News Archives: May, 2020

On Monday, March 9th, Jake Kittell, a research engineer and machinist who builds scientific equipment for the University of Vermont, in Burlington, came into work fired up. Approaching another engineer, Carl Silver, he said, “We gotta build a ventilator.”

As Mississippi’s manufacturers begin producing supplies to aid in the state’s COVID-19 response, Mississippi State researchers are helping them assess the filtering capabilities of their materials.

With personal protective equipment in short supply nationwide, a team of engineers and researchers at Mississippi State University is turning to an unlikely combination of 3D printers and office supplies to aid medical personnel tackling COVID-19.

Mississippi State University mechanical engineering students have turned a conventional truck toolbox into a device that will sterilize face masks for the university’s John C. Longest Student Health Center staff. A team of two students, under the leadership of researchers at MSU’s Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems, built and tested the device before delivering it to the health center on Monday [April 13]. Built using low-cost materials, the device can sterilize 15-20 masks in minutes, filling a need for the health center during the COVID-19 pandemic and a nationwide shortage of masks.

In a major international study that enrolled its first patient at the Nebraska Medical Center, the experimental drug, called remdesivir, shortened the time it takes for patients to recover by four days on average, U.S. government and company officials announced Wednesday. Gilead Sciences’ drug is the first treatment to pass such a stringent test against the virus, which has killed more than 218,000 people since it emerged late last year in China. The drug also showed a trend toward fewer deaths in patients who were ill enough to have lung involvement.

A team of scientists, pathologists and lab technicians from Marshall University and Mountain Health Network are helping West Virginia address a limited supply of the solution used to transport testing swabs for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) by making the mixture in one of the university’s labs. The clear viral transport medium (VTM), composed of specialized reagents, keeps a virus viable on the nasopharyngeal swab for transport until testing is performed.

The Robert C. Byrd Institute (RCBI) at Marshall University is working around the clock to produce personal protective equipment as part of the fight to reduce the spread of the corona virus. Technicians in Charleston and Huntington are manufacturing N95 masks and face shields using RCBI’s stable of 3D printers and laser cutting technology, including one of the largest 3D printers in the state. The devices are being shipped to the West Virginia Army National Guard in Charleston where the face shields are assembled, and filters are added to the N95 masks before they are distributed around the state to health care workers and first responders.

The West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, WVU Medicine, and smart ring maker Oura Health announced (April 8) a national study designed to accelerate early detection of the COVID-19 virus symptoms and contagiousness. Leveraging an artificial intelligence -driven predictive model, wearable ring technology, and a COVID-19 monitoring app, RNI scientists and partners are developing an innovative “digital PPE” approach that potentially can identify infected frontline healthcare professionals before they become symptomatic – a possible breakthrough in monitoring capabilities and limiting the spread.

WVU Medicine pediatric and adult allergist and immunologist Brian Peppers, D.O., Ph.D., has received Investigational New Drug approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the experimental treatment of COVID-19 using convalescent donor plasma. This is the first FDA approved Investigational New Drug trial for COVID-19 immunotherapy to include pediatric patients.

“Hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received a placebo, according to a preliminary data analysis from a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients, which began on February 21. The trial (known as the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial, or ACTT), sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the first clinical trial launched in the United States to evaluate an experimental treatment for COVID-19.