Upstate Medical University is seeking patients who have recovered from COVID-19 for an emergency clinical trial. The recovered patients would donate plasma, the liquid part of their blood, to help treat severely ill patients battling the disease. The project is part of the National COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Project, which the Food and Drug Administration has approved as an emergency investigational new drug. Take a closer look.

It’s a national issue: not enough tests or testing materials for COVID-19. To most of us, it’s another thing that feels awful, but out of our control during this unprecedented global pandemic. To members of the research community, it’s a call to action. Take a closer look.

News 12 had two infectious disease specialists address COVID-19 questions and concerns live on-air Thursday night. Dr. Michael Augenbraun, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University and Dr. Inessa Gendlina, director of Infectious Disease and Infection Control at Montefiore Health System, spent the hour addressing concerns. Take a closer look.

As policymakers, health care providers and the general public struggle to make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic, the somewhat obscure field of health informatics has become a little less so. In just a few weeks, graphs showing the numbers of infections and the rate of hospitalization have become a normal part of the evening newscast. Take a closer look.

Listen to a personal account of the COVID-19 pandemic from a now-recovering patient who was hospitalized due to the novel coronavirus. Take a closer look.

SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University Hospital of Brooklyn is featured in a special CNN report: Inside the ER. Take a closer look.

Researchers from Columbia University have launched CovidWatcher, an app that surveys users about their exposure to the new coronavirus, symptoms, access to medical care, and impact on daily life. The data will be used to track the spread of the coronavirus in New York City, giving citizens real-time information about hot spots and enabling health care officials to deploy resources where needed most. All New Yorkers, even if they are not experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19, are encouraged to participate with the app (iOS only) or through the CovidWatcher website.  Take a closer look.

A  team of data scientists, physicians, and engineers across the Mount Sinai Health System has come together to launch STOP COVID NYC, a web-based app to capture the symptoms and spread of COVID-19 in New York City-currently the epicenter of the nation’s largest outbreak. The group is seeking citywide participation to survey the spread of COVID-19 and enhance medical response to the pandemic. The web app, now available by texting “COVID” to 64722, allows all Mount Sinai patients and city residents to enroll in the tool to monitor their symptoms. Users complete an initial survey with questions about demographics, exposure, and symptom history, followed by short daily surveys about their symptoms through text messages sent to their phones. Take a closer look.

Along with many other Einstein and Montefiore scientists and physicians, infectious disease expert Liise-anne Pirofski, M.D., is working overtime to confront COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. She is playing a leading role in two important projects: one evaluating a therapy for both treating and preventing the disease, and the second focused on tracking its effects on patients. Take a closer look.

Two University of Rochester physicians – one as an investigator and one as a patient – had major roles in a cutting-edge clinical trial using the body’s own immune cells to fight late-stage cancer. The striking results, showing that 93 percent of the study patients responded to the treatment, were reported in the April 2, 2020, issue of New England Journal of Medicine. Take a closer look.

Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine has joined a clinical trial to evaluate the experimental drug remdesivir to treat people who are hospitalized with severe COVID-19 infection. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is sponsoring the trial. This treatment has the potential to help people who have serious lung complications as a result of COVID-19. Recruitment for the trial began in March and is still underway. Take a closer look.

How to help large numbers of people with severe pneumonia during a pandemic had not crossed Gary Nieman’s mind. Now it’s all he thinks about. Nieman is a lung physiologist who has spent his career studying the origin, development and treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome and ventilator-induced lung injury. He and his research partners have some projects that may help people with COVID-19: Time-controlled adaptive ventilation (TCAV) method is a way to protect the lungs from damage that a ventilator – a breathing machine – may cause. Take a closer look.

A team of pulmonologists, anesthesiologists, sleep and critical care specialists, and medical students at the Mount Sinai Health System are reconfiguring hundreds of donated machines that are typically used at home for sleep apnea and deploying them as ventilators to be used for severely ill patients who are hospitalized with COVID-19. Mount Sinai has shared the protocols and instructions with the Greater New York Hospital Association and the American Thoracic Society, as well as with other hospitals that are dealing with a national shortage of invasive ventilators during this pandemic. Take a closer look.

Since the novel coronavirus was identified in China in December 2019, its rapid spread has turned into a global pandemic. The highly contagious COVID-19 has ripped through communities and challenged medical resources, particularly in epicenters like New York City, where, as of April 1, the reported cases of those infected with COVID-19 have soared to surpass 45,000 in the five boroughs alone. Take a closer look.

The tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG), could be a potential weapon in combatting the deadly coronavirus according to findings published by NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) researchers, led by Gonzalo Otazu, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical sciences. The United States currently leads the world in confirmed COVID-19 cases, followed by Italy, per the latest report from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE). Now NYITCOM researchers propose that the severity of COVID-19 impact may be linked to varying national policies on BCG childhood vaccination. Take a closer look.

Increased testing is a necessary step in containing, addressing, and overcoming the coronavirus pandemic. As COVID-19 cases are revealed, an increasing number of health care providers, including those at New York Institute of Technology, are turning to telemedicine as a powerful tool to provide care while also safely distancing themselves and slowing the spread. Telemedicine, also referred to as telehealth, is broadly defined as the virtual care that allows health care professionals and their patients to meet remotely by phone or video chat. Take a closer look.

Gene mutations that are thought to be very early events in the development of leukemias and other blood disorders appear to set the stage for malignancy by increasing the production of certain types of blood cells at the expense of others, according to a study by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, New York Genome Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The findings contribute to scientists’ fundamental understanding of the regulation of blood cell development and provide new insight into how malignancies may arise when the process goes awry. Take a closer look.

The adage, “The show must go on,” rings true for many circumstances but it is especially true for providing clinical skills education to medical students.  The staff of the Clinical Skills and Simulation Center at New York Medical College has successfully answered this challenge by piloting virtual standardized patient assessments for most of the School of Medicine clerkships as well as for the pre-clinical years through a combination of platforms including Zoom and LearningSpace. Take a closer look.

Ion channels, which allow potassium and sodium ions to flow in and out of cells, are crucial in neuronal ‘firing’ in the central nervous system and for brain and heart function. These channels use a “ball-and-chain” mechanism to help regulate their ion flow, according to a new study led by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists. The study, published March 18 in Nature, confirms a long-standing hypothesis about ion channels, and represents a key advance in the understanding of the basic biological processes at work in most cells. Take a closer look.

On April 1, Dennis P. McKenna, MD, assumed the role of Albany Med president and CEO. A familiar presence at the Medical Center, Dr. McKenna’s 20-year tenure has included service as hospital medical director and president of the Albany Med Physicians Group. His appointment, which was met with great enthusiasm when it was announced last summer, feels especially prescient now, given unfolding events related to the novel coronavirus. Why? Take a closer look.

Dr. Subhadra Siegel, chief of pediatric allergy and immunology at New York Medical College (NYMC), has spent her career specializing in food allergies. According to Dr. Siegel, who also serves as the director for the allergy and immunology program at Boston Children’s Health Physicians, when it comes to decreasing a child’s risk of developing a peanut allergy- early introduction may be the key. Take a closer look.