Six years ago, the Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to three scientists for finding ways to visualize the pathways of individual molecules inside living cells.

Now, researchers at the University of Rochester and the Fresnel Institute in France have found a way to visualize molecules in even greater detail, showing their position and orientation in 3D, and even how they wobble and oscillate. The work could shed invaluable insights into the biological processes involved, for example, when a cell and the proteins that regulate its functions react to viruses, including the one that causes COVID-19.

“When a protein changes shape, it exposes other atoms that enhance the biological process, so the change of shape of a protein has a huge effect on other processes inside the cell,” says Sophie Brasselet, director of the Fresnel Institute, who collaborated with Miguel Alonso and Thomas Brown, both professors of optics at Rochester’s Institute of Optics.

Nicknamed CHIDO—for “Coordinate and Height super-resolution Imaging with Dithering and Orientation”—the technology is described in a new paper published in Nature Communications. Designed and built by lead authors Valentina Curcio, a PhD student in Brasselet’s group, and Luis Aleman-Castaneda, a PhD student in Alonso’s group, CHIDO is precise within “tens of nanometers in position and a few degrees of orientation” in determining the parameters of single molecules, the team reports. Read more here.

The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) is one of 10 recipients in the LaserNetUS network that has recently been granted a three-year collective award of $18 million from the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES).

The funds will allow the LLE and the other nine LaserNetUS partner organizations to expand user access to their laser facilities for frontier research and student training. The findings from these experiments could have a broad range of applications in basic research, advanced manufacturing, and medicine.

The DOE established the network of facilities in 2018 to provide vastly improved access to unique ultrafast lasers for researchers, and to help restore the US’s once-dominant position in high-intensity laser research.

“We are honored and excited to have one of our lasers, the four-beam, high-energy, and high-intensity OMEGA EP laser, as part of the LaserNetUS network,” says Michael Campbell, director of the LLE. “We congratulate FES for the vision and continued commitment that will enable the US to maintain world leading science and educate future leaders in this important field.”

Six LaserNetUS user experiments have already been successfully conducted at LLE over the last 12 months. With the new funding, LLE will continue to provide LaserNetUS users with time on the OMEGA EP laser beam over the next three years. Read more here.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded a $927,069 grant to a partnership between the University, Silent Spring Institute, the National Center for Healthy Housing, and the City of Rochester to study the impacts of home rehabilitation and resident engagement on exposures to harmful environmental chemicals within the home.

This project will build on Rochester’s nationally recognized lead poisoning prevention work to inform efforts to protect children and families from a wide range of home hazards.

The partners will work with the City of Rochester’s highly successful Lead Hazard Control plus Healthy Homes program, which provides grants to low-income owner-occupants and landlords to address lead hazards in pre-1978 housing. The City of Rochester has received over $35 million in grant funding from HUD over the past 15 years to support lead hazard remediation in thousands of city homes. Read more here.

Sonal Munsiff, assistant professor of infectious diseases at the Medical Center and Holly Frost, assistant professor at Denver Health, who were awarded the $10,000 grand prize in this year’s IDea Incubator, an annual competition hosted by the Infectious Diseases Society of America Foundation. The team won for developing a statistical software program they call Outpatient Automated Stewardship Information System (OASIS) that generates easy-to-read graphs and individualized reports from EMR data to help providers make informed decisions about prescribing antibiotics.

The University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (UR CTSI) is dedicated to training the next generation of clinical and translational researchers. A new web page for Translational Science Training Resources is now available on the UR CTSI site. Find a host of learning modules, developed and curated by the UR CTSI, as well as training resources and job opportunities from across the Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program.

University of Rochester research faculty and staff can request access to thousands of COVID-19-positive and -negative blood specimens and associated, de-identified clinical data through the COVID-19 Biobank.

See what the Biobank has to offer and submit a request today. Read more here.

As we continue to physically distance during the COVID-19 pandemic, any aspects of visits to monitor clinical studies that can be performed remotely should be.

However, there may be some monitoring procedures that must take place in person at the University or Medical Center. For these situations, clinical study teams should follow this new guidance, which can be found on the COVID-19 Guidance for Human Subject Research webpage.

Register for this free Greater Rochester Quality Council event from 8 to 9:30 a.m. Thursday, November 12, to hear presentations from leaders of the Monroe County Department of Public Health, Rochester Regional Health and UR Medicine. They will discuss three areas of learning from the COVID-19 pandemic: Leading Through a Pandemic, Using a Crisis for Innovation and Understanding Disparities.

Here are 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
• University’s COVID-19 “Restart and Recovery” web page.

• If you have symptoms or concerns that you may have been exposed to the virus, here’s what to do.
• Dr. Chat Bot participation is required for everyone who is physically on any University campus or property at any time of day or night; students, make sure you have a current cell number listed in AlertUR to start getting Dr. Chat Bot reminder texts each morning.
• To help keep our campus healthy, wear a mask, maintain physical distancing, wash your hands frequently, and get a flu shot.

Green Line shuttle schedule for graduate students: The Green Line shuttle will be available to graduate students every Saturday for a limited time from November 7 through December 12 at the designated times of 1 and 3 p.m. The Green Line will pick up passengers at Rush Rhees Library and stop at the International Food Market, Wegmans, Target, and Wal-Mart. Masks are required on the shuttles and social distancing must be practiced. Due to reduced capacity on the shuttles, pre-registration is required.