Office of Medical Communications

Can schools safely remain open or reopen during periods of significant community spread of COVID-19? According to predictions from a UVM model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the school setting, yes – if appropriate precautions are followed both in school and in the community.

UVM faculty members Andrea Villanti, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor of psychiatry, and William Copeland, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, have been named to a list of the world’s most influential researchers - the Highly Cited Researchers list is compiled and published annually by Clarivate Analytics.

An internationally recognized physician-scientist, Beth Kirkpatrick, M.D., has a decades-long history of leadership in the field of vaccine testing and development. In 2001, she launched the UVM Vaccine Testing Center (VTC), and since then, the VTC has grown to assume a prominent role in the development and evaluation of vaccines for globally important infectious diseases. The VTC has garnered support from the National Institutes of Health, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Defense, among others. Kirkpatrick is also principal investigator and director of UVM’s Translational Global Infectious Disease Research Center of Biomedical Research Excellence and Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.

University of Vermont Professor of Medicine Daniel Weiss, M.D., Ph.D., has been selected to receive one of the inaugural American Lung Association COVID-19 Action Initiative's COVID-19 and Respiratory Virus Research Award.

(NOVEMBER 6, 2020) James Hudziak, M.D., Director of the Vermont Center for Children, Youth and Families, creator and director of the UVM Wellness Environment (WE), and professor of psychiatry, was quoted in a National Geographic article, titled "Why Music Might be the Perfect Tool to Decrease Kids' Pandemic Stress."

The Larner College of Medicine hosted the fifth annual "Dean's Celebration of Excellence in Research" on November 4 and 5. The two-day event highlighted the research being conducted by junior faculty, senior faculty, postdoctoral trainees, and graduate students at the College.

The Larner College of Medicine lost one of its most steadfast and consequential supporters with the passing of Helen Moray Larner, wife of the late Robert Larner, M.D., on November 2, 2020.

A recent article in the New York Times, “This Addiction Treatment Works. Why Is It So Underused?” sought to examine why CM is not being implemented in treatment programs throughout the United States.

(OCTOBER 27, 2020) Professor of Psychiatry Richard Rawson, Ph.D., was quoted in a New York Times article, titled "This Addiction Treatment Works. Why Is It So Underused?"

The University of Vermont Medical Center and Vaccine Testing Center at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine have been selected to take part in a Phase 3 trial for a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and manufactured by AstraZeneca.

A JAMA Network Open study, led by Stephen T. Higgins, Ph.D., director of the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, provides evidence that, even in smokers from vulnerable populations, reducing nicotine content to low levels decreases addictiveness – a timely finding as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers a policy to lower nicotine content in all cigarettes sold in the U.S.

A JAMA Network Open study, led by Stephen T. Higgins, Ph.D., director of the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, provides evidence that, even in smokers from vulnerable populations, reducing nicotine content to low levels decreases addictiveness – a timely finding as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers a policy to lower nicotine content in all cigarettes sold in the U.S.

Organized by Black physicians and scientists in the United States and abroad, the #BlackInCardio movement celebrates Black researchers, clinicians, and professionals in cardiovascular fields and raises awareness of cardiovascular diseases that disproportionately effect the Black community. From October 19 - October 25, the new organization will host its first annual #BlackInCardio week.

Last week, we held the 8th Annual VCBH Conference virtually due to COVID19. This year’s theme, Rural Addiction and Health, “could not be timelier with the emergence of COVID-19 and the ripple effects we have seen, from health disparities to increased opioid overdoses and the use of telemedicine,“ noted VCBH Director Stephen T. Higgins in his welcome letter to attendees.

New research, published in Clinical and Translational Immunology by UVM Associate Professor Sean Diehl, Ph.D., and colleagues provides a clearer picture of the protective antibodies induced by the SARS-C0V-2 virus and their role in serious illness and what’s needed for full protection.

(OCTOBER 15, 2020) A MedPageToday article on the impact of pipette shortages on COVID-19 testing quotes Christina Wojewoda, M.D., associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine.

“Ensuring children are empowered and raised to become healthy, happy, productive members of our communities is one of the most important things we can do,” says assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine James Metz, M.D. “Child abuse needs to be brought out from the underbelly of society. It’s easy for people to say ‘the problem is too big; it’s too difficult; it’s too sad.’ But that’s when you need to step into a problem, not away from it.”

New research, published by scientists at the University of Vermont and Caltech in the journal Cell, has pinpointed three specific mechanisms that allow SARS-CoV-2 to incapacitate human cells by disabling the cell’s alarm system to call for help or warn nearby cells of infection.

Internationally recognized cerebral blood flow expert and University of Vermont Distinguished Professor and Chair of Pharmacology Mark Nelson, Ph.D., delivered a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture, titled “Translating Thought into Blood Flow in the Brain: Capillaries as Sensors of Neural Activity,” on October 14.