Flinn Foundation issues TGen grant to support COVID-19 testing
Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Phoenix-based Flinn Foundation has issued an emergency $100,000 grant to the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) to support population-based testing of the novel coronavirus in Arizona and to help TGen immediately and dramatically ramp up its capacity to analyze individual samples for the disease.
The TGen initiative supported by the Flinn Foundation is also being funded with grants from the Phoenix-based Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust and the Flagstaff-based NARBHA Institute. TGen North, the nonprofit institute’s pathogen-genomics division, is based in Flagstaff.
Another project supported by a previous Flinn Foundation grant, the Prevent HAARM initiative, is contributing to Arizona’s response to COVID-19. Led by the Tucson-based Critical Path Institute with TGen North playing a major role, Prevent HAARM focuses on deploying tools for surveillance of hospital-acquired infections; applications to the current pandemic are being developed.
Foundation leaders are now studying how else to answer the emerging needs within its areas of philanthropic work.
