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On the Front Lines of COVID-19 Research and Outreach
By Crystal Valencia
When the coronavirus pandemic shut down the country last spring, the UMass Boston community was full of individuals who sprang into action, looking for ways to help put a stop to the deadly virus.
Nursing and health sciences students were on the front lines in the hospitals and clinics treating sick patients and are now volunteering their time to administer life-saving vaccines. Several of the university’s scientists quickly pivoted their research to aid in creating COVID-19 tests and vaccines.
UMass Boston researchers are in the community, conducting studies and analyzing data in an effort to understand the current pandemic and develop better strategies and policy for dealing with future public health crises. Others are focused on community outreach, fighting misinformation and encouraging the most vulnerable populations to get vaccinated. They did this all while adhering to strict public health regulations.
“The pandemic has exacted enormous suffering, death, and economic loss for our communities,” Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco said. “UMass Boston stands with our city. We are proud of the work we are doing in serving our communities during this time.”
Here are some of the scientists, professors, students, and staff who are helping to put a stop to the pandemic.
Making More Effective Coronavirus Vaccines
When it comes to vaccines, one size does not fit all. Professor of Chemistry Wei Zhang and his lab are working on a critical part of vaccine development—boosting the COVID-19 vaccine’s effectiveness in older populations who are at greater risk from the virus.
Zhang and his team are collaborating with Ofer Levy and David Dowling of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School’s Precision Vaccines Program on an Adjuvant Discovery Program. Adjuvants are small molecules added to a vaccine to boost the recipient’s immune response.
“They approached us because we have a better capacity to make compounds than in the hospital setting. We synthesize new compounds for them to develop as adjuvant for the vaccine,” Zhang said. “We submit compounds to be tested, and based on test results, we can modify. There are many rounds of this, and if everything works well, you end up with a patent and then a drug.”
Zhang had first started working on this project in 2019, but at the onset of COVID-19, efforts quickly shifted, making his team’s work more meaningful for the current pandemic.
“We were excited and proud to be working on increasing the protectivity of vaccinations, but it wasn’t until the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic hit that we understood the magnitude of our research,” explained John Mark Awad ’19, PhD’23, an integrative biosciences PhD student working in Zhang’s lab along with recent graduate Kellianne MacFarlane ’20 and postdoc Wenfei Hu.
“I am driven knowing that our research can be used to save lives,” Awad said.
Developing Accessible Coronavirus Diagnostic Tests
Associate Professor of Engineering Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli is hoping that a tiny piece of paper can have an enormous impact in coronavirus testing. Hamad-Schifferli is designing paper COVID-19 diagnostics in partnership with Jose Gomez-Marquez, co-director of MIT’s Little Devices Lab.
Unlike standard tests that require sophisticated lab equipment to process, these diagnostics work like pregnancy tests. The paper strips contain gold nanoparticles linked to antibodies that bind the viral proteins, displaying two colored dots for a positive test and one dot for a negative result.
“We have a procedure that you can use for any disease, and what we’re trying to do now is adapt it to use it to detect COVID-19,” Hamad-Schifferli said. “A lot of people are wandering around like, ‘I don’t know if I have it,’ and this could be a way to know as a precautionary step.”
The paper tests take minutes to run and only cost a few dollars. The simple, easy-to-use format could be mass produced, dramatically increasing accessibility and preventing testing bottlenecks that leave positive cases undetected for days. She hopes that these tests will be in use within a year.
“Even though there are vaccines now, not everyone is vaccinated, so you still need diagnostics to tell if people are infected,” HamadSchifferli said. “Even when we reach the goal of vaccinating everyone, there are still instances of people getting reinfected, so diagnostics can help with that.”
Paper-based COVID tests developed by Associate Professor of Engineering Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli give quick results and are less expensive than lab tests.
Researchers Assess Vaccination Hesitation
As the COVID-19 vaccine rollout began earlier this year, UMass Boston researchers revealed some alarming findings from their survey work: 1 in 5 Bostonians did not plan to get vaccinated. Nearly half of Black Bostonians said they have little or no interest in receiving the vaccine when it became available. More than a quarter of Hispanics said the same.
“One in five people would say that they’re probably or definitely not going to get the vaccine,” Professor of Sociology Russell Schutt said. “You say that’s a small number. But if only 80 percent of the population gets the vaccine, we’re still going to have problems.”
The findings were part of a six-part series, Living in Boston During COVID-19, a collaborative research project among the Boston Area Research Initiative at Northeastern University, UMass Boston, and the Boston Public Health Commission. Interim Director for the Center for Survey Research Lee Hargraves and Schutt served as lead authors.
“This information may help identify people who are reluctant to get vaccinated and assist efforts to tailor messages to Boston residents who have reservations about the coronavirus vaccine,” Hargraves said. “The intent is that these results will be useful for community and public health leaders who are encouraging Boston residents to get vaccinated to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.”
COVID-19 Impact on Massachusetts Latinos
Latinos’ share of COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts is 30 percent, more than double their 12.3 percent share of the state’s population. The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy investigated the unequal distribution in a report released last summer. A team of researchers in public health, psychology, education, sociology, and economics collaborated on the report, looking to better understand Latinos’ vulnerability to COVID-19 infection and predictive factors.
“The report identified some key social determinants of health that are critical to understand the rapid spread and differential rates of COVID-19 among Latinos in Massachusetts,” said Lorna Rivera, director of the Gastón Institute. “The COVID-19 pandemic is magnifying existing economic and social inequalities.”
The main factors appear to be higher poverty rates, population age, household size, occupational segregation, chronic health conditions, and access to health care, she explained. Disparities in these areas have devastating consequences in a pandemic.
“Latinos are more likely to have to leave their homes to work in essential occupations during the COVID-19 crisis, like food services and health care support,” said Phillip Granberry, a senior data analyst at the Gastón Institute. “They are more likely to use public
transportation. Once they return home, they live in both larger-sized households and more densely populated cities and towns.”
The report has made a series of recommendations to protect the Latino community, such as universal health care for all, including immigrants and their families.
Testing and Vaccinating for COVID-19
University Health Services (UHS) conducted approximately 1,000 tests per month over the past year as part of a protocol to keep faculty, staff, and students on campus safe, with a positive rate of less than 1 percent. With the assistance of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences (CNHS) and other campus departments, UHS conducted two vaccination clinics for campus and community frontline workers.
In addition, dozens of CNHS students are volunteering at vaccination clinics across the state, gaining hands-on experience while helping to end a global pandemic.
“I wanted to be part of this historic time and give back to all of these frontline workers who are out there working so hard,” said nursing master’s student Mirna Flores Raudez G’21. “It’s been an amazing experience.” Flores Raudez and eight other graduate students volunteered at the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center every week this past semester, administering vaccinations and using the skills they’ve learned at UMass Boston to ensure proper post-vaccination monitoring and care.
Ariane Theriault ’08, G’23 a nursing master’s student who works in a local hospital, said it was a great opportunity to be able to approach fighting COVID-19 from a different angle.
“It’s been interesting speaking to the patients,” Theriault said. “A lot of them have a great story. They tell me how they haven’t been out and want to see their grandkids, or they want to be able to hug their mom. . . . They’re happy to be there.”
CNHS Dean Linda Thompson said she was proud of her students, many of whom are from the communities most impacted by the pandemic and wanted to serve in any capacity to help and heal.
“When the pandemic of COVID-19 limited students’ access to clinical sites, many agreed to work as patient-care technicians in every hospital in the region. When the vaccines became available, our students volunteered to vaccinate,” Dean Thompson said. “They saw this challenge as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of the solution to a major public health crisis.”
Lisa Allen and DeWayne Lehman contributed to this article.
MBA President Denise Murphy ’80 Turns Words into Action
By Vanessa Chatterley
ven before UMass Boston alumna Denise Murphy ’80 In addition, the Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on was sworn in as president of the Massachusetts Bar Lawyer Well-Being, which Murphy currently co-chairs, recently hosted Association (MBA) in September 2020, she had a vision several town hall meetings with underrepresented members of Masof the impact she wanted to make on the legal commu- sachusetts affinity bar associations to learn about their experiences. nity and beyond. Murphy and her team are taking steps to make her vision a reality by “We need to take substantive, “We need to take substantive, concrete steps providing new resources for attorneys in to eliminate systemic racism, systemic bias, to the commonwealth to help them address concrete steps to eliminate eliminate feelings of isolation and despair. The social justice reform and attorney welfare, only way to do that is to actually take action,” diversity, and equity. systemic racism, systemic bias, said Murphy. to eliminate feelings of isolation “One of my greatest frustrations in under- The MBA’s Tiered Community Mentoring taking these efforts is encountering so many and despair. The only way to do Program is one example of the kind of action she people who just talk about it. They are will- means. It connects students from various backing to expound and vocalize, but that time that is to actually take action.” grounds with practicing attorneys and judges has passed. We need action,” said Murphy, in the commonwealth, creating a pipeline. who has been a partner at Boston-based law firm Rubin and Rudman LLP since 2003 and is also co-chair of its Labor and “[Students] can see people who look like them, who act like them, Employment Department. who have their frame of reference in positions of power so they are provided with the opportunity to see into the legal world and enviOne of her actions has been the creation of a well-being toolkit, sion themselves not only being there but staying there,” Murphy said. which the MBA released in February 2021. The toolkit provides legal professionals with resources and programs to promote a healthy With only a few months left in her presidency, Murphy continues and productive balance of work, personal life, and wellness. to lay the groundwork for a more inclusive and responsive legal community. She calls the work “rewarding and never-ending.” “It’s to our mutual benefit to make sure we get this message to as many people as possible, because we want to ensure our community “I have just one year to make a real impact, and so I want my legacy is safe and healthy and responsive, given all the stresses they have on to be that,” said Murphy. “To put words into action, and to make a normal day, let alone in COVID times,” Murphy said. what words are there, meaningful.”
