2nd COV-IRT Symposium Held on July 17, 2020
On Friday, July 17, 2020, the COVID-19 International Research Team (COV-IRT), co-lead by Dr. Afshin Beheshti from NASA Ames Research Center and Dr. Todd Treangen from Rice University, held its second virtual symposium. The symposium had over 400 attendees on the Rice University-hosted Zoom meeting and have had almost 4000 views on Facebook Live. Attendees included officials from many government agencies including BARDA, DHS, CDC, DARPA, DoE, DoD, FDA, and NIH.
The symposium includes topics from vaccine development, plasma therapy, the NASA-Developed ventilator (VITAL), various COVID-19 platforms, basic COVID-19 biology and diagnostics, and brief featured highlights of the work currently being done in COV-IRT. Some featured speakers include:
- Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett is a viral immunologist leading the NIAID/NIH in vaccine development. She has been in the news recently for important work on the mRNA-1273 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 and promising results from NIH sponsored phase I clinical trials.
- Dr. Peter Hotez is an internationally recognized physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development. He is the Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also the Director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) and Texas Children’s Hospital Endowed Chair of Tropical Pediatrics. He is also University Professor at Baylor University, and Fellow in Disease and Poverty at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
- Dr. Michael Joyner is a professor at the Mayo Clinic who is leading a national program, sponsored by the U.S. Government, to coordinate the collection and distribution of COVID-19 convalescent plasma for the treatment of individuals with severe or life-threatening disease.
- Dr. Melissa Haendel leads the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) program backed by the NIH. She is also an Associate Professor of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Co-Director, OHSU Library, Library, Director of the Ontology Development Group, Library.
- Dr. Donald Milton, Professor at University of Maryland, is a leading expert in airborne transmission of diseases.
It is remarkable how many researchers and institutions continue to be involved with COVID-19 research, with just a small portion highlighted in this symposium. As COV-IRT and the rest of the scientific community continues to better understand the virus, all the knowledge gained is a step forward in finding effective treatments for COVID-19.
For more information on the COV-IRT Team’s research, please click here.
For the most up to date information on COV-IRT’s work please see the COV-IRT Twitter and Facebook.