principal investigators of teams collectively receiving more than $2.8 million in grants from the federal government to study COVID-19.

The funding was focused on accelerating the development, testing, and implementation of measures to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak.