COVID-19 Projects

COVID-19 Projects

UCSF Anesthesia Researchers Collaborators Project Name Project Description
Andrea Olmos, Catherine Chen Global project leads: Kariem El-Boghdadly, Danny Wong, and Imran Ahmad (Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital in London); U.S. project lead: Mark Neuman (UPenn) IntubateCOVID: https://www.intubatecovid.org/info IntubateCOVID is a global provider registry and quality improvement project developed to track occupational exposures and health outcomes for healthcare providers performing or assisting with airway management procedures in patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 illness. The goal is to generate large-scale data on the association between airway management and COVID-19 transmission that will help improve the clinical processes in place to protect providers and reduce the incidence of workplace transmitted disease.
Art  Wallace  Anusha Badathala, Rafael Gomez-Sjoberg (CZ Biohub) Alarm System for Non-Standard Ventilators during COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a need for dramatic increase in the need for ventilators. Non-standard ventilators that do not have alarms may be needed. This project developed an alarm system for non-standard ventilators that provides disconnect, high pressure alarms. This alarm system is not FDA approved and the IRB application was filed to allow use of non-FDA approved alarm systems for compassionate use during a pandemic. Standard FDA approved ventilators will be used when available. Non-standard ventilators will only be used when FDA approved ventilators are not available.
Art Wallace  Piera Cirillo, Eileen Johnson, Barbara Cohn Role of ACE2 receptors in COVID-19 ARDS This is an epidemiologic analysis of patients with COVID-19 ARDS examining the role of ACE-I and ARB medications in the risks of mortality. The primary questions is how should patients on ARB or ACE-I be managed. Chinese, Italian, and VA electronic health records will be examined.
Art Wallace   Alexis Dang, Alan Dang (UCSF) 3D Printing for Emergency Response during COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed problems with supply chains for medical supplies. This project utilizes 3D printing to produce medical equipment that are impossible to obtain. We have produced PPE (personal protective equipment), and glidescope handles using 3D printing. We also are working to produce ventilator parts and ventilators based on 3D manufacturing.
David Robinowitz, Jeffrey Sall  Prabal Dutta, Robert Pilawa-Podgursky (UC Berkeley) UC Open PAPR Project Development and production of a low cost easily sourced PAPR device for use in a medical setting. 
Jae-Woo Lee Michael Chan (University of Hong Kong) Therapeutic Use of High Molecular Weight Hyaluronic Acid for Severe Pneumonia From SARS CoV-2 A large number of viruses, including many human pathogens, bind cell-surface glycans (i.e., carbohydrates) such as hyaluronic acid during the initial steps of infection which is critical for pathogenicity. We propose to test the therapeutic use of exogenous hyaluronic acid, an inexpensive nonimmunogenic biological therapy already in clinical use, to bind to SARS CoV-2 and prevent its interaction and incorporation into target alveolar epithelial cells in the lung.
Mervyn Maze, Shantel Weinsheimer, Sarah Saxena, Jeffrey Nelson Lauren Meyer, Andres Alvarez Pinzon (UCSF) Improving outcomes in mechanically-ventilated COVID-19 patients with hyperinflammatory response Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) has emerged as the most common cause of mortality in patients with COVID-19. Previous non-COVID-19 studies have demonstrated that patients with a hyperinflammatory subtype of ARDS have worse clinical outcomes, and emerging studies in patients with COVID-19 have revealed that a significant percentage of patients are developing severe hyperinflammation resembling a syndrome known as secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (sHLH). We hypothesize that, in COVID-19 positive patients with ARDS who require intubation and mechanical ventilation, those who receive dexmedetomidine as part of their sedation regimen will have improved outcomes, and that this effect will be most pronounced in the subset of patients with hyperinflammation owing to the inflammation-resolving properties of dexmedetomidine.
Philip Bickler   Analysis of RNA-Seq libraries from human skin fibroblasts to correlate age-dependent RNA expression to COVID-19-gene products. This project will help explain age-dependent susceptibility to COVID disease morbidity and mortality.
Philip Bickler Industry collaboration Development of pulse oximeters for rapid deployment for community hypoxia monitoring in COVID-19 patients or COVID-19 at-risk patients.  
Philip Bickler   Re-purposing of varespladib, a PLA2 inhibitor as an anti-inflammatory agent in COVID-19 disease.  
Philip Kurien, Roland Bainton, Benn Lancman, Won Lee, Michael Lipnick   Ralph Wong, Juan Carlos Montoy (UCSF) A Validation Study of in vitro immunochromatographic assay for rapid screening and diagnosisof severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Many companies are now developing point of care lateral flow immunochromatographic assays for rapid screening and diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2. Yet, there is a lack of cross-validation of these PoC kits. We are performing an initial validation study looking at several commercially available kits to determine their sensitivity and specificity against detecting serum antibodies (IgG/IgM) against SARS-CoV-2. 
Romain Pirracchio, Matthieu Legrand, Andrew Bishara, Catherine Chiu Thomas Peterson, Dmytro Lituiev, Lauren Eyler, Nick Fong (UCSF), Alan Hubbard, Rachael Phillips (UC Berkeley) Leveraging Electronic Health Records to Develop Electronic Triage Tools for COVID-19 Patients We are gathering data from multiple institutions around the world to use machine learning tools to build triage and prediction models for improving resource allocation and patient care.
Ronald George Multiple universities The SOAP COVID-19 Delivery Registry The purpose of this study is to conduct a national multicenter, retrospective medical record review. This study will evaluate treatment strategies and outcomes of pregnant women with COVID-19.