A COVID-19 risk prediction tool developed at UMass Medical School and deployed at the DCU Field Hospital helped UMass Memorial Health Care hospitals manage the COVID-19 surge in Worcester. The Decompensation Electronic COVID Observational Monitoring Platform Triage (DE-COMP-Triage) provided a score to determine which patients at the field hospital were at highest risk of rapid deterioration and, thus, should be transferred to a regular hospital with an intensive care unit.
Rising second-year School of Medicine student Emily Chin has produced nearly 200 plastic face shields for health care workers, a labor of love inspired by her late grandmother, Yuk Yip Wu, who died at age 95 from COVID-19 on April 10. Chin said she was able to be with her grandmother when she was sick and realized firsthand the importance of PPE for health care workers.
Gang Han, PhD, professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology, received seed funding from the UMass Technology Development Fund to exploring a new, safer, biogenic class of MRI contrast agents as an alternative for commonly used gadolinium-based contrast agents.
Biologics to modulate the migration and activation of specific innate immune cells, called neutrophils, discovered in the lab of Beth McCormick, PhD, at UMass Medical School, have been licensed by Bacainn Therapeutics, Inc., to develop treatments for various acute medical conditions, including ulcerative colitis. The Massachusetts company received FDA clearance for a Phase I clinical trial of its compound to address uncontrolled inflammation in the gut.
The Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, in collaboration with Morgan Stanley GIFT (Global Impact Funding Trust) Cures, has chosen two UMass Medical School faculty members to receive Harrington Scholar Awards for Coronavirus. Katherine Fitzgerald, PhD, and Anastasia Khvorova, PhD, are among the 12 COVID-19 Rapid Response Initiative award winners, selected from among hundreds of applications submitted by physicians and scientists at 122 universities and health systems across the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.
The UMass Medical School North Quadrant Support Services initiative is donating funds to support Worcester Public Schools in direct response to the COVID-19 school shutdown. UMMS will provide internet access to students to help them catch up via remote learning opportunities. The donation was announced by Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty on behalf of Superintendent of Schools Maureen Binienda at the city’s daily COVID-19 briefing on Tuesday, June 9.
UMass Medical School is conducting the Greater Worcester COVID-19 Survey in Worcester, Grafton, Holden, Leicester, Millbury, Shrewsbury and West Boylston to assess how the novel coronavirus has impacted the region.
Four students, all but one the first in their family to attend college, are the 2020 winners of the Venture Development Center’s Entrepreneur Scholarship.
They are:
Kelsey Edmond, a PhD student in UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School, has been selected to be one of this year’s Rappaport Public Policy Fellows.
The Mission Continues, a nonprofit organization that trains and redeploys veterans in their communities, has awarded UMass Boston student veteran Tony Martin ’19 a $1,500 grant through its Service Leadership Corps to support My Brother’s Keeper Boston in its COVID-19 response this summer.