News & Updates

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.

Several faculty and staff used 15 of the university’s 3D printers to make much-needed protective equipment for medical personnel. The printers — many of them now humming in home garages and basements — are manufacturing the headbands that support face shields used by medical professionals on the front line of addressing the coronavirus. At a production rate of up to 50 per day, by April 2 the effort produced more than 300 headbands.

When COVID-19 began to spread, UNH Police Chief Paul Dean, who is also serving as vice president of public safety and risk management for the campus, put out the call for supplies across the university, and between his stockpile and contributions from labs and departments campus wide, has collected some 45,000 pairs of gloves, 11,000 surgical masks, 4,800 N-95 respirators, 216 protective gowns and 38 Tyvek suits. These are being distributed to hospitals and health care facilities in the region as they are needed and are also available to first responders in Newmarket and Dover and to caregivers at Durham’s new RiverWoods retirement community.

Since mid-March, the Carsey School of Public Policy at UNH has been responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by moving classes online, conducting and publishing research on new and emerging trends related to coronavirus, helping in the policy response, and by assisting communities to safely continue civic life during this period of individual isolation, while also preparing for re-engagement when limitations are lifted.

Charles Darwin popularized the concept of survival of the fittest as a mechanism underlying the natural selection that drives the evolution of life. Organisms with genes better suited to the environment are selected for survival and pass them to the next generation.

The National Institutes of Health today announced a new initiative aimed at speeding innovation, development and commercialization of COVID-19 testing technologies, a pivotal component needed to return to normal during this unprecedented global pandemic. With a $1.5 billion investment from federal stimulus funding, the newly launched Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative will infuse funding into early innovative technologies to speed development of rapid and widely accessible COVID-19 testing. At the same time, NIH will seek opportunities to move more advanced diagnostic technologies swiftly through the development pipeline toward commercialization and broad availability. NIH will work closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to advance these goals.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment (RAPID) Manufacturing Institute announced approximately $4 million for five projects that align with RAPID’s research focus areas in chemical and commodity processing, natural gas upgrading, renewable bioproducts, intensified process fundamentals, modeling and simulation, and module manufacturing.

One of the keys to safely ending COVID-19 lockdowns across the country is contact tracing — identifying people who have been exposed to the virus to prevent them from spreading it. A Brown University computer scientist is part of an international research team trying to enable contact tracking with smartphones in a way that preserves everyone’s privacy.