Research News

PhD candidate Kathleen Morrill received the 2023 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award for her work on canine behavioral genomics and its relevance to human genetics and psychiatric disorders.

Ryan W. Logan, PhD, received the inaugural Helping to End Addiction Long-Term Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative, Director’s Trailblazer Award for his research into specific cell types in the brain involved in opioid use disorder, opioid dependence and withdrawal.

UMass Chan Medical School celebrated Black History Month with a focus on the research of four of its Black scientists: Brain Lewis, PhD; Ayorkor Gaba, PsyD; MD/PhD student Zach Dyer; and Natalie Anumba, PhD.

Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, identified a new mechanism to detect microbial infection that intercepts pathogen-derived signals of growth and virulence to assess the relative threat of virulent bacteria.

Jean-Laurent Casanova, MD, PhD, a world-renowned geneticist and expert in the fields of innate immunity and immunology, is the inaugural speaker for The Robert W. Finberg, MD, Memorial Lecture on Thursday, March 23.

PhD candidate Lucas Restrepo tackles movement disorders using fruit fly genetics and, in his spare time, plays the banjo.

UMass Chan Medical School has licensed siRNA chemistries developed by Julia Alterman, PhD, to Aldena Therapeutics for clinical development for dermatological diseases.

In a piece written for The Conversation, Fen-Biao Gao, PhD, talks about how frontotemporal dementia changes the brain and the research that is untangling its genetic causes.

The 2023 Gruber Genetics Prize is being awarded to molecular biologists Allan Jacobson, PhD, of UMass Chan Medical School, and Lynne Maquat, PhD, of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

UMass Chan infectious disease researchers Sanjay Ram, MD, and Peter Rice, MD, say testing and surveillance for a novel strain of gonorrhea identified in Massachusetts last month is critical for reducing spread.

Laura Gibson, MD’94, discusses cytomegalovirus in a new Voices of UMass Chan podcast.

Juan Ding, OD, PhD, and James Ledwith, MD, are working with Israeli-based AEYE Health on a pilot study testing a handheld, AI-assisted retinal camera to improve screening for diabetic retinopathy in a primary care setting.

UMass Chan Medical School has signed a three-year sponsored research agreement with NeuShen Therapeutics Inc. to investigate a gene therapy treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Jun Xie, PhD, and Guangping Gao, PhD, are leading the project for UMass Chan.

UMass Chan Medical School has licensed the rights to develop and commercialize a bioinformatic software platform developed by UMass Chan researchers Alper Kucukural, PhD, and Manuel Garber, PhD, and colleagues in the UMass Chan Bioinformatics Core to Via Scientific Inc., in Cambridge

PhD candidate David Keener has received a National Institutes of Health grant to fund his research project on Rett syndrome, a genetic neurodevelopmental disease generally diagnosed in girls ages 6 to 18 months.

Jeremy Luban, MD, discusses the latest SARS COV-2 variant of concern and the future of vaccines in the fight against COVID in a new Voices of UMass Chan podcast.

Vivian Budnik, PhD, has been elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms of synaptic signaling.

Researchers working with UMass Chan Medical School’s Translational Institute for Molecular Therapeutics announced progress in developing a vector to deliver gene replacement therapy in mice models with Cockayne syndrome, a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disease that largely affects children and young adults.

Claudio Punzo, PhD; Johanna Seddon, MD, ScM; and Shun-Yun Cheng, PhD’22, are receiving awards from the American Macular Degeneration Foundation.

Eviatar Yemini, PhD, was chosen to receive a seed grant from the Hypothesis Fund, an innovative, new nonprofit that relies on a network of scientist “scouts” to identify and recommend novel, early-stage research to fund.

Kavita Babu, MD, was a co-author of a recent study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on toxicological analyses of blood specimens from roadway users who were seriously or fatally injured in motor vehicle crashes.

The goal of research by Susan Swain, PhD, is to ultimately provide a blueprint for a vaccine that would recognize evolving influenza strains and provide long-lasting immunity to people throughout the life cycle, particularly among older adults, whose immune responses become weaker as they age.

UMass Chan Medical School has licensed the rights to develop and commercialize a novel second-generation gene therapy to treat spinal muscular atrophy developed by Jun Xie, PhD, Guangping Gao, PhD, and colleagues to global biopharmaceutical company CANbridge Pharmaceuticals Inc.

UMass Chan Medical School will evaluate the NIH’s new Home Test to Treat program that will provide free COVID-19 health services—at-home rapid tests, telehealth sessions and at-home treatments—in selected communities across the country.

Jennifer Tjia, MD, MSCE, was recently awarded a $4.1 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to study caregiver engagement in serious illness and the impact of structural barriers, including racism.

With a grant from the Dermatology Foundation, Morehouse School of Medicine student Sachi Desse is researching cutaneous T cell lymphoma, with Jillian Richmond, PhD, as her mentor.

Anastasia Khvorova, PhD, is one of 169 academic inventors selected as a 2022 fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

UMass Chan experts break down common questions regarding at-home COVID-19 tests in a new Voices of UMass Chan podcast.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw a significant increase in the number of adolescents and young adults with eating disorders admitted to inpatient treatment as well as outpatient programs, according to a recent study led by Sydney M. Hartman-Munick, MD.

PhD candidate Maureen Hester has experienced UMass Chan as an undergraduate intern, research laboratory technician and as a PhD student. Her research targets Cryptococcus neoformans, a fungal pathogen that can cause pneumonia and progress to meningitis.

MassBiologics of UMass Chan Medical School develops novel nanobody as inhalable and affordable medicine against SARS-CoV-2 and emerging variants.

Evan S. Bradley, MD, PhD and Vanni Bucci, PhD, of the Program in Microbial Dynamics at UMass Chan, established a link between the oral microbiome and COVID-19 in patients needing in-hospital respiratory support.

The Diversity and Inclusion Office featured the second of a three-part speaker series on Tuesday, Oct. 25, on the Diversity Engagement Survey developed by UMass Chan Medical School in collaboration with the Association of American Medical College.

MD/PhD student Zach Dyer, MPH, will use a three-year NIH grant to fine-tune the structural racism effect index he built for his thesis research and get it in front of policy makers.

UMass Chan Medical School has received a National Institutes of Health grant for preclinical development of gonorrhea vaccine candidates identified by Denmark biotech company Evaxion.

UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Lowell researchers report that interest among health care professionals in point-of-care technologies increased during the pandemic, based on results of identical surveys administered in late 2019 and late 2020.

Researchers at UMass Chan Medical School and North Carolina State University have developed a superfluorescence crystal nanoparticle that uses near-infrared light to safely produce laser-quality light at room temperature.

In his lab at UMass Chan Medical School, Eviatar Yemini, PhD, is working to develop a systems-biology model of a whole nervous system. Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Awards support highly promising, early career scientists.

BRIDGE Innovation and Business Development at UMass Chan Medical School has awarded $2.2 million to seven faculty-led biomedical research projects.

Chancellor Michael F. Collins heralded the emergence of UMass Chan Medical School as both the state’s leading educator of primary care physicians and a research powerhouse in his June 9 keynote luncheon address for the inaugural Worcester Homecoming.

Valerie Wedge, LICSW, CEAP, and director of the Office of Well-Being at UMass Chan Medical School, said her office is seeing more confusion, depression and anger than a year ago, when COVID fatigue made its way into conversation.

UMass Chan Medical School researchers and their partners in the National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative are starting new studies to determine if the performance of at-home COVID-19 antigen tests currently on the market in the U.S. is affected by the omicron variant.

A new training initiative funded by the CDC and developed at UMass Chan Medical School aims to help health care providers counsel patients who are hesitant about taking the COVID-19 vaccine while pregnant.

UMass Medical School researchers are about to start enrolling adolescents ages 12 through 17 in a clinical trial to test the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine made by Moderna. (Originally published on Jan. 26, 2021)

Robert H. Brown Jr., DPhil, MD, Jonathan Watts, PhD, and colleagues have shown the ability to suppress mutant forms of an ALS gene in a single-patient pilot study.

UMass Medical School is participating in the ACTIV-2 Outpatient Monoclonal Antibodies and Other Therapies Trial, which is evaluating investigational agents for treating early COVID-19.

Roger J. Davis, PhD, FRS, has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in recognition of his research on stress signaling pathways that are connected to a range of diseases, such as arthritis, cancer, stroke, heart disease and diabetes.

The national effort to bring convenient, affordable and rapid testing technology for SARS-CoV-2 infection to market is moving full speed ahead. The $1.5 billion effort was launched a year ago, with UMass Medical School playing a major role in coordinating the push for fast, accessible COVID-19 testing.

UMass Medical School ranks 10th nationwide in primary care by U.S. News & World Report in its annual rankings of the best graduate schools. The 2022 report also marks a rise for UMMS in research, this year ranking 45th, up two spots from the previous ranking.

New research by Kaleido Biosciences, Inc., and UMass Medical School’s John P. Haran, MD, PhD, and Beth McCormick, PhD, shows that the company’s microbiome metabolic therapy candidate produced positive results in patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19.

Oguz Cataltepe, MD, describes the innovative neurosurgical procedure used to treat patients in the new clinical trial for a gene therapy targeting infantile Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff diseases.

Breast and prostate cancer screenings declined rapidly in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the same period a year earlier, according to a new study by UMass Medical School researchers working with Reliant Medical Group.

Sio Gene Therapies announced that the first patient with infantile Tay-Sachs disease has been dosed in a Phase I/II trial evaluating AXO-AAV-GM2, an investigational gene therapy for the treatment of GM2 gangliosidosis, which causes Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff diseases. Miguel Sena-Esteves, PhD, is a principal scientist of the research program at UMMS.

UMass Medical School researchers are working with a statewide network in partnership with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the extent of SARS-CoV-2 mutations in the Worcester area and what role they might play in community spread.

UMass Medical School researchers are about to start enrolling adolescents ages 12 through 17 in a clinical trial to test the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine made by Moderna.

In a piece written for The Conversation, Ana Maldonado-Contreras, PhD, explains why the army of microbes living inside your gut is essential for fighting off threats, including the virus that causes COVID-19.

Kimberly Fisher, MD, and Kathleen Mazor, EdD, are preparing a study to evaluate ways for health care providers to talk with their patients about the new COVID-19 vaccines and support them in getting vaccinated.

A new companionship wellness initiative at UMass Medical School is combating isolation and loneliness among COVID-19 patients 65 and older by having students virtually check in, comfort and emotionally support them at two Worcester hospitals.

Robert W. Finberg, MD, a member of Gov. Charlie Baker’s COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Group, explains the process of getting the population vaccinated that will play out in phases over the coming year.

MD/PhD student Benjamin Helfand is co-first author on a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association Network Open that examines the frequency of COVID-19 positive older adults presenting to the emergency department with delirium.

Ana Maldonado-Contreras, PhD, studies the gut microbiome and chronic disease, in particular inflammatory bowel disease, and is now working to understand how gut microbes can predispose patients to severe COVID complications.

First results from a Pfizer and BioNTech Phase III messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine trial, in which UMass Medical School is participating, show promising findings, with more than 90 percent effectiveness in preventing infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the companies announced.

Sarah Nicole Forrester, PhD, and Ann Moormann, PhD, MPH, are co-principal investigators on a new grant aimed at enhancing representation of Black and Hispanic people in SARS-CoV-2 immunology research through the use of storytelling.

A research letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine, co-authored by UMass Medical School MD/PhD student Benjamin Helfand, reports that older adults were likely to be excluded from more than 50 percent of COVID-19 clinical trials and 100 percent of vaccine trials initiated early in the pandemic.

As many as four in 10 adults would refuse or hesitate to get a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a national survey, results of which were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Study co-authors Kimberly Fisher, MD, and Kathleen Mazor, EdD, say the findings indicate that health education outreach would be necessary to achieve widespread uptake of a safe and effective vaccine.

Robert Finberg, MD, spoke with the Boston Globe and CNN about measures UMass Medical School has taken to reach a diverse population as it recruits for its involvement in the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine trail for COVID-19.

Mary Munson, PhD, is co-directing a first-of-its-kind national program to enhance diversity in the academic biomedical workforce, funded by a $1.3 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health.

UMass Medical School is enrolling healthy volunteers to take part in a Phase II/III clinical trial testing whether a messenger RNA vaccine candidate can prevent infection with the virus that causes COVID-19.

A new study from scientists at UMass Medical School and the University of California, Davis, reveals that humans are not the only species facing a potential threat from SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Jerry Gurwitz, MD, is principal investigator of a grant to develop a roadmap for developing clinical trials networks to study COVID-19 in nursing homes, as residents comprise more than 40 percent of deaths attributed to the pandemic nationwide.

UMass Medical School has been awarded grants totaling more than $100 million to coordinate the nationwide push for fast, accessible COVID-19 testing, playing a major role in the National Institutes of Health’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics, or RADx, program.

Research expenditures at the University of Massachusetts increased by $33 million in one fiscal year to a record high of $684 million in fiscal year 2019. At UMass Medical School, research expenditures rose by 2.7 percent to $281.51 million.

UMass Medical School is conducting a community-facing survey in Worcester and six surrounding communities to assess how COVID-19 has affected ongoing day-to-day needs and help localities target relief efforts.

The Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, in collaboration with Morgan Stanley GIFT Cures, has chosen two UMass Medical School faculty members to receive Harrington Scholar Awards for Coronavirus.

David McManus, MD, and MD/PhD candidate Apurv Soni developed a tool to predict risk of severe illness in COVID-19 patients.

More than 100 critically ill COVID-19 patients in the UMass Memorial Health Care system have been treated with convalescent plasma through a UMass Medical School clinical trial led by Jonathan M. Gerber, MD.

Trudy Morrison, PhD, is the featured speaker at the Hudson Hoagland Society’s 35th annual meeting, to be held virtually on Wednesday, May 20.

Research into COVID-19 by UMass Medical School scientists Ann Moormann, PhD, MPH; Robert Finberg, MD; and Jeremy Luban, MD, is being funded by the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness.

The Center for Advancing Point of Care Technologies, co-directed by David McManus, MD, at UMass Medical School, will perform a key role in a new National Institutes of Health initiative aimed at speeding innovation, development and commercialization of COVID-19 testing technologies.

Thirty-one patients with severe COVID-19 were enrolled in the randomized, controlled trial of the drug remdesivir at UMass Memorial Medical Center’s University and Memorial campuses, overseen by lead investigator Robert W. Finberg, MD.

Fujifilm Corporation announced the initiation of a Phase II clinical trial in the United States to evaluate the safety and efficacy of its antiviral drug Avigan for patients with COVID-19, in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and UMass Medical School. Robert W. Finberg, MD, is the principal investigator for the UMMS site.

UMass Medical School and GE Healthcare Life Sciences will establish a new, large-scale viral vector manufacturing facility, able to provide large quantities of high-quality recombinant adeno-associated virus vectors for preclinical research on the UMMS campus in Worcester.