The invention that was shared with the world: Experts came together quickly in early 2020 to create a 3D-printed nasopharyngeal swab. Today, more than 100 million swabs have been produced across the globe using this USF-patented design, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is honoring the USF Health team Feb. 16, 2023.

The University of South Florida (USF) has been awarded the Patents for Humanity award by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for its patent of the 3D-printed nasopharyngeal (NP) swab, created in the early part of the pandemic as a solution to the disrupted commercial production of standard flocked NP swabs critical in diagnostic testing for COVID-19.

USF is among an exclusive group of winners receiving this year’s Patents for Humanity awards, being named alongside the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the NIH, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Gilead Sciences Inc., and Caron Products. All will be honored by the USPTO at an awards ceremony on February 16, 2023.

USF is earning this recognition for its innovative solution to the commercial NP swab shortage. Due to the urgent need worldwide, the 3D-printed NP swab team decided to forgo monetization of their invention and provided the design files and clinical data at no cost to hospitals, clinics and licensed medical device companies around the world as long as the swabs were produced for their own use.

Over the span of one week in March 2020, teams from USF Health, Northwell Health, Tampa General Hospital, and Formlabs worked together to develop a 3D printed swab prototype using Formlabs’ 3D printers and biocompatible (not harmful), autoclavable materials (able to withstand elevated temperature and pressure of an autoclave). The prototypes were then benchmarked against standard flocked swabs for viral sample retention in the laboratory and tested for patient safety and comfort by USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine researchers. After passing these tests, the teams initiated a multisite clinical trial at dozens of hospital sites across the United States, including Tampa General Hospital, Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, New York, and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, comparing performance of the 3D-printed nasopharyngeal swabs with flocked swabs.

From that point on, the USF/Northwell design was shared with hospitals, health systems, the military, and clinics around the globe. To date, the USF-patented design for the 3D-printed nasopharyngeal swab has been shared with institutions in more than 60 countries that have produced more than 100 million swabs.

“I am so proud of how our USF Health team stepped forward to combine their expertise and innovation with the teams from Tampa General Hospital, Formlabs and Northwell Health to help save lives around the world,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM, executive vice president for USF Health and dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, and executive vice president and chief academic officer at Tampa General Hospital. “This recognition by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office validates both the tremendous power of academic medicine, especially during a crisis, and the values and commitment these teams have for contributing to the greater good.”

“Our goal from the start was to help as many people as possible, as fast and safely as possible,” said Summer Decker, PhD, professor in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, and director for 3D Clinical Applications in USF Health’s Department of Radiology, who led the 3D printed NP swab team. “In order to do that, we assembled a team of experts in our fields and worked together toward a real-world solution. We then made our files public so that any hospital, clinic or health system could print them for their own facilities and get them to the frontline of COVID-19 testing in patients. Only when you know what you are truly facing, in this case COVID-19, can you actually fight it. This swab was a critical, missing component of the global medical community’s ability to do just that. We are very humbled by this recognition by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for our efforts and very grateful for this incredible opportunity to help not just USF Health and Tampa General Hospital, but also other hospitals and medical centers throughout the world.”

“COVID-19 demanded innovation and collaboration, not only from those on the front lines but across industries,” said Todd Goldstein, PhD, director of 3D Design and Innovation at Northwell Health. “It’s an honor to receive this recognition from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and we hope that our 3D printed nasal swab design helped alleviate burden during the height of the pandemic and showed what cooperation, even in times of crisis, can achieve.”

“We were proud to unite with USF Health, Formlabs and Northwell Health to work quickly and collaboratively to save lives during the height of COVID-19 when swabs were in short supply and in such high demand,” said John Couris, president and CEO of Tampa General Hospital. “This recognition is a true testament to not only the power of academic medicine, but the hard work, sacrifice, innovative spirit and perseverance of our clinical teams and their ability to act quickly and think strategically. We are thankful for the partnerships we developed with other health leaders to find innovative and cost-effective solutions to protect the health of our region and beyond.”

“With quick thinking and action from USF Health, the global shortage of traditional nasopharyngeal swabs was minimized with an entirely 3D printable design that could be easily printed in health care facilities around the world,” said Gaurav Manchanda, director of Medical Market Development at Formlabs. “We were honored to help in this effort and pleased to see the reliability, scalability, and accessibility of our 3D printing solutions put into action. By combining the centralized quality, regulatory, and medical manufacturing expertise at Formlabs with a decentralized production network of global medical customers, local health institutions were able to print and use millions of swabs needed during the shortage. Formlabs is proud to be recognized alongside USF Health, Northwell Health, and Tampa General Hospital in the USPTO Patents for Humanity COVID-19 category.”

The team that created the USF-patented 3D printed nasal swab, from left, Jonathan Ford, Kami Kim, John Sinnott, Summer Decker, Todd Goldstein, and Michael Teng. Not pictured is Todd Hazelton.

— Video and photos by Allison Long, USF Health Communications

USF Health researchers publish on naturally occurring mutations of SARS-CoV-2 main protease gaining resistance to nirmatrelvir

In the war against deadly viruses, the enemy often wears camouflage. The challenge is how to spot an elusive foe and declare victory before more lives are lost.

One promising weapon has been the COVID-19 medication Paxlovid, which was introduced for emergency use late last year with much promise as an effective drug in keeping infected people out of the hospital.

However, researchers from USF Health, Rutgers University, and Catholic University of America are investigating how mutations of SARS-CoV-2 develop resistance to nirmatrelvir – the main component of Paxlovid. Their research has been published on the on-line preprint server bioRxiv and is currently undergoing peer-review.

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants with mutations in the main protease – or M^pro – have raised the alarm for the possibility of natural M^pro mutations, which make “nirmatrelvir less effective in treating COVID-19,’’ said Dr. Yu Chen, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine in the Morsani College of Medicine at USF.

From left, Dr. Yu Chen and Dr. Eric Lewandowski.

Created by Pfizer, Paxlovid is taken orally and has proven to treat severe disease from SARS-CoV-2 infections, which often require hospitalization. Nearly 90 million people in the U.S. have been infected with COVID-19, and more than 1 million have died.

If the virus can bypass Paxlovid, experts say, they could lose a major therapy in battling the pandemic.

“While vaccines have been quite effective in preventing serious symptoms of COVID-19, the therapeutic options to treat it are very limited and only two oral drugs have been approved in the U.S. so far,’’ Dr. Chen added. “Resistance makes nirmatrelvir less effective in treating COVID-19.’’

Led by USF’s Dr. Chen and Dr. Jun Wang of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at Rutgers, the team cloned and purified many M^pro mutant proteins that occurred in nature, and analyzed their biological activity, including how they interacted with nirmatrelvir.

“We found many of them retained significant activity of the original protein, while showing resistance to nirmatrelvir,’’ Dr. Chen said, adding that their activity was less affected by the drug. “We are currently combining some of these mutations to study whether several mutations together can allow the protein to be even more resistant to the drug.’’

Viruses tend to mutate quickly enough to evolve immunity to monotherapy treatments that bind to only one protein, said members of the Rutgers team. Combination treatments, with multiple drugs that bind to multiple target proteins on the virus, tend to maintain efficacy for much longer because the virus must simultaneously mutate in several places to develop resistance, the researchers said.

The jury is still out on how effective Paxlovid will be as the virus continues to mutate and begins to disarm the drug’s weaponry. Further research could change how these battles are fought, Dr. Chen said.

“By understanding how the protein can become resistant to the drug,’’ he added, “we can better design the next generation of drugs to make them more effective and less prone to resistance development.’’

Story by Kurt Loft

USF Health-UT Southwestern Medical Center preclinical study suggests inhibiting PPP1R3G/PP1γ may protect against tissue damage from heart attacks, other diseases linked to inflammation

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TAMPA, Fla. (Feb. 16, 2022) – Cell death plays an important role in normal human development and health but requires tightly orchestrated balance to avert disease. Too much can trigger a massive inflammatory immune response that damages tissues and organs. Not enough can interfere with the body’s ability to fight infection or lead to cancer.

Zhigao Wang, PhD, associate professor of cardiovascular sciences at the University of South Florida Health (USF Health) Morsani College of Medicine, studies the complex molecular processes underlying necroptosis, which combines characteristics of apoptosis (regulated or programmed cell death) and necrosis (unregulated cell death).

During necroptosis dying cells rupture and release their contents. This sends out alarm signals to the immune system, triggering immune cells to fight infection or limit injury. Excessive necroptosis can be a problem in some diseases like stroke or heart attack, when cells die from inadequate blood supply, or in severe COVID-19, when an extreme response to infection causes organ damage or even death.

A new preclinical study by Dr. Wang and colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center identifies a protein complex critical for regulating apoptosis and necroptosis — known as protein phosphatase 1 regulatory subunit 3G/protein phosphatase 1 gamma (PPP1R3G/PP1γ, or PPP1R3G complex). The researchers’ findings suggest that an inhibitor targeting this protein complex may help reduce or prevent excessive necroptosis.

The study was reported Dec. 3, 2021, in Nature Communications.

Zhigao Wang, PhD, associate professor of cardiovascular sciences, in his laboratory at the USF Health Heart Institute. Images on the monitor depict two types of cell death: apoptosis (left) and necroptosis. — Photo by Allison Long, USF Health Communications

“Cell death is very complicated process, which requires layers upon layers of brakes to prevent too many cells from dying,” said study principal investigator Dr. Wang, a member of the USF Health Heart Institute. “If you want to protect cells from excessive death, then the protein complex we identified in this study is one of many steps you must control.”

Dr. Wang and colleagues conducted experiments using human cells and a mouse model mimicking the cytokine storm seen in some patients with severe COVID-19 infection. They applied CRISPR genome-wide screening to analyze how cell function, in particular cell death, changes when one gene is knocked out (inactivated).

Receptor-interacting protein kinase (RIPK1) plays a critical role in regulating inflammation and cell death. Many sites on this protein are modified when a phosphate is added (a process known as phosphorylation) to suppress RIPK1’s cell death-promoting enzyme activity. How the phosphate is removed from RIPK1 sites (dephosphorylation) to restore cell death is poorly understood. Dr. Wang and colleagues discovered that PPP1R3G recruits phosphatase 1 gamma (PP1γ) to directly remove the inhibitory RIPK1 phosphorylations blocking RIPK1’s enzyme activity and cell death, thereby promoting apoptosis and necroptosis.

Dr. Wang (back) and laboratory associate Ken Chen. — Photo by Allison Long, USF Health Communications

Dr. Wang uses the analogy of a car brake help explain what’s happening with the balance of cell survival and death in this study:  RIPK1 is the engine that drives the cell death machine (the car). Phosphorylation applies the brake (stops the car) to prevent cells from dying. The car (cell death machinery) can only move forward if RIPK1 dephosphorylation is turned on by the PPP1R3G protein complex, which releases the brake.

“In this case, phosphorylation inhibits the cell death function of protein RIPK1, so more cells survive,” he said. “Dephosphorylation takes away the inhibition, allowing RIPK1 to activate its cell death function.”

The researchers showed that a specific protein-protein interaction – that is, PPP1R3G binding to PP1γ — activates RIPK1 and cell death. Furthermore, using a mouse model for “cytokine storm” in humans, they discovered knockout mice deficient in Ppp1r3g were protected against tumor necrosis factor-induced systemic inflammatory response syndrome. These knockout mice had significantly less tissue damage and a much better survival rate than wildtype mice with the same TNF-induced inflammatory syndrome and all their genes intact.

Overall, the study suggests that inhibitors blocking the PPP1R3G/PP1γ pathway can help prevent or reduce deaths and severe damage from inflammation-associated diseases, including heart disease, autoimmune disorders and COVID-19, Dr. Wang said. His laboratory is working with Jianfeng Cai, PhD, a professor in the USF Department of Chemistry, to screen and identify peptide compounds that most efficiently inhibit the PPP1R3G protein complex. They hope to pinpoint promising drug candidates that may stop the massive destruction of cardiac muscle cells caused by heart attacks.

The research was supported by grants from the Welch Foundation and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a part of the National Institutes of Health.

Graphic created with Biorender app by Zhigao Wang, USF Health Heart Institute.

This years’ top news and social media stories feature a little bit of everything – and it’s not all about COVID-19.  Broken records, emotional patient stories, advances in research, multitalented physicians, and other big news from around USF Health fill the list.

Take a look at the top USF Health online and social media stories of 2021.

Top USF Health Online Stories*

1:  USF Health selected as a clinical trial site for Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for children six months to 11 years old.

2:  Michael Teng’s Q&A behind the MRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

3:  USF Health receives a five-year, $44 million grant to test if computerized brain training can reduce the risk of dementia.

4:  USF Health researchers suggest the natural compound in basil may protect against Alzheimer’s.

5:  USF Health conducted an NIH study of allergic reactions to various COVID19 vaccines

6:  The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine welcomed the most academically competitive and diverse class of medical students.

7:  COVID-19 couldn’t put a damper on the excitement of Match Day 2021.

8:  A USF Health emergency medicine resident became a Grammy Award-winning opera choir singer.

9:  USF was awarded a four-year, $69.9 million NIH grant for type-1 diabetes research.

Jeffery Krischer, PhD, is principal investigator of the TEDDY study.

10:  In the wake of a global pandemic, USF Health returned to full operations.

*Page views on the USF Health News WordPress site as determined by Google Analytics

Top 10 Social Media Stories*

1: USF Health selected as a clinical trial site for Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for children six months to 11 years old.

2: USF Health researchers suggest the natural compound in basil may protect against Alzheimer’s.

3: The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine class of 2024 receive their first white coats.

4: USF Health Morsani College of Medicine welcome the most academically competitive and diverse class in history.

5: USF Health physicians treat car enthusiast with ENT cancer.

Allen Parent, of Brookville, Fla., was diagnosed with squamous cell mouth cancer, a head and neck cancer, and referred for treatment to Dr. Matthew Mifsud, a USF Health head and neck surgeon and otolaryngologist, and Dr. Julia Toman, a USF Health facial plastic surgeon.

6: USF Health neurosurgeons repair spine for thrill-seeking patient. 

7: Our USF Health physicians make the top doctors list.

8:  USF Health patient makes $25,000 gift to USF Health IBD center

9: USF Health emergency medicine resident became a Grammy Award-winning opera choir singer.

10: Taneja College of Pharmacy announces their move to downtown Tampa.

**Based on Facebook page views

Dr. Jose Herazo-Maya’s research may help identify new treatments to improve survival in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and severe COVID-19

Caring for patients struggling to breathe drives Dr. Jose Herazo-Maya’s research to find effective treatments for pulmonary fibrosis — an incurable, debilitating and often fatal disease that causes progressive lung scarring.

“The primary goal of our research team is to identify genes that predict survival (a low vs. high risk of dying) in patients with lung fibrosis,” said Herazo-Maya, MD, an associate professor and associate chief of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. “We believe that if you target these genes, you can develop new treatments to help improve survival in these patients.”

The only two drugs currently approved to treat patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (pirfenidone and nintedanib) may help slow disease progression, but they do not stop lung scarring or prolong survival, and adverse effects can occur in up to half of people with IPF. Lung transplantation can improve survival, but organs are limited and not every patient with pulmonary disease is eligible for the complex surgery.

CT scans of (Above) normal lungs and (Below) lungs with  idiopathotic pulmonary fibrosis, characterized by scars and cysts. Images courtesy of Dr. Jose Herazo-Maya, USF Health

Pulmonary fibrosis is a disease in which the tissue in and between the air sacs of the lungs (alveoli) becomes damaged and scarred. As the tissue (interstitium) thickens and stiffens, it affects the ability to breathe and get enough oxygen into the bloodstream. While toxic environmental exposures, smoking and certain other diseases have been associated with pulmonary fibrosis, in most cases the cause is unknown (idiopathic). Median survival for patients diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is three to five years.

“IPF is a devasting disease that needs better therapeutic options to improve quality of life and save lives,” Dr. Herazo-Maya said. “For me, taking care of these patients is a constant reminder that we need to do better.”

A return to academic medicine

Dr. Herazo-Maya joined USF Health in January 2021 from NCH Healthcare System in Naples, Fla., where he spent nearly four years directing a growing Interstitial Lung Disease Program. Before that, the physician-scientist was an assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine. He is an expert in genomics, with a focus on studying how gene expression influences immunity and its association with disease progression and outcomes.

USF Health physician scientist Jose Herazo-Maya, MD, (far right) in his USF Health Heart Institute laboratory with his research team. Photographed (l to r) are Carole Perrot, PhD; Bochra Tourki, PhD; Alyssa Arsenault, LPN; and Brenda Juan-Guardela, MD. — Photo by Allison Long, USF Health Communications and Marketing

At Yale Dr. Herazo-Maya was part of team that discovered a gene expression signature in blood that reliably forecasts the likelihood of mortality and poor outcomes from IPF. The team subsequently led an international study that validated this risk profile based on 52 genes. He was among the inventors on the patent for the IPF gene risk profile, since acquired by a global company seeking to develop the scientific breakthrough into a simple blood test to be used for patient care.

Dr. Herazo-Maya returned to academic medicine after several years of private practice in Naples, in part he says because he was frustrated by the lack of research progress to identify pulmonary fibrosis treatment options. A surge in patients battling severe lung scarring from COVID-19 complications also prompted his decision to recommit to translating discoveries from the laboratory back to the patient bedside.

Soon after arriving at the USF Health Heart Institute last year, Dr. Herazo-Maya quickly began building a pulmonary fibrosis research program with the generous support of a $1 million gift made by philanthropist Timothy Ubben to the USF Foundation. (In December 2021, Mr. Ubben gave an additional $5 million to create the Ubben Family Center for Pulmonary Fibrosis that will accelerate research leading to new tests and treatments for patients.)

Dr. Herazo-Maya, a member of the pulmonary and critical care team at Tampa General Hospital, also treats patients at the TGH Center for Advanced Lung Disease — including those being evaluated for lung transplant. Along with fellow USF Health pulmonologists Dr. Kapilkumar Patel and Dr. Debabrata Bandyopadhyay at this leading TGH Center, Dr. Herazo-Maya is an investigator for clinical trials testing potential new drugs to treat lung fibrosis.

Bochra Tourki, PhD, looks at a computer slide of immune cells from the lung tissue of a COVID-19 patient with pulmonary fibrosis. – Photo by Allison Long

The impact of witnessing “air hunger”

From the start of his medical career, Dr. Herazo-Maya was interested in both critical care and science. While conducting a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung Disease, he was invited by his faculty mentor and center director Nafali Kaminski, MD, to accompany a group of the center’s patients, physicians, and scientists on a boat trip along the city’s rivers.

“I remember the patients using oxygen had a very hard time getting into the boat. They could not even take a few steps without becoming short of breath,” Dr. Herazo-Maya said. “Seeing how those patients struggled to breathe – their feeling of air hunger – had a big impact on me wanting to take care of them.”

While certain patients with IPF can live well for years, others develop worsening disease and die quickly. No prognostic tool yet exists to tell doctors which patients will experience rapid progression of pulmonary fibrosis, and which will progress slowly. But Dr. Herazo-Maya and colleagues are working on a molecular-level test to do just that.

A tool to predict the clinical course of IPF or any other type of lung fibrosis could help patients and clinicians make better informed decisions about care, Dr. Herazo-Maya said. “For instance, if a rapid test indicated that a patient’s genetic predisposition to mortality was high, they might need to get to the hospital to receive more aggressive medical care, and possibly be evaluated for lung transplant while they are still relatively healthy enough to withstand transplant surgery.”

Dr. Herazo-Maya (far left) consults with (l to r) staff scientist Carole Perot, PhD; postdoctoral scholar Bochra Tourki, PhD; and clinical research coordinator Alyssa Arsenault, LPN. – Photo by Allison Long

Genomic risk prediction can also increase opportunities for drug discovery, he said. “Each one of the genes we analyze is a potential drug target. We can study them in the lab to understand how they work and possibly come up with novel therapies.”

Pivoting genomic research to COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in 2020, pulmonologists and other critical care clinicians were inundated by patients in respiratory distress.

As he helped treat the influx of hospitalized patients, Dr. Herazo-Maya noticed that, like IPF, severe COVID-19 could also damage the lung interstitium leading to severe scarring. He thought about finding more precise ways to distinguish between symptomatic individuals likely to recover at home with appropriate monitoring and those likely to end up in the intensive care unit (ICU) and die. A prognostic tool capable of detecting which patients were apt to do worse before they became seriously ill could help health care providers better allocate limited resources like ICU beds and ventilators, tailor interventions, and potentially save lives.

“At the time investigators were scrambling to identify gene profiles predictive of COVID-19 outcomes,” Dr. Herazo-Maya said. “So, our basic question was ‘Can we repurpose a gene risk profile known to predict mortality in IPF to predict mortality in those infected with a new coronavirus that can cause lung fibrosis as well?’”

The preliminary answer appears to be yes.

Dr. Herazo-Maya’s computer monitor displays heat maps depicting clusters of COVID-19 subjects identified as having a low vs. high risk of mortality (Below), based on a gene expression signature in blood. The recent research showed that a previously validated technique for predicting idiopathic lung fibrosis outcomes could be repurposed for COVID-19. – Photo by Allison Long | Heat map image courtesy of Dr. Herazo-Maya, USF Health

Earlier this year, a multicenter retrospective study led by USF Health’s Dr. Herazo-Maya demonstrated that a 50-gene signature associated with a high risk of dying from IPF can also predict poor outcomes (ICU admissions, mechanical ventilation, and death) in patients with COVID-19. The findings were reported in EBioMedicine, a publication of THE LANCET.

More studies are needed, but researchers and clinicians may soon be able to apply the gene risk profile to help advance the care of both COVID-19 and IPF patients, Dr. Herazo-Maya said. His laboratory is currently developing a blood test, based on a more selective group of the 50 genes, that can be easily applied in clinical practice.

Two distinct diseases, same gene risk profile

The overlapping gene expression profiles for COVID-19 and IPF look remarkably similar, Dr. Herazo-Maya said. “That suggests there are immune pathways shared between these two diseases.”

Using single-cell gene analyses, Dr. Herazo-Maya has identified specific immune cells – monocytes, neutrophils, and dendritic cells — as the primary source of gene expression changes in the high-risk COVID-19 gene profile. Interestingly, he said, monocytes can give rise to macrophages involved in triggering scar formation.

Brenda Perrot, PhD, works on an experiment.

Dr. Herazo-Maya received his MD degree from the University of Cartagena School of Medicine in Colombia. He completed a research fellowship in interstitial lung disease and residency training in internal medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Specializing in pulmonary and critical care, he conducted postdoctoral training in genomics, computational biology, bioinformatics and molecular biology at Yale and Pittsburgh universities.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation funded his research in the past, and his current work is supported by the USF Foundation-Ubben Family Fund.

Dr. Herazo-Maya has published numerous peer-reviewed papers, including in such high-impact journals as the Nature Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Science Translational Medicine and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. He is the coauthor of several book chapters on topics ranging from biomarkers in assessing and managing IPF to applying personalized medicine (‘omics) to lung fibrosis.

Dr. Herazo-Maya and his wife Dr. Brenda Juan-Guardela (right), assistant professor of medicine at USF Health and medical director of Respiratory Care Services at TGH, have collaborated on pulmonary fibrosis research throughout their medical careers. – Photo by Allison Long

Some things you may not know about Dr. Herazo-Maya

If he did not become a physician and researcher, Dr. Herazo-Maya says he would have been a marine biologist. Growing up near the beach in Cartagena, he snorkeled and was “fascinated by all the sea creatures.”

Dr. Herazo-Maya is married to pulmonologist Brenda Juan-Guardela, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and medical director of Respiratory Care Services at TGH. They met in medical school, trained in the same laboratory as postdoctoral scholars, and continue to collaborate on pulmonary fibrosis research. They live in Tampa with their two sons Christian, 6, and Lucas, 4.

In his spare time, Dr. Herazo-Maya enjoys playing soccer and baseball with his sons in their yard and watching their youth soccer league games.

A USF Health study finds that a screening test for major blood clots in the lungs, originally validated in seriously ill non-COVID patients, works as well for COVID patients

Human lung tissue with pulmonary embolism under a microscope

TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 26, 2021) — A screening blood test originally validated in seriously ill patients without COVID-19 is still clinically useful for ruling out pulmonary embolism in patients hospitalized with the coronavirus, a University of South Florida Health (USF Health) Morsani College of Medicine research team reports.

Principal investigator Asa Oxner, MD, and USF Health colleagues published a single-center, diagnostic study Oct. 8 in JAMA Network Open investigating how well D-dimer testing performed at excluding pulmonary embolism in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Doctors who suspect pulmonary embolisms routinely rely on widely available D-dimer screening to rule out the potentially life-threatening blood clotting disorder – most commonly in surgical patients immobilized for long periods and patients admitted to intensive care units.

D-dimer is a simple blood test that measures protein fragments of blood clots floating in the bloodstream. D-dimer levels, normally undetectable or detectable at very low levels, rise sharply when the body is breaking down the clots.

“Our study found that clinicians can feel confident interpreting the D-dimer levels the same in COVID patients as they do in every other patient; we don’t need a special (different) value for COVID patients,” said Dr. Oxner, associate professor and vice chair of USF Health Internal Medicine. “So, in hospitalized COVID patients, we can appropriately rule out a pulmonary embolism if d-dimer levels are low.”

Pulmonary embolisms occur when blood clots that form in another part of the body (often the leg), travel through the bloodstream, and lodge in the blood vessels of the lung, decreasing blood flow and causing low oxygen levels.

Research indicates COVID-19 patients are three to 10 times more likely to develop pulmonary embolisms than other hospitalized patients, even when they are not as seriously ill or immobilized, Dr. Oxner said. Scientists are still investigating why, but it appears the COVID-19 virus may create a cellular environment that promotes clotting by making the inside of blood vessels uneven, irritated, and prone to microtears.

Asa Oxner, MD, is as associate professor and vice chair of USF Health Internal Medicine.

A negative D-dimer test (one that rules out pulmonary embolism) can help patients avoid more expensive, invasive diagnostic tests, like a computed tomography pulmonary angiogram, or CTPA. “CPTA can be dangerous because the patient, who potentially has a blood clot, must lay immobile in the CT scanner for quite a while to capture (pulmonary artery) images. The test also requires injection with IV contrast, which carries a greater risk of kidney damage when you’re very sick,” Dr. Oxner said.

The USF Health researchers wondered if the increased risk for blood clotting in COVID-19 patients, and uncertainty of diverse D-dimer values found in earlier smaller studies, reduced the existing screening tool’s ability to correctly rule out pulmonary embolism in COVID patients. The conventional thinking was that D-dimer levels would almost always be high in COVID-19 patients, therefore the test as originally validated (in non-COVID patients) would not be accurate at differentiating COVID patients without clots, Dr. Oxner noted.

The retrospective study looked at the records of 1,541 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at Tampa General Hospital from Jan. 1, 2020, to Feb. 5, 2021. They compared plasma D-dimer concentrations with CTPA, the criterion for diagnosing pulmonary embolism, in 287 of those patients. All COVID-19 patients with CTPA evidence of pulmonary embolism had D-dimer levels of 0.05 μg/mL or greater, as did the majority (91.2%) of patients without CTPA evidence of pulmonary embolism. (Concentrations of 0.05 μg/mL and higher are considered positive for pulmonary embolism, while anything below that D-dimer level is negative.)

The researchers also analyzed whether changing the cutoff levels defining positive or negative D-dimer test results specifically for the COVID patient population might improve the test’s performance. “We did not find that to be statistically significant; however, we may have been able to identify a different cutoff level if the study had more COVID patients,” Dr. Oxner said.

Within the limitations of this single-center study, setting higher D-dimer thresholds was associated with improved specificity – but at “the cost of an increased false-negative rate that could be associated with an unacceptable patient safety risk,” the study authors wrote.  A false-negative result means that the test does not detect a pulmonary embolism when the serious blood clotting problem is very likely present.

Doctors who suspect pulmonary embolisms routinely rely on widely available D-dimer screening to rule out the potentially life-threatening blood clotting disorder.

While clinicians must maintain heightened suspicion for pulmonary embolisms when evaluating symptoms in COVID-19 patients, the overall USF Health study results indicate that the currently available D-dimer test adequately screens for the likelihood of pulmonary embolism in hospitalized COVID patients, Dr. Oxner said. “The mechanisms of developing pulmonary embolisms may differ for COVID patients, but the resulting physiology is the same for all patients. The little fragments of (undissolved) blood clots are still detectable with D-dimer.”

USF Health internal medicine resident Constantine Logothetis, MD, was lead author for the study.

In the video above, USF Health leaders and frontline workers look back on the successes, challenges and emotions they experienced while dealing with an incredibly challenging year amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Their stories include developing testing supplies now used around the world, creating programs aimed at treating vulnerable populations and helping rapidly develop and roll out vaccines against the disease, which Dr. Charles Lockwood, MD, Dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine said “rivals the moon landing.”

USF Health College of Nursing vice dean Denise Maguire, PhD, administers a vaccine shot.

A previously validated gene profile in blood that predicts idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis mortality was repurposed to assess the likelihood of COVID-19 survival, a USF Health-led study reports

Tampa, FL (June 20, 2021) — A blood gene profile associated with a high risk of dying from a severe lung disease can also predict poor outcomes in patients with COVID-19, a multicenter retrospective study led by the University of South Florida Health (USF Health) demonstrated. The risk profile based on 50 genes could help customize how COVID-19 is treated, improve allocation of limited health care resources such as intensive care beds and ventilators, and potentially save lives.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a disease of unknown cause, affects the lung interstitium or the space between the lung sacs and the bloodstream, leading to severe lung scarring. Severe COVID-19 can also damage the lung interstitium leading to severe lung scarring.

“Our study identified at the molecular level, a gene risk profile that predicts worse COVID-19 outcomes before the patient becomes severely ill,” said principal investigator Jose Herazo-Maya, MD, an associate professor and associate chief of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. “That means every patient with COVID-19 could potentially get a blood test that could tell us if they are at high or low risk of dying… And if we know in advance who will likely end up in the ICU and who will likely do well recovering at home with appropriate monitoring, we can tailor our interventions to individual patients based on their level of risk.”

The USF Health study appeared online June 20 in EBioMedicine, a publication of THE LANCET. It builds upon previous genomic research by Dr. Herazo-Maya and colleagues at Yale School of Medicine. In 2017, they led an international team that studied and validated a gene expression signature in the blood that reliably forecasts the likelihood of IPF mortality. (Certain patients with lung scarring can live well for years, while others develop worsening disease and die quickly from IPF.)

The study’s principal investigator was Jose Herazo-Maya, MD, associate professor of medicine and associate division chief of USF Health Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine. | Photo by Allison Long,  USF Health Communications and Marketing

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, “the basic question we had was ‘Can we repurpose the gene signature known to predict mortality in a fibrotic lung disease to predict mortality in those infected with a new coronavirus that can cause lung fibrosis as well?” said the EBioMedicine paper lead author Brenda Juan-Guardela, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and medical director of Respiratory Care Services at Tampa General Hospital (TGH). “To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to compare overlapping immune gene profiles in COVID-19 and IPF, which were remarkably similar.”

The USF Health-led team analyzed gene expression patterns of 50 genes known to predict IPF mortality in three COVID-19 cohorts and two IPF cohorts. The researchers used a molecular scoring system to distinguish between high versus low-risk gene profiles in all five cohorts.

Among their findings:

• In the COVID-19 validation cohorts, a 50-gene high risk profile was linked to greater risk of ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, and in-hospital death.
• The researchers also performed single-cell, gene expression analyses and identified specific immune cells — monocytes, neutrophils, and dendritic cells – as the primary source of gene expression changes in the high-risk, COVID-19 gene profile. This finding suggests COVID-19 and IPF may share common innate and adaptive immune responses that trigger lung scarring.
• The 50-gene risk profile in COVID-19 can also predicts mortality in IPF at the exact same threshold.

Lead author Brenda Juan-Guardela, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and medical director of Respiratory Care Services at TGH

At TGH, Dr. Herazo-Maya treats previously hospitalized COVID-19 patients who come to the Center for Advanced Lung Disease with severe lung fibrosis; some are being evaluated for lung transplantation. “Even though coronavirus cases are dropping, that doesn’t mean all the patients will recover without complications,” he said. “We’re starting to see the damaging, long-term effects in the lungs of some COVID-19 survivors.”

While more studies are needed, researchers and clinicians may soon be able to apply the gene risk profiles to help advance the care of both COVID-19 and IPF patients, Dr. Herazo-Maya said. His laboratory is currently developing a blood test, based on these genes, that can be easily applied in clinical practice to predict poor disease outcomes.

Besides outcome prediction, the identification of 50-gene risk profiles may also have significant therapeutic potentials.  For example, a 10-day regimen of the steroid dexamethasone, a drug that suppresses the immune system, has been shown to increase survival of patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Immunosuppressant drugs have been essentially discontinued for IPF treatment because they increase mortality when given at high doses and in combination over long periods, Dr. Herazo-Maya said. “But perhaps we could investigate the use of dexamethasone or a similar steroid treatment for a short period of time in a subgroup of IPF patients with a 50-gene high risk profile, using the principle of precision or personalized medicine.”

The 50-gene high risk profile may also support the rationale to investigate the use of targeted IPF antifibrotic medications, which slow the rate of lung scarring, to prevent short and long-term sequelae of COVID-19, he added.

Heat maps depict clustering of COVID-19 subjects based on 50-gene risk profiles (High versus Low) determined by SAMS in Discovery (a) and Validation cohorts (b). The image, courtesy of Jose Herazo-Maya, first appeared online 20 June 2021 in EBioMedicine, Vol. 69. Full caption available for this Figure 1 at: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352396421002322

USF Health’s Gaetane Michaud, MD, professor of medicine and chief of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine, was a paper coauthor. The research was supported by the Ubben Pulmonary Fibrosis Fund-USF Foundation, National Institute for Health Clinician Scientist Fellowship, Action for Pulmonary Fibrosis Mike Bray Fellowship, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

USF Health students, staff and faculty during a White Coats 4 Black Lives demonstration outside of the USF Health Morsani Center, in June 2020.

In December 2020, Susan Moore, MD, an Indiana physician, died of COVID-19 after alleging she experienced racial discrimination while undergoing treatment at a hospital operated by Indiana University Health System. “Moore’s story of her pain being dismissed reinforces what studies have repeatedly shown: Even taking wealth, education and insurance status into account, Black patients receive worse medical care and face worse outcomes,” a Washington Post article on Dr. Moore’s death said.

Just one month before Dr. Moore’s death, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) shared an article that touched on a 2016 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science which included a survey that revealed that 40% of first- and second-year medical students endorsed the belief that “Black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s.” The study also showed that the trainees who believed this myth were less likely to treat Black people’s pain appropriately.

This article brought to light the continued need for institutions to address racial bias in healthcare starting with health education. USF Health is doing its part by building curriculums that teach the next generation of health care providers about social determinants of health and how to provide value-based and patient-centered care, and recruiting and retaining the diverse educators to teach it.

“Your goal as the practitioner is to truly understand who the patient is and all of the different aspects of the patient which may have some impact on their medical care,” Deborah DeWaay, MD, FACP, associate dean of undergraduate medical education for USF Health Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM), said. “It helps the provider battle unconscious bias because when they individuate patients in their mind, they’re less likely to give biased care.”

In 2016, MCOM started focusing on incorporating course objectives that examine prejudice, assumptions and privilege, such as Safe Zone training and poverty simulation activities. In 2019, Shirley Smith, MA, director of student diversity and enrichment for MCOM, became the College’s integration director for cultural competency. Using the AAMC’s objectives for cultural competency, Smith spent hundreds of hours reviewing the entire MCOM curriculum, and will continue to do so on an annual basis, highlighting places where the objectives were not being met to the highest level. These findings were then presented to the curriculum committee who make the final decision about changes to curriculum and if approved, provide recommendations for moving forward. In addition, Smith provided feedback to faculty about where there may be bias within the didactics. “It’s been really refreshing to have faculty embrace this and leadership like Dr. Lockwood, support this,” Smith said. Students also have the ability to provide real-time feedback to Smith and her team via an anonymous survey. “What we’re really trying to do is not have any judgement attached to the feedback,” Dr. DeWaay said. “We’re trying to create a method for our faculty who are teaching, to deal with their unconscious bias in a safe environment.”

USF College of Public Health Dean Donna Petersen, participating in the 2019 poverty simulation along with other USF Health deans, faculty, staff and students. Pre-Covid Photo.

MCOM is also in the process of partnering with Wake Forest University in North Carolina to create curriculum that can be used at both universities in order to maximize resources and reach more people. This material will become a curricular thread integrated across all four years of medical school which USF MCOM calls Humanism in Action. Smith quoted Bryan Bognar, MD, MPH, vice dean of MCOM educational affairs, when she explained that the important part of this effort is to make sure that they’re “baking things in” and that the curriculum is “not an à la cart menu.” The curriculum teaches students the communication skills necessary to elicit the values of their patients and then integrate those values into the patient’s medical plan. “It’s physically impossible in four years to teach students every single nuance about all the ways a human being or population can be different,” Dr. DeWaay said. “It’s far more important to teach the attitude that they need, the skills to illicit the information from the patient and the skills to keep up on the literature, so that they have the tools that they need moving forward, to take care of any patient that’s in front of them.” According to Smith, the objective is to teach students not to assume anything about their patient, not to project their own values onto the patient and not to deviate from what is fact or what is in the evidence. Janet Roman, DNP, APRN, ACNP-BC, director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program in the USF Health College of Nursing (CON), added that it’s not just about what question is asked, but about how it is asked. The way a question is worded can be loaded with an assumption and be offensive to the patient. “If you ask me, “Do I have access to healthy food?” now you’re assuming that I don’t,” Dr. Roman said. “If you ask me, “Where do I get my groceries?” then that gives you the answer.”

A taskforce is also being formed to include faculty and students who will help build and implement this new Humanism in Action curriculum and be a resource to faculty for recommendations or feedback on revamping lectures, small groups and activities. One component of change cultivated by the COVID-19 pandemic is the acceptance of virtual guest speakers and virtual learning by students and educators. This will allow for a more diverse representation of speakers to be a part of the courses as well as private, small group activities that can foster more vulnerable discussions. “These beliefs have to be socially unwoven through intentional, meaningful conversations and interactions with depth and the goal is to give students that opportunity,” Smith said. “I’m just planting seeds. I may never see the tree, but I must believe that the possibility is there.”

In January 2020, MCOM earned recognition from the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Honor Medical Society for their dedication to diversity and understanding in various patient populations. The medical school was one of two medical schools in Florida to receive an Award for Excellence in Inclusion, Diversity and Equity in Medical Education and Patient Care. The award recognizes medical schools, and their associated AOA chapters, that demonstrate exemplary leadership, innovation, and engagement in fostering an inclusive culture that transforms the ideas of inclusion, diversity and equity into successful programs that support student, staff and faculty diversity in service to the community.

After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, students pleaded for a call to action for faster implementation of changes to the curriculum. “The morbidity and mortality that social determinants of health, systemic racism, and health care disparities have cost people living in this country, far surpasses the toll COVID will take, and yet we’re not tackling it with the same resources,” Dr. DeWaay said. “With COVID hitting, it shows us on a local, regional and national level, what we’re capable of doing when we’re really worried about something.” Fueled by the same passion as the students who have championed these efforts from the very beginning, Smith and Dr. DeWaay returned to the curriculum committee and presented a 15-point, call to action. The committee mandated the plan in June 2020.

Dr. Deborah DeWaay (center), associate dean of undergraduate medical education for USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, with medical students. Pre-Covid Photo.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there is increasing evidence that Black, Indigenous and Latinx communities are suffering disproportionately from COVID-19. This is the kind of information that can spark a myth about minorities if the root of the cause is misunderstood. Black Americans are infected with COVID-19 at nearly three times the rate of white Americans and are twice as likely to die from the virus, according to a report from the National Urban League based on data from Johns Hopkins University. This is not because of any biological differences between the two groups, but instead, social determinants of health and systemic racism. This is evident in the report which shows that Blacks are more likely to have preexisting conditions that predispose them to COVID-19 infection, less likely to have health insurance, and more likely to work in jobs that do not accommodate remote work. “Your zip code may be the biggest determinate of your health outcome more than anything else,” Kevin Sneed, PharmD, dean of the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy (TCOP), said.

Understanding these social determinants of health is instrumental in dispelling myths and providing patient-centered care and is another key component of USF Health education. Social determinants of health are conditions in the places where people live, learn, work and play that affects a wide range of health and quality-of life-risks and outcomes. Factors can include a person’s education, financial literacy, discrimination, and access to healthy food and safe places to exercise. Students in the USF Health College of Nursing learn about disease processes such as heart failure, hypertension and diabetes, and at the same time, “we want to point out to students which populations are disproportionately affected and then give them that background on why, so that we can help close that health disparity gap,” Dr. Roman said.

According to Dr. Sneed, one of the most meaningful courses offered at the Taneja College of Pharmacy, one that has been a requirement for first-years ever since the inaugural class of 2011, is the introduction to public health course. The course was developed by the USF Health College of Public Health (COPH), continues to have input from their faculty, and mainly focuses on social determinants of health. “You spotlight that in a course and then when you give the demographics of what that means for these various communities, it really does help broaden the expanse of how people view communities of color and why we do things like Bridge Clinic and Tampa Bay Street Medicine,” Dr. Sneed said. “We’re going to have to push to a different level of comfort, maybe even discomfort for many people in order for it to really take hold.”

A pharmacist has a unique place in the community. “Not everybody has a physician or has health insurance, but anybody can go to CVS and say, “my child has a fever,” Tricia Penniecook, MD, MPH, vice dean for education and faculty affairs for COPH, said. The patient benefits if the pharmacist has a public health world view and can help make decisions that are best for the patient’s situation.

USF College of Pharmacy Dean Kevin Sneed, PharmD, and Tricia Penniecook, MD, MPH, vice dean for education, participating in a Voices in Leadership panel discussion during USF Health Multicultural Week in 2019. Pre-Covid photo.

While colleges of medicine, nursing and pharmacy focus on helping patients where they are downstream, sick that day, public health looks upstream and tries to address what has happened to bring them to that point. Instead of individual-based care, public health professionals look at the care of groups of people in the population and find and fill gaps in their access to health care or the conditions for people to be healthy. That’s why interprofessional education is a critical part of USF Health because both kinds of roles are important. “As part of the discipline of public health, you’re supposed to take care of those who are at a disadvantage,” Dr. Penniecook, said. “The structures and systems in this country have put certain populations immediately at a disadvantage just because of that’s who they are when they are born.”

An integral part of every accredited college of public health in the United States is making sure that students learn about health inequities that are based on disparities. At USF Health’s COPH, students not only have courses specifically on health inequities, but the topic is addressed in every public health course from the undergraduate to the graduate level. Having this thread at every level means that students learn what the basis of those health inequities are, what they look like and how to address them no matter where their career takes them. According to Dr. Penniecook, this means that if the student is going to be working in the community, they’ve learned about community education and teaching people about self-advocacy in the healthcare system; if the student is going to be working within the system, they’ve learned about how to measure and address health inequities; or if the student is going to have a leadership role, they’ve learned about being proactive in looking for ways to solve the health inequities such as policy development.

Prior to COVID-19, COPH started working on an academic master plan. Dr. Penniecook, described an academic master plan as a road map within the strategic initiatives of the institution, that tells you what you need to do academically to get to your goals. In response to the murder of George Floyd, Dr. Penniecook asked Donna Petersen, ScD, MHS, CPH, dean of the USF Health COPH, if they could integrate structural racism into the academic master plan. Just like MCOM’s Dr. Bognar was previously quoted as saying that these changes have to be “baked in” the curriculum, Dr. Penniecook wanted these efforts to combat structural racism to be more strategic and woven into everything they do and who they are, so that it’s more likely to stick. A variety of work groups will be formed to include faculty, staff and students to look at admissions, curriculum, teaching methods, educational spaces and recruitment, and then make recommendations to the college structure. While this master plan is a work in progress and was paused when COVID-19 first hit, Dr. Petersen has already impacted and set the tone for the two freshman courses she teaches as a part of the Master of Public Health program. She has always had a required summer reading list, but this past summer, the entire list was equipped with books on structural racism. In addition, different aspects of structural racism have been the topic of several of the College’s townhall meetings, some lead by students, as well as episodes of the Activist Lab’s Activist Lab on the Road podcast.

An interprofessional student team across the Colleges of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health, and the School of Physical Therapy, at the 2018 USF Health Research Day. Pre-Covid Photo.

The curriculum used to educate our future health care professionals is only one piece of the puzzle. The faculty who teach it are the other. “Student exposure to those from impoverished backgrounds may occur for the first time when they are in medical school,” Haywood Brown, MD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, associate dean of diversity for USF MCOM, and vice president for institutional equity for the University of South Florida System, said. “They don’t get that in the classroom because there is so few, diverse faculty teaching the curriculum.” According to a board diversity statement from the American Council on Education (ACE), diversity in university student bodies, faculties and staff, enriches the educational experience, promotes personal growth and a health society, strengthens communities and the workplace, and enhances America’s economic competitiveness. “If you do not have a diverse workforce, the patients don’t benefit as much because you’re learning from each other,” Dr. Brown said.

In November 2020, the USF Health College of Nursing appointed Usha Menon, PhD, RN, FAAN, as the new dean after serving as interim dean of the College since February of that year. According to Dr. Roman, under this new leadership, one of the College’s initiatives is to increase the diversity, equity and inclusion not only in the curriculum, but also in the student, faculty and staff populations. As a part of this initiative, Dr. Menon realigned her senior administrators which included creating a director of diversity role, now filled by Ivonne Hernandez, PhD, RN, IBCLC, assistant professor at the USF CON. “What we are developing now, before we even start recruiting, is a way to retain,” Dr. Roman said. “We are nurse scientists, and we treat our patients and our students by the evidence. We are doing the same thing with diversity, equity and inclusion, and what our data shows is that when we have persons of color, they don’t stay.” CON’s strategic goals include increasing the diversity of research faculty by 35% and of clinical faculty by 10%, by 2023. One retention method coming soon is a mentoring program.

According to Dr. Roman, CON is not making these changes just to check off a box for diversity on a list of requirements. “The College of Nursing is doing a 360,” Dr. Roman said. “We’re changing everything. We are doing the right thing for all people and it’ll be a complete culture change.” A healthy and safe culture and work environment will also help retain high quality, diverse faculty. “We have to reiterate that incivility is not tolerated, and micro and macro aggressions are not tolerated,” Dr. Roman said. “We also have to bring to the forefront what already exists in the University processes for what to do if you feel violated and not to suffer in silence.”

Even outside of the university classrooms, USF Health students are coming together to fight racial disparities in the healthcare system. In August 2020, MCOM became an official chapter of the national White Coats 4 Black Lives. Open to all USF Health students, the goal of the organization is to safeguard the lives and well-being of patients through the elimination of racism. To accomplish this goal, WC4BL and the USF Health chapter look to foster dialogue on racism as a public health concern, end racial discrimination in medical care, and prepare future physicians to be advocates for racial justice. “It’s everyone’s responsibility, but it’s only a priority to some,” Smith said. “For those who make it their priority, we want to give them tools to learn how to engage in these spaces that make it safe for them and make it safe for the other person to have these kinds of courageous conversations. Equipping the next generation of thought leaders so they can change the thoughts out there.”

Baltimore, Maryland, USA (Feb. 23, 2021) — The Global Virus Network (GVN), a coalition comprising the world’s foremost experts in every class of virus causing disease in humans and some animals, today announced that USF Health, at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, Fla., will serve as GVN’s Southeast United States Regional Headquarters.

USF Health is the first regional headquarters named by GVN to provide organizational and leadership support to GVN’s Global Headquarters in Baltimore, Md. In that capacity, USF Health will help strengthen GVN’s initial research response to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, and its collaborative efforts to plan for, and defend against, future epidemics and pandemics.

GVN encompasses virologists from 61 centers of excellence and 11 affiliates in 34 nations – all working to prevent illness and death from viral diseases posing threats to humanity. Bridging academia, government and industry, the coalition is internationally recognized as an authority and resource for identifying, investigating, interpreting, explaining, controlling, and suppressing viral diseases.

“USF Health is delighted to be a leading contributor to GVN’s administration, and to support and promote GVN’s virology research and public health policies. With our growing strength in infectious diseases at USF Health, the university is also well positioned to help GVN train and mentor the future leaders who can find new solutions to protect us against contagious diseases,” said Dr. Christian Bréchot, president of the GVN; associate vice president for International Partnerships and Innovation at USF; and professor, Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Internal Medicine at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

The GVN Southeast U.S. Regional Headquarters based at USF Health will encompass the four health sciences colleges of the university: the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, and the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy. USF Health is an integral part of USF, a high-impact global research university dedicated to student success. Over the past 10 years, no other public university in the country has risen faster in U.S. News and World Report’s national university rankings than USF.

The new Global Virus Network Southeast U.S. Regional Headquarters will be led by GVN President Dr. Christian Bréchot, professor of internal medicine at USF Health and associate vice president for International Partnerships and Innovation at USF, and GVN Vice President Linman Li of the USF Health Division of Infectious Disease and International Medicine.

“USF Health has already been supporting GVN’s administrative efforts, and we are pleased to officially recognize their past efforts and ongoing efforts to advance the GVN by naming USF Health as the GVN Southeast U.S. Regional Headquarters,” said  Dr. Robert Gallo, GVN co-founder and international scientific advisor, who is also The Homer & Martha Gudelsky Distinguished Professor in Medicine and Director of the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

In addition to their leadership roles at GVN Global Headquarters in Baltimore, Md., Dr. Bréchot and GVN Vice President Linman Li of the USF Health Division of Infectious Disease and International Medicine will lead the new GVN Southeast U.S. Regional Headquarters and focus on regional efforts to expand government and other research funding, as well as research and training initiatives. The regional headquarters designation will enable USF Health scientists to partner with GVN experts worldwide to share ideas and research, to translate research into practical applications, to improve diagnostics and therapies, and to develop vaccines.

“We look forward to partnering with the Global Virus Network to advance the coalition’s leading work in viral research and evidence-based responses to epidemics and pandemics,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. “The appearance of COVID-19 has transformed society almost beyond recognition, with lasting implications for health care, the economy and our social and psychological well-being. Together we can, and we must, be better prepared to meet the challenges of the next emerging virus.”

When new outbreaks arise, such as what happened with SARS-CoV-2, GVN experts stand ready to provide critical insights needed for infectious disease containment and prevention. The new partnership will help increase the authority, leadership, and visibility of USF Health and GVN in virology at the regional, national, and international levels.

GVN members collaborate on science-driven, independent research in many areas, including immunology and vaccines, antiviral drug therapy, virus-host interaction, diagnostic virology and epidemiology, morphogenesis and structural biology, emerging and re-emerging viruses, viruses as biotechnological tools, and trending topics in virology. They also train the next generation of virologists to combat the epidemics of the future.

About the Global Virus Network (GVN)
The Global Virus Network (GVN) is essential and critical in the preparedness, defense and first research response to emerging, existing and unidentified viruses that pose a clear and present threat to public health, working in close coordination with established national and international institutions. It is a coalition comprising eminent human and animal virologists from 61 Centers of Excellence and 11 Affiliates in 34 countries worldwide, working collaboratively to train the next generation of virologists, advance knowledge about how to identify and diagnose pandemic viruses, mitigate and control how such viruses spread and make us sick, as well as develop drugs, vaccines and treatments to combat them. No single institution in the world has expertise in all viral areas other than the GVN, which brings together the finest medical virologists to leverage their individual expertise and coalesce global teams of specialists on the scientific challenges, issues and problems posed by pandemic viruses. The GVN is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. For more information, please visit www.gvn.org. Follow us on Twitter @GlobalVirusNews

About USF Health
USF Health’s mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the Taneja College of Pharmacy, the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, the Biomedical Sciences Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs, and USF Health’s multispecialty physicians group. The University of South Florida is a high-impact global research university dedicated to student success. Over the past 10 years, no other public university in the country has risen faster in U.S. News and World Report’s national university rankings than USF. For more information, visit health.usf.edu