Wayne State University announced Monday the opening of a new center focused on the study of infectious diseases and strategies to combat future pandemics. The Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases will enhance training and research in the field of public health. The center is not a physical building but a collection of doctors, researchers and professors at the Detroit-based university. "The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered local, state and national mindsets toward infectious disease threats, including pandemic diseases," Dr. Mark Schweitzer, dean of Wayne State's School of Medicine and vice president of health affairs for the university, said in a news release. "The pandemic revealed deep and broad gaps in our clinical and public health infrastructure that responds to pandemics. "In line with the mission of WSU to support urban communities at risk for health disparities, the center will have the expertise and capacity to support and collaborate with neighborhoods, hospitals and public health agencies to deliver state-of-the-art diagnostics, treatments and preventive strategies for the benefit of all residents in Detroit and other communities." Work done at the center will focus on vaccine development, clinical vaccine evaluational, deployment strategies for the vaccine in underserved populations and research on pandemic mitigation efforts. Directors of the new center include: Dr. Teena Chopra, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases; Dr. Paul Kilgore, associate professor of pharmacy practice; Dr. Marcus Zervos, head of infectious diseases division for Henry Ford Health System, professor of medicine and assistant dean of WSU Global Affairs. Key faculty include Dr. Phillip Levy, professor of emergency medicine and assistant vice president of translational science and clinical research at WSU, and Matthew Seeger, professor of communication.

There is a new surge of COVID-19 cases being driven by the delta variant. This strain of the virus is much more contagious than the original strain that emerged in March 2020. Michigan has seen a more than 180% increase in cases over two weeks. “Even if you do get the infection, as a breakthrough case, the likelihood that you’re going to end up in the hospital or in the intensive care unit or … die, is very, very low,” says Dr. Paul Kilgore, associate professor and director of research at Wayne State University’s Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. This spike in caseloads has caused many universities — including the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University — to require staff, students and faculty to be vaccinated before the start of the school year. Just over 55% of people 16 years or older are fully vaccinated in Michigan.

The United States has finally reached a goal set by President Joe Biden to get 70% of adults with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. However, it's coming in the midst of a surge of cases nationwide. Right now, 47 states, including Michigan, are categorized as "high or substantial" community transmission. Five states are in such bad shape, they accounted for nearly half the new cases across the country last week. Dr. Teena Chopra, a professor of infectious diseases at Wayne State University, said the delta variant of COVID-19 is spreading fast, and the viral load is 1,000 times than that of the original virus. "We need to keep moving forward and we need to move forward with our vaccinations rates faster than before because we don't want to give this virus a chance to win," Chopra said. As of Monday, 33 of Michigan's 83 counties – including Oakland, Macomb and Livingston – are considered to have substantial or high transmission rates. In these areas, the CDC advises both the vaccination and unvaccinated wear masks. Late last week, just 10 rural counties fit the CDC's criteria. Michigan health officials are worried that if the virus keeps replicating, the next variant might escape vaccination. Beaumont Health System currently has 64 COVID-19 patients admitted – 3 of whom are vaccinated. That's .06% of patients having breakthrough cases. "It's a known fact that vaccinations are the only way out of his pandemic and when we have that tool in our tool box the community has to get vaccinated and help each other through those tough times," Chopra said.

Wayne State University has been awarded millions of dollars to study high blood pressure in Detroit residents. The new project will deploy mobile health clinics to Detroit neighborhoods over the next four years to better understand the factors that contribute to hypertension in residents. It's part of a $20 million initiative to better understand the health disparities between Black and White Americans. The plan is to identify health plans for residents with high blood pressure and help cultivate a personal regiment that will coach them toward a healthier lifestyle. Data collected from these plans will better help researchers understand what role environmental factors contribute in the overall health outcome of Detroiters. Wayne State will be using $2.6 million for the program. A professor of emergency medicine at Wayne State that is leading the program says access to health care, food insecurity, availability of healthy food, shelter, and exercise are all major factors in high blood pressure. "To achieve health equity, effective strategies must address negative (social determinants of health) that are root causes of racial disparities in health," said Dr. Phillip Levy. Levy said that while lifestyle changes could better improve the health outcomes for people with high blood pressure, implementing these changes has not been easy.

Wayne State University is incentivizing students to receive the COVID-19 vaccine by offering free laptops, bookstore vouchers, and even an entire semester of classes. From now through Aug. 29, students, faculty, and staff can submit proof that they have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine to be entered in a drawing. Prizes for students include $100 bookstore vouchers, $100 OneCard vouchers, a free semester of parking, laptops, a free semester of on-campus housing, and a free semester of classes. Prizes for faculty and staff include gift cards, TVs, laptops, and free parking. Wayne State has not mandated the COVID-19 vaccine for students and staff like some colleges have, including the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. However, the university said it is implementing a targeted mandate for students living in university housing for the fall 2021 semester.

As a child in St. Clair Shores, Jason McLellan, Ph.D., knew he wanted to help people. McLellan said he had always thought he’d be a doctor because he wanted to help people. At Wayne State University, he excelled at chemistry and organic chemistry, which aren’t subjects many gravitate toward, he said. “The professors took notice and asked me to work in their lab performing research in organic chemistry,” he said. “I loved it, working in the lab.” He enjoyed it so much that, after publishing his first paper in organic chemistry, he switched his major from pre-med. Taking a graduate-level biochemistry class, he realized that subject fascinated him, as well. In 2003, McLellan graduated from Wayne State University and headed to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for graduate school, where he joined a structural biology laboratory that determines three-dimensional structures of proteins and other biological molecules. It was that path that eventually led him to have an impact on the COVID-19 vaccines now being administered around the world. “I was trained in a technique called X-ray crystallography,” he said. He likened it to growing rock candy, but with crystalized proteins instead. Doing so enabled him and the other researchers to be able to three-dimensional print a protein to see what it looks like and learn how it functions. The design McLellan helped to develop was used in the vaccines created by Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax. He said they also worked with Eli Lilly to create the antibody treatment to treat COVID-19. His mother, Karen McLellan, said, “He always wanted to be a pediatrician, for as long as I can remember. It changed when he went to Wayne State. Some of the professors took him under his wing, got him into his labs there. That started him on his trajectory.”

COVID-19 overshadowed the opioid crisis in Michigan last year, but newly released data suggests the pandemic may have helped fuel an increase in drug deaths. Drug overdose deaths in 2020 climbed 16 percent in Michigan over the previous year — reaching an all-time high of 2,743 deaths, according to preliminary data released this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationally, there were more than 93,000 drug deaths last year, a 30-percent jump. Experts attribute the spike to the isolation and strangeness of a pandemic that ground down the mental health of so many, but especially those who fought addiction. “Isolation, loss of job insecurity — all of those things are big-time stressors for anybody,” said Dr. Andrew King, an addiction specialist with the Wayne State University’s physicians group and an emergency room doctor at Detroit Medical Center’s Receiving Hospital. “People with substance use disorder in particular, might be at a higher risk of returning to use, potentially overdosing,” he said. The synthetic opioid (fentanyl), which is 50 times or more powerful than morphine, was found in 72 percent of the drug-overdose cases, or 208 cases. In the previous two years, it was present in about half of the overdose cases. “Any hit of heroin is like playing Russian roulette. It's potentially deadly,” said King, the Detroit emergency room doctor. “It's very rare now for me to see any patient who has not been exposed to fentanyl. Fentanyl is almost ubiquitous.” And because people were less likely to be with loved ones or friends during the pandemic, they were less likely to have someone close when they overdosed to administer naloxone, an emergency medication that’s used to reverse opioid overdoses. King tells patients that, if they’re going to use, be with someone with naloxone. “But in the case of the pandemic, if people are more isolated and not socializing, then sometimes it can be too late,” he said.

As COVID cases drop in the U.S. and vaccinations increase, many companies are bringing their employees back to office buildings. And lots of those workers are worried: Will shared spaces remain safe as restrictions are lifted and viral variants spread? Can businesses require all employees to be vaccinated? What office and building features best minimize risk? If you’re vaccinated, you can return to work as normal (mostly). The most effective way to reduce the spread of the coronavirus at work is to make sure that everyone in the shared space is vaccinated. Current guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specify that fully vaccinated people (those who are two weeks past their final vaccine dose) no longer need to wear a mask or practice physical distancing in most situations, including most office workplaces. COVID vaccines are highly effective at preventing infection and illness, so once you are fully vaccinated, “it doesn’t really matter what the vaccine status is of those around you,” says Gretchen Snoeyenbos Newman, an infectious disease physician at Wayne State University. If you’re returning to a workplace where some of your co-workers are unwilling or unable to get vaccinated or to wear a mask, the best protection you have is getting immunized yourself, she says.

The Office of Women’s Health at Wayne State University, in partnership with the Wayne Health Mobile Unit program, will introduce Well-Woman Wednesdays, bringing free mobile health screenings and health education to the community at a variety of locations beginning July 14. The first Well-Woman Wednesday will take place from 2 to 6 p.m. at the headquarters of Alternatives for Girls. The project seeks to educate and empower women to achieve better health by providing them with screening, resources and connections to health care providers on their journey to improved wellness. “With Well-Woman Wednesdays, the Wayne State University Office of Women’s Health aims to expand health care to vulnerable communities impacted most by health disparities and lack of access to health care, thus improving the health of women overall,” said Sonia Hassan, M.D., associate vice president and founder of the Office of Women’s Health and a professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Wayne State University. “The development of a women-focused mobile health unit aiming to improve health literacy and provide reliable methods and resources for the establishment and pursuit of care will improve accessibility of health care to women and eventually narrow the gap in health disparities.” The Wayne Health Mobile Unit program began in April 2020, bringing COVID-19 testing, and later vaccinations, to tens of thousands of people across Michigan. “This latest project is an extension of our initial testing and vaccination efforts,” said Phillip Levy, M.D., M.P.H., a WSU professor of Emergency Medicine and chief innovation officer for Wayne Health. “It makes perfect sense to expand the array of health care and health care education services that our mobile units can provide for communities, assisting people in the comfort of their own surroundings.”

Cases of influenza plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with one Detroit health system having a zero percent positivity rate for the virus, a new study finds. Researchers from Wayne State University looked at data from the Detroit Medical Center for the 2019-20 and the 2020-21 flu seasons. They found that every single one of the 6,830 tests administered for adults, and the 1,441 for children came back negative for Influenza A and Influenza B during the 2020-21 (September 2021 to February 2021) flu season. There were also zero positive tests for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in adults - out of 6,822 - and one for children among 1,404 tests. The findings add to the wealth of existing information that shows social distancing and mask mandates put in place to protect from COVID-19 were effective in combatting the flu. Researchers expect cases of the flu to return to normal levels now, though, as many COVID precautions are dropped around the country. 'It is likely that the number of cases of flu and other respiratory infections will rise back to normal in the coming years as SARS-CoV-2 becomes a seasonal virus,' said Siri Sarvepalli, a member of the research team at Wayne State. 'However, if handwashing and other mitigating measures are followed to the same extent as last winter, numbers could instead remain lower than usual.'  The team will present its findings at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases this week. 

Wayne State University and Henry Ford Health System announced today the launch of a basic and translational research initiative in Cardiometabolic Health and Disease as a thematic focus for program growth. The Integrated Research and Development Initiative in Cardiometabolic Health and Disease will focus on program strengths at both institutions that directly addresses health issues of cardiac disease, hypertension, diabetes, obesity metabolism and kidney disease that are of particular relevance for the broad communities that the two institutions serve. “We are excited and pleased to be bringing our two institutions together to better serve our community’s cardiovascular needs,” said Mark E. Schweitzer, M.D., dean of the Wayne State University School of Medicine. “Heart disease is the leading cause of death in Michigan, and by joining forces with the excellent team at Henry Ford Health System, we aim to reverse this trend.”

A research team at Wayne State University led by Ashis Mukhopadhyay, associate professor of physics and astronomy in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, received a three-year, $326,226 grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate fundamental issues related to the passage of viruses through the mucus barrier. The project, "Transport of Virus-like Nanoparticles through Mucus," will use Mukhopadhyay's expertise in polymers and nanoscience to develop model systems, which will lead to an improved understanding of how viruses interact and transmit through the mucus. According to Mukhopadhyay, when a virus lands on the respiratory tract surface, the first line of defense it faces is the mucus layer before it reaches the underlying cell, where the actual infection occurs.

A two-day virtual 2021 Child & Adolescent Behavioral Health Summit, held April 13-14, invited professionals and insiders to address critical topics related to mental health, wellness, substance use disorder and suicide prevention. The event was designed for clinicians, social service providers, educators, parents, and anyone who works with youth. “What is the worst stress you’ve experienced in your life?” This question can help mental health professionals get to the core of a patient’s distress. But, according to Dr. Arash Javanbakht, director of the Stress, Trauma and Anxiety Research Clinic (STARC) at Wayne State University, it often goes unasked. Javanbakht led a session on the role of trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during the summit. He explained that about 8 percent of Americans suffer from PTSD, described as an overgeneralization of fear, when memories are not where they belong in a person’s timeline. With PTSD, the brain reacts as if things are happening now, not as a memory. The brain is trained to be in a constant survival mode, making normal life nearly impossible to enjoy. Javanbakht said that diagnosing PTSD is not always a part of a children’s mental health professional’s training. “The two things you have to ask about are usually not volunteered: sex life and trauma,” he advises mental health professionals. “Trust is hard, especially when it comes to painful memories.” Javanbakht discussed different treatments for PTSD, including a variety of therapy options as well as medications. He said it’s important to see PTSD as a disease that can be treated.

Nonvictims can be affected harshly by mass shootings. In today's Academic Minute, Wayne State University's Arash Javanbakht determines that even those not hit can become afflicted. Dr. Javanbakht is an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Wayne State's School of Medicine. 

Pharmaceutical companies are already hard at work to make the next generation of vaccines for COVID-19 easier to administer, less invasive in some cases, and more effective against a wider range of illnesses. Pfizer and Moderna are already conducting trials to evaluate booster vaccines to protect against new variants, the results of which are expected later this year. “They have to be as good or better than the current vaccines that we have," said Dr. Paul Kilgore, an associate professor and the director of research in the Department of Pharmacy Practice within the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Wayne State University. Kilgore, who is also a senior investigator with Henry Ford Health System's Global Health Initiative, told Action News hitting that gold standard takes time. “The first approach is to develop an mRNA vaccine very similar in design to the original vaccine that Pfizer and Moderna have, but what they will have is a new sequence in the mRNA that corresponds to the new spike protein in the variant," he said. 

Michigan's 15 public universities are bracing for a potential change that would severely alter how state aid is divided up among them, with most schools expected to see increases at the expense of two of the state's top research institutions. The Michigan House of Representatives this month passed controversial legislation that would tie the annual appropriation for the state's public universities to the number of full-time Michigan students enrolled. The House plan does not include an increase in funding for higher education — unlike the 2% increase passed by the Senate and recommended by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Instead, it would keep the appropriation around $1.3 billion but shuffle how much each college gets while phasing the changes in over three years. Under the House plan, UM's Ann Arbor campus stands to lose the most: $39.5 million, or 12% of its state funding, in the first year and nearly $125 million over the first three years. Wayne State would lose $8.2 million, or 4% of its state aid, in the first year and nearly $29 million in three years. Both universities, respectively, educate a larger percentage of non-resident students. Michigan would become the only state in the nation to use resident enrollment as the sole basis for state funding, said Britany Affolter-Caine, executive director of the University Research Corridor, an alliance of UM, WSU and MSU that promotes research as a driver of the state's economy. Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson said a cut of $28.6 million over three years would dramatically impact tuition and services at the urban research institution where 2,135 of the 24,155 enrolled students are not from Michigan. The proposed funding change is a similar mechanism that is used to fund K-12 education in Michigan, which pays a set amount per student to schools each year, but it costs more to educate graduate and professional students, Wilson said. Some universities can put 300 undergraduate students into one lecture hall whereas a medical school class may not have that many. "There is a difference of scale here," Wilson said. "There needs to be a more sophisticated mechanism that better recognizes the unique missions of the 15 public universities in Michigan." Wilson added there is an underappreciation of research universities' contributions to the state's economy and residents' health and wellbeing. "Michigan has not historically appreciated the value of research," Wilson said. "There is a huge (investment) return on research. ... Research has a multiplier effect. The kind of technologies that come out of research universities: the life-saving discoveries and the improved quality of life is also really important. It's not just the financial benefit."

Despite CDC recommendations, one Michigan University is mandating masks to be worn inside. Wayne State University says the school has no practical way of differentiating vaccinated and unvaccinated people. WSU also says it will not require masks to be worn outside of campus buildings. “We need to operate in a manner that protects the safety of every member of our campus community. Therefore, masks will still be required indoors on Wayne State’s campus. Mask wearing outdoors, regardless of vaccination status, will no longer be required. We do ask that people continue to exercise caution and avoid large outdoor gatherings if the vaccination status of all participants is uncertain,” said Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson. 

There has been a spike in fentanyl-related overdoses in two counties on the west side of the state, according to the Michigan Poison Center at Wayne State University. Cass and Van Buren counties are experiencing more overdoses related to the drug that is 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. So far, Southwest Michigan has had five overdoses this year, which is more than last year. Dr. Varun Vohra, a clinical toxicologist with the poison center, said Southeast Michigan, especially the Detroit area, has seen a lot of fentanyl in cocaine and heroin. "People are being exposed to potentially especially lethal concentrations of drugs, specifically fentanyl, which can be coproduced or co-formulated with other opioids or other drugs unbeknownst to the users," Vohra said. "If they get this highly potent spike of fentanyl in there it causes them to stop breathing and die." Vohra said that while all people cannot be stopped from using drugs, people who are using them should make sure they have a drug reversal medication, such as Narcan, nearby. "We know people will use these products and illicit recreational drugs, and they need to know the risks associated with that and have an antidote on hand or with them," Vohra said. "It would be a huge boom to mitigate these overdoses."

Wayne State University researchers have found that hospitalized COVID-19 patients who took statins regularly before they got sick were less likely to die from the disease or have severe infections. Statins, such as Lipitor, are most commonly prescribed to treat high cholesterol. But they have other roles, too. “They have anti-inflammatory properties and control the immune system at various levels,” said Dr. Prateek Lohia, an assistant professor of internal medicine at Wayne State. Lohia says clinicians had very little knowledge about COVID-19 when patients started filling hospitals in 2020, or how to treat it. He began reading scientific literature to see if any medications might help treat the novel coronavirus. He says studies had already been done on how statins might help people with other viral infections. “We found some observational studies that noted a significant decrease in mortality from influenza and community-acquired pneumonia,” Lohia says. The Wayne State team began its own observational study to see how statins might help COVID-19 patients in Detroit. They observed more than 1,000 patients at Detroit Receiving and Harper University hospitals. Lohia says about 45% of those observed had been taking statins at home. Their mean age was 65, most were Black and many had comorbidities known to increase the risk of severe infection and death from COVID-19. The researchers noticed that those who had been taking statins at home before they were admitted had a lower mortality rate and were less likely to suffer severe infections than those who had not. Lohia says dosage also made a difference. “Moderate and high doses did have an effect compared to patients who are taking low doses,” he says. The early results of the study are promising, but Lohia warns that more research is needed. “Ours was just an observational study, which shows association but does not point toward causation,” he says. “What is needed is a randomized controlled trial to provide the next level of evidence.”

African Americans again are dying at a disproportionate rate from COVID-19 in Michigan, as the gap widens between Black and white residents who have been vaccinated. In the past four weeks, African-American residents have comprised 19 percent — 295 of 1,560 deaths — of all COVID-19 deaths, despite making up 13.8 percent of the state population. The uptick comes as demand for the vaccines decreases. Statewide, some 27 percent of African Americans have at least one dose of the vaccine, compared to 40 percent for white residents, according to state data. And Detroit, where 78 percent of residents are African American, has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the state: About 33 percent among adults compared to 55 percent statewide. Experts say the return of the death disparities underscores that the vaccine saves lives. Detroit has gone to senior housing apartments and run clinics at churches and neighborhood centers in an attempt to get as many people as possible vaccinated. “If you make it easy for people they’re more likely to do what is needed to keep them healthy,” said Phillip Levy, an emergency room physician who heads the Population Health Outcomes and Information Exchange (Phoenix) program at Wayne State University. As a physician at Detroit Receiving Hospital, Levy said he saw the rising number of COVID-19 cases pour into the emergency room in recent months. “It’s very worrisome,” said Levy, who is also chief innovation officer for Wayne Health. And he’s aware of the low vaccination rate in Detroit. “That’s really scary. We’ve got to continue to press and press hard.” To help, Levy’s group has been taking its mobile health unit across the region, to neighborhoods in Detroit, Eastpointe and Pontiac and elsewhere to bring basic care as well as vaccines to areas where “social vulnerability” — higher poverty, more seniors, less health care access — is highest. He lauded efforts at local churches to bring the vaccines closer to where people live, to have it offered in settings where people may be more comfortable.