UMR MEMBERS DEPLOY BIOMEDICAL INNOVATION TO FIGHT COVID-19

As we continue to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world often ask themselves the same question as they head into various buildings and scenarios: What changes can we make to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission? To help provide some insight into this question, the Harvard Healthy Buildings Program has released this beta version of the ASIMI (Aerosol and Surface Interaction Model for Infectious diseases) Tool for calculating the risk of COVID-19 transmission, which estimates potential infection risk based on several factors and transmission pathways. This tool is based on our peer-reviewed paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Scientists created a vaccine to prevent the COVID-19 virus using foundational research and technology developed at Penn. Today, as we race to vaccinate more people in more places, the biology behind these vaccines is poised to change the world again in the form of new vaccines against other infectious diseases.

A 2020 Quantitative Survey Summary Commissioned by Johnson & Johnson, the American Nurses Association (ANA) and American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL).

In the April 30 issue of Science Magazine, researchers use careful structural analyses to reveal how an early spike protein mutation accelerated the pandemic and how it will shape the next vaccines.

Stanford Medicine researchers and scientists have launched dozens of research projects as part of the global response to COVID-19. Some aim to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease; others aim to understand how it spreads and how people’s immune systems respond to it. By participating in our COVID-19 clinical research, you help accelerate medical science by providing valuable insights into potential treatments and methods of prevention.

Roshni Mathew, a pediatric infectious disease specialist, discussed the race to inoculate as many people as possible against COVID-19 to prevent the emergence of variants that could increase disease rates.

A how-to guide from Penn Medicine helps others address vaccine distribution inequities via community vaccine clinics.

Find answers to your questions about COVID-19 vaccines.

Different communities have different reasons for wanting to wait on this shot. Getting to the heart of those concerns can help meet people where they are.

The Get the Facts About the Vax campaign, developed by the Center for Communication Programs, aims to deliver reliable, accurate information about COVID-19 vaccines.

The versatility of health systems in the national COVID-19 response underscore the challenges and opportunities for leaders to strengthen and design systems to better care for communities and respond to ever-changing needs, top health care delivery system leaders outline in a discussion paper for the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).

Most children and teens who have COVID-19 recover completely, but rarely there can be damage to a child’s heart muscle, and the stress of exercise on a damaged heart could lead to a serious condition. Here’s what parents need to know about recent guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics for children returning to physical activity after COVID-19.

Now that COVID-19 vaccines are rolling out, pregnant people –– and anyone considering a future pregnancy –– have many questions around risks and benefits. At first, many of those receiving vaccines in US were healthcare workers, but the circles for vaccine eligibility have widened.

We’ve all experienced the feeling of sluggish, fuzzy thinking and a lack of sharpness, possibly caused by an illness or a medication. But what if that feeling didn’t go away and your thinking didn’t return to normal? That’s the situation for some people who have recovered from COVID-19, and there can be long-term effects on other organs as well.

Physicians specializing in maternal-fetal medicine discuss the current recommendations that pregnant and lactating women receive the vaccine

Grandparents tired of pandemic video calls are eager to hug grandchildren, and as seniors receive COVID-19 vaccinations, many want to know what their vaccination status means with regard to family and friends. Here are responses to some common questions.

Originally developed last fall for the Johns Hopkins Health System, the dashboard uses optimization models and data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to predict hospitals’ ICU and normal (acute) bed loads for the next three weeks.

This dashboard was created as a partnership between the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center and the Center for Dignity in Healthcare for People with Disabilities as a starting point for understanding how each state is prioritizing the disability community in COVID-19 vaccine distribution and intends to help people with disabilities determine when they qualify for a COVID-19 vaccine in their state.

As the COVID-19 virus continues to spread, discovering and distributing a vaccine remains a critical path toward global immunity and an end to the pandemic. To achieve this, the world will need billions of doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Corning, a leading provider of a glass vial that can help pharmaceutical companies deliver vaccines safely and efficiently, is ramping up production to fulfill enormous demand for the millions-of-vials commitment to the U.S. Government’s Operation Warp Speed.

Two Boston University experts discuss how and when the vaccines arrive at BU and explain why COVID-19 health and safety guidelines won’t change for the spring semester.

WashU’s Bernard Becker Medical Library has compiled a COVID-19 resource guide, which includes information on the COVID-19 vaccine and its development as well as a list of vaccine pre-registration sites for community members in the St. Louis region.

Many people being treated for cancer are asking whether they should get one of the COVID-19 vaccines. Steven Pergam, M.D., of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, was a co-leader of a committee formed by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) that recently released recommendations on COVID-19 vaccination in cancer patients. In this Q&A, Dr. Pergam discusses some of the questions people with cancer and cancer survivors have about these vaccines.

Vaccines are now becoming available to help protect against COVID-19. Here we’ll discuss some of the questions people with cancer (or with a history of cancer) might have about the COVID-19 vaccines.

What we learned about treating COVID-19 in year one of the pandemic. This article is part of Harvard Medical School’s continuing coverage of medicine, biomedical research, medical education, and policy related to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the disease COVID-19.

AAU joined ACE and other higher education associations on a letter to President Joe Biden and members of his COVID-19 Response Task Force to “communicate the willingness of the higher education community to contribute to the administration‘s [COVID-19] response efforts.” The letter highlights a range of ways colleges and universities could help fight the pandemic, including: testing and tracing enhancement; using campus facilities and other capacities to support the vaccination effort; harnessing campus expertise in areas like supply chain management, logistics, data analytics; and more.

This document provides a snapshot of the COVID-19 pandemic‘s impact on cancer screenings and diagnoses and what ACS CAN is advocating to ensure everyone has access to live-saving cancer screenings.

Now that two vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) have been approved for distribution and more are on the way, most people are eager to know as much as possible about them. Some are concerned that the vaccines — developed, tested and authorized for use less than a year after the first cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed — will have side effects or long-term consequences.

ACS CAN is working to add critical patient provisions to the coronavirus stimulus packages being debated in Congress as well as working at the state and local levels to expand access to important health services and coverage.

The seven-module series is designed to help U.S. school and district officials develop and assess plans for in-person K-12 instruction.

The free online courses developed by Johns Hopkins and the Baltimore City Health Department cover emergency preparedness, infection prevention, and well-being policies to keep residents and staff safe.

Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center has launched a tracking tool to offer daily updates and nationwide perspective on the progress of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout in the United States. The vaccine tracker shows the latest numbers for doses administered by U.S. states that have started to make this data available.

Njira Lugogo, M.D., is a pulmonologist who is leading a clinical study of an investigational COVID-19 vaccine candidate. She helps answer common questions people may have about the process, from what people over 60 need to know to how participants are being kept safe during the pandemic.

COVIDAuthors is a freely accessible website and is geared specifically to the needs of researchers looking for collaborators and for policymakers seeking local experts to consult. COVIDAuthors is powered by the same software behind Harvard Catalyst Profiles, a site which features profiles and publications of faculty from HMS, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

View the full webinar from the October 13th, 2020 virtual event, featuring: Dr. Jamila Michener discussing the connection between racial disparities, COVID-19 and Medicaid; Dr. Alpa Patel sharing research from the American Cancer Society about the impact social determinants of health have on cancer patients; and Mike Perry sharing preliminary results from new messaging and polling research about race, health and the pandemic.

Johnson & Johnson just announced the launch of a Phase 3 clinical trial for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate. But what does this step in the process really mean? We asked two experts whose job it is to test vaccines to help demystify the clinical trial process—step by step.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is searching for 220 volunteers who recently tested positive for coronavirus for a new clinical trial of drugs with potential to treat the virus. Participants will be joining a nationwide “ACTIVE-2” clinical trial, of which Vanderbilt is one of 25 test sites. This therapeutic drug trial is separate from coronavirus vaccine trials that are ongoing at Vanderbilt and elsewhere in Nashville.

In partnership with Assist International and Project ECHO, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health are offering a tele-education series that will provide remote training and a platform for discussion and the sharing of best practices for healthcare providers caring for COVID patients in low-resource settings.

Northwestern University Transportation Center has launched a new weekly COVID-19 series of Asynchronous Virtual Roundtables with transportation industry professionals who are working toward the safe and strategic reopening of cities and regional economies.

Not until the COVID-19 pandemic has something caused such a massive disruption to ongoing research in all fields, delaying and jeopardizing important work, stalling life-saving clinical trials and upending the career paths of many graduate students and early career scientists.

Lung disease experts at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and their colleagues have determined a key factor as to why COVID-19 appears to infect and sicken adults and older people preferentially while seeming to spare younger children.

The researchers discovered that children have lower levels of an enzyme the virus needs to invade airway epithelial cells in the lung. Their preliminary findings, has been posted online by the preprint server bioRxiv, suggest that blocking this enzyme potentially could prevent COVID-19 infection in older people.

Harvard Global Health Institute, the Harvard Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Rockefeller Foundation, CovidActNow, Covid-Local, CIDRAP and others have launched a new COVID Risk Level map and COVID suppression guidance for policy makers and the public. The map, which tracks to the county level, allows users to understand how severe the pandemic is where they live and make risk mitigation decisions based on a consistent metric.

From a laser-like focus by researchers, medical professionals and life sciences and biopharmaceutical companies on understanding, mitigating, treating and eradicating the pandemic, to massive disruptions to ongoing research in all fields that is jeopardizing important work, stalling life-saving clinical trials and upending the career paths of many graduate students and early career scientists, COVID-19 is touching all aspects of biomedical research.

Part 1 in this series of fact sheets focuses on the effort to combat COVID-19.

Data on race, under-resourced communities and COVID-19 is limited, but disproportionately high rates of sickness — and death — seem to be emerging, particularly among African Americans, U.S. Hispanics, Native People and those in rural areas. To accelerate breakthroughs and understanding of these connections, the American Heart Association, Hitachi Vantara and BurstIQ have launched a data challenge to expand the resources available to researchers.

The American Heart Association is working with researchers, medical experts, community leaders, businesses, families and more to reduce the impact of the coronavirus.

BIO’s Industry Analysis Team has reviewed and annotated pipeline data from BioCentury and Biomedtracker to create an interactive view of the Covid-19 pipeline. The team has investigated each drug as to original inventor (company/country), mechanism of action, and strategic approach, as well as de-duplicated programs for the same active ingredient (for example, hydroxychloroquine is counted only once). This data will be updated weekly on Monday mornings.

A new report released by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security outlines a potential path for moving from strict physical distancing measures to phased reopenings of organizations and settings central to the functioning and vitality of communities across the nation.

The report presents a framework for risk assessment of virus transmission in connection with reopening nonessential businesses, schools and child care facilities, outdoor spaces, public transportation, mass gatherings, and interpersonal gatherings.

MIT has launched an emergency research project with a team of MIT Engineers and American clinicians to address the question: Is it possible to safely ventilate a COVID-19 patient by automatically actuating a manual resuscitator?

The goal of this site is to provide the best information they can, focused around safety, on automating a manual resuscitator, as a potential means for longer-term ventilation.

This website provides important information to companies about the federal response to COVID-19 — specifically those actions that directly impact the medtech industry — best practices, and other resources.

From addressing immediate medical challenges to considering the wider societal, economic and legal implications of the crisis, Stanford is applying its interdisciplinary expertise in the hopes of ensuring an equitable recovery for all people and offering solutions that can be scaled to benefit the world. 

As the research community and decision-makers worldwide respond to the coronavirus pandemic, Science and AAAS are working tirelessly to provide credible, evidence-based information and bring you the latest research and commentary, along with extensive news coverage of the crisis.

This critical work has been generously supported by the Pulitzer Center, Google News, and a growing list of individual donors through gifts to our Flexible Action Fund.

With our global reach comes a responsibility and unique ability to leverage our deep scientific expertise and extensive partnerships to take on this challenge. Our more than 130,000 employees around the world are mobilizing with urgency to address the critical needs of families, communities and healthcare providers around the world.

A new infographic from PhRMA illustrates how America’s biopharmaceutical companies are utilizing diagnostics, existing medicines, new treatments, manufacturing, and vaccines for one shared goal: Fighting COVID-19.

Clear answers to common questions relating to the coronavirus by Harvard Health Publishing at the Harvard Medical School.

New questions and updated answers are added continually reliable information becomes available.

Most likely, dementia does not increase risk for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus, just like dementia does not increase risk for flu. However, dementia-related behaviors, increased age and common health conditions that often accompany dementia may increase risk.

Safe Paths is a community-led movement to develop free, open-source, privacy-by-design tools for individuals, public health officials, and larger communities to flatten the curve of COVID-19, reduce fear, and prevent a surveillance-state response to the pandemic.

Alex Pentland, a computer scientist at MIT – along with a team of epidemiologists, engineers, data scientists, digital privacy evangelists, professors and researchers – is helping lead research efforts and software development for this voluntary smartphone app.

Johns Hopkins experts in global public health, infectious disease, and emergency preparedness have been at the forefront of the international response to COVID-19.

This website is a resource to help advance the understanding of the virus, inform the public, and brief policymakers in order to guide a response, improve care, and save lives.

This dedicated page published by the American Cancer Society provides information and resources about coronavirus and COVID-19 for cancer patients, their families and caregivers.

More than half of PhRMA members have R&D for potential treatments and vaccines under way or are providing donations of medicines and critical medical supplies as well as providing financial donations to support patients and first responders in addressing this evolving crisis.

The American Heart Association will be offering $2.5 million in fast-tracked research grants for short-term projects that can turn around results within 9-12 months to better understand the diagnosis, prevention, treatment and clinical management of COVID-19 as it relates to heart and brain health.

This webpage provides additional information and an online application.

America’s leading research universities are at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19 and are working to protect us from other pandemics.

From assisting communities developing response strategies, to increasing testing capacity and researching possible vaccines, to treating people who have contracted the novel coronavirus, universities are working tirelessly to address the full impact of this pandemic.

To ensure critical research and development programs can continue, BIO created the Coronavirus Hub. It connects companies with capacity and resources with those that need them.

Users are able to post requests for urgently needed items and announce the availability of supplies and capacity. The portal connects in real-time through customized and searchable postings.