University researchers are using their expertise in mathematical modeling to help answer one of the biggest questions surrounding the pandemic and quarantine: When is this going to end?

Gourab Ghoshal, an associate professor of physics, mathematics, and computer science, and Andrew White, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, recently received a National Science Foundation grant to create a mathematical model that will monitor the spread of COVID-19. Both White and Ghoshal are computational researchers. Combining their expertise in modeling both epidemiology and molecular simulation, the researchers hope to create a unique tool that will help policymakers make informed decisions about reopening the country.

The model will monitor the effective transmissibility of the disease at any given time, independent of how many people actually have it, to help policymakers make informed decisions about reopening the country.

“We need to turn on the lights to get more information to eradicate this disease,” Ghoshal says. “This is very difficult because we have to scale up testing, do contact tracing, convince people to make behavioral changes. It would be helpful to have an estimate for how transmissible the disease is in real time.”

Read more here.

A new study shows that when specific human brain cells are transplanted into animal models of multiple sclerosis and other white matter diseases, the cells repair damage and restore function.  The study provides one of the final pieces of scientific evidence necessary to advance this treatment strategy to clinical trials.

“These findings demonstrate that through the transplantation of human glial cells, we can effectively achieve remyelination in the adult brain,” says lead author Steve Goldman, professor of neurology and neuroscience and co-director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine.  “These findings have significant therapeutics implications and represent a proof-of-concept for future clinical trials for multiple sclerosis and potential other neurodegenerative diseases.”

The findings, which appear in the journal Cell Reports, are the culmination of more than 15 years of Medical Center research to understand how the glial cells develop and function and their role in neurological disorders.

Read more here.

The size of a small area of the brain – mostly known for its role in decision-making – is giving scientists insight into risk for chronic pain.

Paul Geha, assistant professor of neuroscience, neurology, and psychiatry, and fellow researchers used an MRI to look at the limbic system of the brain and found the size of the nucleus accumbens, a component of the system, can indicate if someone is at a greater risk of developing chronic pain.

The study, published in PNAS, followed 40 lower back-pain patients early in their recovery, and then followed up with them a year later. Some of those patients went on to develop chronic pain, while others recovered. And while every patient who became chronic experienced different levels of pain, an MRI taken a year earlier revealed these patients had something in common from the beginning – a smaller nucleus accumbens. “Measuring the volume of nucleus accumbens is a way to measure risk, not pain, but rather the risk a person has for chronic pain,” Geha says.

Learn more in the NeURoscience Blog.

Jeff Wyatt, professor and chair of comparative medicine, who has received a Fulbright Specialist award to develop a “One Health” curriculum at Bogor University in Indonesia to advance interdisciplinary research at the intersection of forest, orangutan and community health.

The University’s Comparative Medicine and Emergency Medicine departments have collaborated with the Health in Harmony nonprofit organization for 10 years on sustainably reversing poverty, transforming community health, addressing food insecurity, and saving the rain forest home of 2,500 of the world’s last critically endangered orangutans.

The curriculum Wyatt will develop this fall at Bogor will connect faculty and students to field research opportunities advancing forest and community health in two remote regions of Indonesian Borneo.

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

Provost provides potential framework for fall semester: Provost Rob Clark shared an update with the University community yesterday on planning efforts for the fall 2020 semester.

Acknowledging that any plan must be approved by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Clark has suggested developing an academic plan that would have undergraduate students at the Eastman School of Music and Arts, Sciences & Engineering start in-person instruction in August as previously scheduled, with an option for mixed-mode (remote) instruction available for those students who may not be able to travel to campus.

In order to reduce the amount of travel to and from the campus, the fall break in October would be omitted and instruction would continue through to the scheduled Thanksgiving break. Following Thanksgiving, instruction, including exams, would be completed online.

Read Clark’s full message.

National COVID Cohort Collaborative: The COVID-19 pandemic has raised many complex clinical questions and the new National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) is providing clinical data to help answer them. N3C is building a secure, centralized, limited data set of electronic health record data from COVID-19 patients and healthy controls to help clinicians and researchers across the country answer our burning COVID-19 questions. Learn more about N3C.

Welcoming Back our Researchers – Safely: Last week many URMC researchers were back in their labs for the first time since the end of March. The Research Reboot, which officially began on May 18, allows researchers to get back to work while maintaining public health measures (like physical distancing and masking) that help protect our community from the spread of COVID-19. The latest information for our research community can be found on the COVID-19 Research Guidance website.

COVID-19 Funding Opportunity: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality invites R01 grant applications for funding to support novel, high-impact studies evaluating the responsiveness to COVID-19 of healthcare delivery systems, healthcare professionals and the overall U.S. healthcare system. Letter of intent due June 1; applications due by 5 p.m., June 15.

Turning Crisis into Opportunity: If you missed the phenomenal speakers and panelists at the Translational Science 2020 annual meeting, log in or create an account with the Association for Clinical and Translational Science to view recorded sessions, including “COVID-19: How Researchers Can Turn Crisis into Opportunity,” a panel discussion moderated by Robert Kimberly, director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences. Learn more.