Two combat tours in Iraq brought Jeffrey Beard face to face with “reproachful disparities” between the United States and developing countries, he says.

Beard, the winner of this year’s virtual Three Minute Thesis Competition at the University of Rochester, is helping to confront one of those disparities. The biomedical engineering PhD candidate in the research lab of Benjamin Miller is developing a more affordable way to monitor the condition of 25 million people living with HIV in resource-limited countries.

“Dr. Miller gave me the opportunity to ‘declare war,’ if you will, on health care inequality by introducing me to point-of-care diagnostics designed for people who desperately need them,” Beard says.

He won over the judges and nearly 200 audience members with an easy-to-understand description of the HIV viral load test that he’s developing, earning him the $750 first-place prize and the $250 people’s choice award.

Ian Krout, a toxicology PhD candidate in the lab of Matthew Rand, won the second-place prize of $500 for describing his efforts to identify the microbes in our gut microbiome that could help protect us from methylmercury toxicity after ingesting fish.

The annual competition stresses the importance of being able to communicate research clearly and in a way that is understandable to the general public. The nine finalists were each given three minutes—and a single slide—to summarize their projects. Read more here, including a transcript of Beard’s presentation.

People widely describe architecture as a meeting of science and art, says associate professor of art history Peter Christensen. But his latest project, still in the early phases of research, aims to look at that characterization in detail. He’s using the measure of patents and patentability in the history of architecture to tease apart the distinctions people have made between technology and art—and to see how architectural “authorship” has functioned.

The project has just earned Christensen a Guggenheim fellowship for the 2021–22 academic year, as well as a residency at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he will be associated with the School of Historical Studies.

His book manuscript is tentatively titled “The Architectural Patent: Inventing Modernity” and spans the period from the English Patents Reform in 1852 to the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty of 1996 to explore four phases of the relationship between patents and the pursuit of invention: definition, protection, commercialization, and democratization. 

The term invention entered the architectural lexicon in the 19th century. “It’s entirely tied to the Industrial Revolution,” says Christensen. “You have the birth of the factory, the birth of mass production, and as a result, you have all of these issues come up with how architecture fits into that equation.”

Read more here.

A new collaboration between two Western New York cancer research leaders will help oncologists learn whether Black and white cancer patients respond differently to a game-changing immunotherapy treatment. It seeks to improve the safety and effectiveness of these newer drugs in diverse populations.

Funded by a two-year, $2.08 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), with the possibility of additional funding after the initial phase of the project concludes, the Wilmot Cancer Institute and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center are working together to fill a major gap in the science around immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs).

Checkpoint inhibitors — such as nivolumab (Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) — have become standard care for 16 different types of cancer, both early and advanced-stage. They work by blocking signals in the immune system, clearing a path for the body’s natural T cells to kill cancer. Since their approval in 2011, the use of these drugs has skyrocketed and is believed to be partly responsible for a significant drop in U.S. cancer deaths.

Still, there are many opportunities to improve the care of patients who may benefit from ICIs. For example, few people of African ancestry participated in the original clinical trials to evaluate these treatments. Researchers plan to collect data to investigate side effects, toxicities, and outcomes among people of African ancestry who take immune checkpoint inhibitors. Read more here.

Recently, the U.S. Department of State announced a realignment of its risk ratings, making 80% of the countries worldwide Level 4: High-Risk; Do Not Travel and escalating risk for others.

The Office for Global Engagement is currently evaluating how the University will respond to this change, as well as the best ways to process requests for future international travel.  Therefore, all international travel requests from faculty, staff and graduate students will need to be paused during this time as new guidance is finalized, including the process for exception approvals for essential research.

The “pause” time on processing requests is expected to be 1-2 weeks.  Travelers to international locations who have already initiated a travel request via Workday will receive communication from Global Engagement about next steps, and guidance will also be made available for administrators/deans who will need to approve current and future international travel.

Current travelers abroad should remain in close contact with Global Engagement (travelsecurity@rochester.edu) and register with the US Department of State STEP program, if they have not done so already.

The Science Coalition (TSC) has released its 2021 Sparking Economic Growth report which documents how fundamental research support from the federal government helps drive research discoveries and new economic activity.

The report features three companies–Community Forensic Interventions, LighTopTech, Oscine Therapeutics– that were spun off from UR research.

The 32nd Annual Genetics Day Symposium will take place virtually on Monday, May 24, from noon to 4:30 p.m. EDT.

The symposium includes a keynote presentation, three invited talks by Rochester faculty, a presentation on imaging resources, a virtual talk and poster competition, and six short talks by the winners of the competition.

Register to attend by April 30. You can submit short talk presentations here. Email Michael_Powers@URMC.Rochester.edu with questions.

The Center for Research on Flavored Tobacco (CRoFT) at the University and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is accepting applications for year-four pilot projects for research to inform FDA regulation of tobacco products. Read the full RFA for eligibility and application guidelines. The deadline to apply is May 2 at 11:59 p.m. for projects beginning September 1.

Here are important links for researchers:

• The University’s COVID-19 Resource Center for important updates and guidance on working, teaching, and learning remotely
• University of Rochester Medical Center website for restrictions, resources, and news
• The University’s COVID-19 “Restart and Recovery” web page

PLEASE NOTE that the University’s COVID-19 Dashboard is updated daily and dashboard numbers may reflect additional cases confirmed later in the day. When a new case is known, the contact-tracing process begins immediately with the Monroe County Health Department, with confirmed exposures being contacted and required to quarantine. Remember:

If you feel like you’re experiencing any COVID-19 symptoms, it’s best to report them through Dr. Chat Bot immediately. Even if you think your symptoms might be something else, like a cold, seasonal congestion, or allergies, it’s still important to tell University health professionals and contact tracers what you are experiencing—they always want to receive more, not less, information.

Common COVID-19 symptoms include:

• A temperature of 100 °F (37.8 °C) or higher
• Chills
• Muscle or body aches
• Severe fatigue
• Headache
• Congestion or runny nose
• Sore throat
• Loss of taste, smell, or appetite
• Cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing
• Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea