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UK College of Medicine researchers are using the special antibodies made by alpacas, called nanobodies, to help understand the novel coronavirus and potentially develop a treatment that could protect people from being infected. 

Known as Serologic Testing to Accelerate Recovery and Transition (START), the study focuses on antibody testing to begin understanding how many people in the region may have already contracted and recovered from COVID-19.

UK researchers across many disciplines are addressing COVID-19’s medical challenges and beyond — including developing new PPE materials, designing testing and diagnostic equipment, and examining the wider societal, economic and legal implications of the pandemic.

The study seeks to answer how sectors of local and regional food systems are responding to COVID-19, what successful adaptations have been implemented, what obstacles the various arms of local food systems have encountered and the economic and value-chain impacts.

Researchers at UK are exploring the use of an antiseptic nasal spray and gargle to prevent transmission and infection of the virus among healthcare workers and non-COVID patients.

A new pilot funding program for multidisciplinary COVID-19 research at the University of Kentucky has launched in record time and funded 12 pilot projects in as many weeks.

“The virus is about 120 nanometers in size — in the world of membranes, that's large. Even more so, it's not going to come as a virus by itself, flying in the air. It's going to come in the saliva, so it's going to be a much larger particle. A large particle is just not going through (this filter).”

Public Health Dean Donna Arnett is a panel participant for the ASPPH Virtual Annual Meeting, focused on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our results suggest that light measures don’t work, and strong measures do," said Charles Courtemanche.

For the RAPID project, the team will create a membrane mask and other flat sheet materials with a more porous and spongy structure that will include charged domain and enzymes, which would capture and effectively deactivate SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.