Three University scientists are rapidly adapting previous research to develop tests to quickly detect antibodies to COVID-19 in blood and tissue samples.

Martin Zand, senior associate dean for clinical research at the Medical Center; Benjamin Miller, a professor of dermatology and biomedical engineering; and James McGrath, a professor of biomedical engineering, say their tests could not only help detect COVID-19 in individuals, but also improve understanding of the mechanism by which the disease damages human tissue.

The result may lead to new treatments and vaccines.

Their projects illustrate how the close proximity of the University’s Medical Center to its River Campus enhances opportunities for Rochester engineers and medical researchers to collaborate closely with clinicians. Read more here.

Researchers have unveiled a new gene that regulates and drives the molecular programs for leukemia stem cells, the cells responsible for propagating the disease and for therapy resistance. Stau2 has been previously studied in the brain and nervous system but until now was not known to have a role in cancer.

Jeevisha Bajaj, assistant professor of biomedical genetics and a researcher at the Wilmot Cancer Institute, is the lead author of the study. Bajaj conducted the research while she was a project scientist in the laboratory of Tannishtha Reya, professor of pharmacology and medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and senior author of the study.

The work will be important for the discovery of new treatments. Read more here.

• Emile Rossouw, chair and program director of the Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics Department at Eastman Institute of Oral Health, who has been elected to the American Board of Orthodontics. Comprised of only eight members — one for each American Association of Orthodontists constituent — the board is the global leader in orthodontic board certification and sets the standards of care for excellence in orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics. Rossouw’s more than 150 published works range through the areas of clinical orthodontics, biomaterials, jaw growth and long-term stability. Read more here.
• Marianne Kupin-Lisbon, a graduate student in history, and Austin Richey, a graduate student in musicology, who have been selected as recipients of Graduate Student Public Humanities Fellowships, which are awarded by Humanities New York and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Kupin-Lisbon’s project involves oral histories in the prison town of Attica, New York; Richey will be working with musicians in Detroit. Both will present their projects in next year’s Work-in-Progress Seminar and participate when possible throughout the year.

Here are three important links for researchers:

• University’s COVID-19 website for important updates and guidance on working, teaching, and learning remotely
• University of Rochester Medical Center website for restrictions, resources, and news
• Office of Research and Project Administration (ORPA) site on Coronavirus 2019 resources related to sponsored programs

The University will enact a temporary furlough program, starting as early as May 10, to address the financial challenges the institution faces as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The goal is to reduce by 20 percent the University’s overall salary costs through August 31. Read more in messages sent to URMC employees and to non-Medical Center staff and faculty.

COVID-19 Funding Opportunities:

• The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is offering several COVID-19-related funding opportunities to provide answers to the challenging COVID-19-related dilemmas facing patients, caregivers, providers, health systems, and policymakers.
• Edge for Scholars, a community for candid conversation about life in academics, has curated an extensive list of COVID-19-related funding opportunities.
• Check for new funding opportunities at our Coronavirus (COVID-19) Guidance for Researchers page.

COVID-19 Research Resources: 

• If you have COVID-19 research-related questions (about policies, opportunities for collaboration, etc.) the UR CTSI’s Research Help Desk is here to help.
• Share information and identify potential research collaborations focused on COVID-19 on the Center for Leading Innovation and Collaboration’s web page for COVID-19 studies.
• The UR CTSI has collated boilderplate language for URMC research facilities and resources (Word document). Feel free to use these in all of your grant applications, including those for COVID-19 studies.

Underlying many of the ethical dilemmas with which the new coronavirus is confronting the US are longstanding inequities in the social structure and failures of social justice, say three University of Rochester ethicists. They call the current crisis a “wake-up call” for the future.

Randall Curren, a professor of philosophy and chair of the philosophy department, is an expert in ethics, moral psychology, and the philosophy of education. William FitzPatrick, the Gideon Webster Burbank Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, specializes in metaethics, normative ethics, and bioethics. Rosa Terlazzo, an associate professor of philosophy, joined Rochester’s faculty this year. A moral, social, and political philosopher, her areas of research include autonomy, well-being, and transformative experiences.

They participated in this roundtable discussion of ethics and COVID-19.

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact around the world and the toll the disease has taken will be felt for years to come.

Recent reports show that the disease is killing black and Latinx Americans at disproportionately high rates.

In the latest episode of Insights, the Office of Equity and Inclusion’s podcast, Linda Clark, president of the Black Physicians Network, and Adrienne Morgan, associate vice president for equity and inclusion, discuss these health disparities and what’s being done to address them. A transcript of the conversation is also available.

Researchers at the Eastman Institute for Oral Health weigh in on how to best provide dental care and protect patients and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, in an invited commentary at JDR Clinical & Translational Research.

Yan-Fang Ren, Linda Rasubala, Hans Malmstrom, and EIOH director Eli Eliav report that:

• Rapid testing for infectious diseases in dental offices using saliva samples may be valuable in the early identification of infected patients and in disease progress assessment.
• Oral health researchers may play a more active role in early identification and diagnosis of the disease through deciphering the mechanisms of dry mouth and loss of taste in COVID-19 patients.

There are more than 4,700 students in graduate programs at the University’s seven schools. They come from 97 countries and all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. Here’s how eight of them are managing remote life while pursuing their degrees.

To help you during this difficult time, UR Medicine Mental Health and Wellness has put together a website of mental health resources for you and your family.

The URMC COVID-19 Support Hotline also provides information, support, and referrals to available resources to our nurses, doctors, trainees, and care team members and hospital staff, including regional affiliates. The hotline can be reached from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. EDT, seven days a week at (585) 276-3100. All phone calls are confidential.

The COVID-19 stay-at-home order has a silver lining for the environment: fewer people out on the road has led to a dramatic decrease in nitrogen dioxide, an air pollutant that forms almost exclusively because of fossil fuel combustion.

Lee Murray, an assistant professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Rochester, told City Newspaper that the area’s nitrogen dioxide concentrations in March were 30 percent lower than in March 2019, according to the surface measurements Murray tracks at the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s air-quality monitoring site in Rochester. Murray helps the state interpret greenhouse gas measurements at this site and three other sites across New York.

But, while this is good for the environment now, Murray does not anticipate levels will stay this low.

“It seems like most of the impacts are just going to be short-term impacts associated with air quality improvements, but as soon as the economy goes back to business as usual then the air pollution will go back to business as usual as well,” he told City’s Jeremy Moule.

Several Medical Center researchers and experts at the forefront of the national response to COVID-19 discussed vaccine development, treatment, and research during a live televised virtual forum last week. You can watch WXXI’s Live Forum: Fighting COVID-19 here.

GRANT DEADLINES

Today: Deadline to apply for pilot project funding from five programs, through the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience. Learn more.

May 3: Deadline to apply for pilot project funding from the Center for Research on Flavored Tobacco (CRoFT) for research to inform FDA regulation of tobacco products. The application should be submitted through the REDCap portal at http://j.mp/39bC1WF. Questions?  Application contact: Jacqueline Attia, WNY_CRoFT@urmc.rochester.edu Scientific/research contacts:  Scott Steele, scott_steele@urmc.rochester.edu or Deborah Ossip, deborah_ossip@urmc.rochester.edu