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 Photo courtesy of Cody Fagan
Cody Fagan, a PhD student in chemistry, in front of the Isotope Separation System (ISS) Glovebox at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), which houses the facility’s deuterium-tritium inventory for purification cycles. Fagan studies ways to handle and contain tritium (radioactive hydrogen) for uses as a fuel in inertial confinement fusion experiments within the Experimental Group at LLE. He has been back in his lab since May 18. The biggest adjustment was the relocation of his office to enhance social distancing, he says. He doesn’t have to wear a mask when he’s alone in his lab and is doing his best to remember to put one on when he steps out for coffee or a trip to the restroom. “You need to be a little more mindful of that and of respecting other people’s distance when you meet them in the hallway,” he says. Otherwise, he’s been just as productive as before the shutdown.
Researchers adapt to COVID-19 in innovative waysEarlier this month, researchers sat in their living rooms in California, helping to coordinate laser experiments at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics.
Just as if they were sitting in the control room themselves.
How? By participating in Remote PI—essentially a “souped-up Zoom meeting, with control room screens, audio, and video being shared,” says Samuel Morse, director of LLE’s Omega Laser Facility.
It’s an example of how University researchers are adapting to social distancing and other COVID-19 preventive measures as they reopen their labs and research facilities after an eight-week shutdown. In doing so, they are discovering that some of the adaptations are actually an improvement over what they were doing before.
When New York state approved a phased reopening of businesses and other activities in the Finger Lakes region last month, LLE reopened on May 18 with approximately 30 to 40 percent of its workforce. At the River Campus, John Tarduno, dean of research for Arts, Sciences & Engineering, has approved the reopening of 97 faculty-led science and engineering research laboratories, three multi-user facilities in science and engineering, and seven research spaces in social sciences and humanities.
“This represents about 500 people, including faculty, research scientists, technicians, graduate students and a few undergraduates supported on grants,” Tarduno says. “We have a rigorous and tiered approval process involving department chairs, program directors, and deans with an eye toward reviewing compliance with training, health monitoring, PPE use, and lab use, designed to allow social distancing in a research setting.” Read more here.
University monitors executive order on immigrationOn June 22, President Donald Trump signed a new executive order on immigration, part of which suspends the processing of H-1B visas that allow some of the world’s most talented faculty, postdoctoral associates, and research scientists the opportunity to come to Rochester to teach, conduct critical research, and practice medicine.
The University is continuing to closely monitor developments related to this executive order to assess its impact on the University community. Read more.
Grad students who excel as teachers, mentors
A total of 13 graduate students across the University have been recognized for their outstanding dedication as teachers and mentors who work closely with undergraduates. The honorees are the recipients of the 2020 Edward Peck Curtis Awards for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student.
Established to encourage excellence in the work of graduate students who assist undergraduate instruction, the Curtis Award for Graduate Students is awarded to full-time graduate students who have had significant face-to-face interaction with undergraduate students in the classroom or laboratory.
“The significance of this award in that it really is a testimony to how so many of our graduate students support the undergraduate educational mission of the University,” says Melissa Sturge-Apple, the vice provost and University dean of graduate studies, who determines the awards based on nominations from individual departments or undergraduate student groups.
“This year, I actually worked to expand the definition of ‘teach’ to also emphasize the research support that our graduate students provide to undergraduates through their supervision of them on research projects,” says Sturge-Apple. “My own graduate students actually train undergraduates on complex and sophisticated observational coding systems and supervise them through many meetings and training through the course of a semester or over a year. So, our graduate students ‘teach’ our undergraduates in both standard classroom settings as well as through experiential research settings across the University.”
Read more here about this year’s recipients, with an excerpt for each from the nomination material submitted on their behalf.
New therapy reduces chronic low back painA new study has found that tanezumab, a monoclonal antibody that inhibits nerve activity, provides relief in patients with chronic low back pain, one of the leading reasons why people seek medical care and the number one cause of disability worldwide.
“This demonstration of efficacy is a major breakthrough in the global search to develop non-opioid treatments for chronic pain,” says John Markman, director of the Translational Pain Research Program in the Department of Neurosurgery and lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Pain. “There were also improvements in function linked to the reduction in pain severity.”
This is the first study that shows long-term relief for chronic low back pain with a single dose of tanezumab delivered under the skin once every two months. The study was conducted in 191 sites across eight countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. Read more here.
Manual helps recognize fetal alcohol spectrum disordersChristie Petrenko, a research associate and assistant professor at Mt. Hope Family Center and the Medical Center’s Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, is part of a team of researchers that has created a training manual to help health care providers recognize and diagnose the disability.
The 55-page handbook — Assessment of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (Pan American Health Organization, 2020) — is now available in English and will soon be available in Spanish. It features sections on prenatal exposure, dysmorphology, neuropsychology, the diagnostic process, and case-based learning modules.
Petrenko worked with Omar Rahman, director of the Munroe-Meyer Institute Department of Genetics at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Diego Gomez, a neuroscience major at Creighton University, and Maristela Monteiro, senior advisor on alcohol and substance abuse for the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO).
Prenatal alcohol exposure affects about 2 to 5 percent of the US population. Children and adults with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) struggle with lifelong learning and behavioral problems. Without appropriate support services, they are at high risk for secondary conditions, such as mental health problems, trouble with the law, school disruption, and substance abuse.
Read more here.
Fulbright helps Lammers forge connections in Indonesia
Jayne Lammers, upper left, talking with students at a secondary school in central Java.
By heading to a far-away part of the world, to a culture and context very different from her own, Jayne Lammers was able to step outside her comfort zone and begin to see the world as her classroom through her recent experience as a Fulbright scholar in Indonesia.
“This Fulbright experience so profoundly shifted my thinking personally and my ideas for my career and what I want to do,” says Lammers, an associate professor in teaching and curriculum and associate director for the Center for Learning in the Digital Age (LiDA) at the Warner School of Education.
Last fall, Lammers traveled to Indonesia to State University of Semarang/Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES), where she spent five months conducting research on the digital literacy practices of Indonesian students through the Fulbright U.S. Scholars Program. Lammers continued an ongoing collaboration that she initially developed back home with her former advisee and Warner alumna Puji Astuti ‘16W (PhD), an Indonesian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) researcher and faculty member at UNNES. Together, they collected data through surveys and focus groups, seeking to learn more about students’ digital literacy practices in their everyday lives.
From a research perspective, Lammers’s goal was to learn from the youth to inform Indonesian teachers’ work in the classroom. It is a research model that she and other scholars implement in the U.S. to help shape literacy instruction.
Read more here.
Keeping abreast of the University's response to Covid-19
Here are four important links for researchers:
Research Participant Registry Includes COVID-19 questions: The UR CTSI Research Participant Registry is a resource for patients and community members to express interest in participating in all areas of research. Recently, COVID-19 was added to the registry as an area of interest along with several questions about COVID-19 symptoms, exposures and risk factors for infection. There are currently 9,404 participants in the registry – 1,138 of whom have expressed interest in COVID-19 research. If you are interested in participating in research, sign up at the Research Registry. If you would like the contact information of people who have signed up to screen them for your study, email ResearchHelp.
UR Medicine hospitals resume limited inpatient visitation: As COVID-19 cases decline in New York, limited visitation for patients is resuming at UR Medicine hospitals this week. The changes follow state Department of Health guidance from June 17, which allowed New York hospitals to scale back “zero visitation” policies that took effect in March as COVID-19 cases were climbing. The visitor guidelines that go into effect this week enable some in-person visitation but continue to limit the number of people on-site at health facilities to help reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission.
Horizons at Warner expands summer opportunities in the wake of COVID-19: Horizons at the Warner School of Education and six other local summer programs are partnering with the Education Success Foundation and EnCompass: Resources For Learning to provide academic and enrichment opportunities and resources, as well as social and emotional support, to the students and families that they continue to serve each year. Together, the partners view this challenge as an opportunity to collaborate on a shared mission of improving and expanding out-of-school-time support for youth from the City of Rochester.
Looking ahead to the next academic year: In a message shared with the University community last Friday, Provost Rob Clark outlined the rollout of a “Restart and Recovery” plan for the fall semester. Created by the Coronavirus University Restart Team with assistance from several advisory committees and many individuals across the institution, this comprehensive plan will be announced upon receiving final guidelines from the governor’s office. The message includes details for the various schools and programs throughout the University, the announcement of a weekly Rochester Restart newsletter, and content specific to students, faculty, and staff on what they can expect in the weeks and months to come.
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