News & Updates

Identifying the mechanisms through which the new coronavirus enters and infects cells can help scientists combat COVID-19—and perhaps other emerging viruses.

Adaptation to change is a defining characteristic of life, being essential for survival. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought on seismic change, compelling us all to think creatively about how we are going to adapt. But this process, and indeed any crisis, offers new opportunities for growth and improvement. Our Summer 2020 newsletter explores how the Maine INBRE is adapting to the COVID-19 crisis, with a focus on how our summer undergraduate research fellowship program has been restructured to provide remote mentored research and research training.

A new interactive mapping tool from the National Institutes of Health showcases just some of the many small businesses that have developed successful healthcare products with the help of NIH small business funding, which totals over $1 billion annually. Highlighting 50-plus small businesses across the United States, the interactive map links to the story behind healthcare products and services that the NIH small business program has supported through grants.

A Sioux Falls company that is developing a COVID-19 therapeutic announced Tuesday that it has embarked on human trials.

Six students at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo participated in an innovative research program this summer developing artificial intelligence (AI) systems to better support scientists in fields such as psychology, ecology and marine science.

Experts with the West Virginia University Center for Inhalation Toxicology found that – assuming it’s a good fit - a gaiter will, despite recent reports, provide a respiratory containment of exhaled droplets comparable to a common over-the-ear cloth mask.

A West Virginia University researcher will co-lead a study to learn more about the off-label use of rapid response fentanyl test strips as an opioid overdose prevention strategy.

Researchers at the University of Delaware, using supercomputing resources and collaborating with scientists at Indiana University, have gained new understanding of the virus that causes hepatitis B and the “spiky ball” that encloses the virus’s genetic blueprint.

Ahmad Ghassemi, the McCasland Chair and professor of petroleum engineering at the Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy at the University of Oklahoma, received $2.5 million of a $28 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy with an additional $700,000 in matching funds from Coso Operating Company for a study that aims to develop technologies to increase power production from geothermal wells while decreasing production costs.

During a routine surgery that combined their specialties, Dr. Mark Fritz, a laryngologist in the University of Kentucky Department of Otolaryngology, and Dr. Moamen Gabr, an interventional gastroenterologist in the Department of Internal Medicine, noted that their workflow in endoscopic surgeries could be improved and expedited if they had a particular surgical instrument. The problem was, said instrument didn’t exist.