A new groundbreaking study from the University of Michigan’s Center for Drug Repurposing (CDR) reveals several drug contenders already in use for other purposes—including one dietary supplement—that have been shown to block or reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection in cells.

The study, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses artificial intelligence-powered image analysis of human cell lines during infection with the novel coronavirus.

Michigan CEAL: Communities Conquering COVID, a member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded initiative Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities, has been awarded an additional $1.4 million dollars to support an additional year of community-based COVID-19 interventions. The Michigan CEAL project was previously funded $1.4 million in the Fall of 2020.

Connected to U-M through MICHR’s Network Based Research Unit, the National COVID Cohort Collaborative aims to improve the efficiency and accessibility of analyses with COVID-19 clinical data, expand researchers’ ability to analyze and understand COVID, and demonstrate a novel approach for collaborative pandemic data sharing.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from across the University of Michigan, including the Institute of Social Research and the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR), have published a new comprehensive toolkit to help patients and caregivers navigate the COVID journey every step of the way.

Researchers across Michigan Medicine may now request access to the ACT (Accrual to Clinical Trials) Network, which can be used to explore and validate feasibility for participating CTSA multi-site clinical studies using electronic health record data.

Michigan Communities Conquering COVID (MiCCC) has launched “Take the Mic,” a contest celebrating everyday heroes saving lives one precautionary measure at a time.

Being deeply rooted in the wellbeing of Michigan communities meant that the Community Engagement program at the (MICHR), Michigan Medicine, and the U-M School of Public Health (SPH) were on the frontlines when the pandemic hit the nation. They witnessed a significant imbalance in support for low income and communities of color across the state, so MICHR and SPH came together to launch a program called, “’The Fierce Urgency of Now’: Communities Conquering COVID (C3).”

Beginning with a human-centered design consultation, MICHR’s Innovation team partners with teams across U-M to help transform research ideas into people-centered interventions.

Are you a mentor looking to learn how to best support your mentees in the time of COVID? Attend “Mentoring in a Time of COVID-19,” cosponsored by MICHR, the Medical School Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, and Rackham Graduate School.

Michigan Medicine is partnering with sponsor AstraZeneca in a multi-site, international effort researching an investigational vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19.

MICHR’s annual three-month Summer Research Program provides students with a rich experience in clinical, translational, and health disparities research and inspires them to choose a research-focused career.

Researchers at Michigan Medicine have teamed up to launch a study to test the safety and efficacy of the agent defibrotide to treat patients with COVID-19 illnesses.

Dr. Byrd is part of a multi-site study that is evaluating whether continuing medication versus discontinuing common blood pressure medications (ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers) at time of hospitalization for COVID-19 makes a difference in how people recover and respond to treatment, focusing on two of the most common blood pressure treatments in the U.S.

With Michigan communities facing devastating impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Community Engagement (CE) program at MICHR focused its efforts on assessing and addressing the needs of its community partners. This resulted in a digital toolkit that acts as a landing page for its numerous services and resources. Simply scroll through to learn more.

Since MICHR was awarded the Transforming Expanded Access to Maximize Support and Study (TEAMSS) grant two years ago, the consortium of universities involved in TEAMSS has worked to develop and test infrastructure, best practices, and reduce burdensome data collection for expanded access that will allow other academic medical centers to become more effective and efficient in supporting these requests.

As the coronavirus pandemic began spreading to the U.S., the U-M research community responded with many innovative ideas to treat patients, prevent infections, and address shortages of medical products. MICHR’s MIAP, which supports investigator-initiated clinical trials with FDA submissions, became the first stop in the research project lifecycle for COVID-19 research ideas involving drugs or devices.

Traditional clinical research study registries require researchers to seek out participants and find suitable matches to enroll in their studies. At the University of Michigan, the UMHealthResearch.org registry takes its capabilities one important step further by empowering potential research participants to do the same.

Researchers who are working on studies to understand and combat COVID-19 can gain access to potential study participants who self-identify as having the virus or having been diagnosed and recovered, by posting their studies on UMHealthResearch (UMHR).

The Healthy Flint Research Coordinating Center hosted four community COVID-19 webinars to increase knowledge and resources, especially its impact on the local Flint community.

Susan Dorr Goold, MD, MHSA, MA, FACP, a core faculty member for MICHR’s Community Engagement program, shares her thoughts about COVID-19’s impact on disadvantaged communities and how decisions about scarce resources are faced.