The Ohio State Office of Research gave nearly $204,000 in expedited funding for seven new COVID-19-related research. Credit: Courtesy of TNS
Seven new COVID-19-related research projects received nearly $204,000 in expedited funding from the Ohio State Office of Research.
The second round of COVID-19 Seed Fund projects, six of which were awarded April 17, address grade-school food insecurity, pandemic disinformation, virus detection, economic effects on Ohio agriculture, response-related infrastructure investment and the need for COVID-19 biological research samples, according to a Thursday news release. A seventh project, studying coronavirus vaccines in animal subjects, was awarded earlier this week, Dawn Larzelere, spokesperson for the Office of Research, said.
“Ohio State, with its multidisciplinary approach, is uniquely positioned to provide innovative solutions to combat the impacts of this global pandemic, and we want to do everything possible to support our outstanding researchers in these efforts,” Morley Stone, senior vice president for research, said in the release.
The first round of seed funding, which totaled $263,718 between six projects, was awarded April 8. The third and final round of projects will be awarded funding Friday, Larzelere said.
Joshua Hawley, director of the Ohio Education Research Center and associate professor of public affairs, is leading a project to develop a digital dashboard for the Ohio Department of Education to direct state resources for summertime school meal programs, according to the release. Larzelere said the project was awarded $18,500.
“Children experience unemployment with their families. As more people become unemployed, childhood health suffers because families cannot buy food,” Hawley said in the release. “The data tools will help the state build a strong basis for making data-informed decisions about targeting scarce assistance.”
Elizabeth Newton, director of the Ohio State Battelle Center for Science, Engineering and Public Policy, is examining the risks presented by disinformation related to COVID-19. The project was awarded $30,000.
Joseph Bednash, an assistant professor in the College of Medicine, is establishing a biorepository for COVID-19 and acute respiratory distress syndrome patient samples so researchers can examine differences in molecular response to the viruses and identify regulators that impact COVID-19 survival. The project was awarded $40,000.
Jacob Yount, associate professor of microbial infection and immunity, is working to develop COVID-19 detection methods using an animal model. The project was awarded $46,000.
Daniel Gingerich, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering, is creating a tool that will allow express assessment of social benefits from employment related to investment in infrastructure for energy and water systems. The project was awarded $4,396.
Yongyang Cai, an associate professor of agriculture, is forecasting the economic effects of COVID-19 on Ohio’s food and agriculture sectors through 2050. The project was awarded $30,000.
Scott Kenney, an assistant professor of veterinary medicine, was awarded $35,000 to test for a positive immune response to coronavirus vaccines in swine, Larzelere said.
Larzelere said the third round of funding, which will be awarded Friday, will be the last from the COVID-19 Seed Fund.
“Due to overwhelming demand and interest in the program, we have run out of money, which speaks to the excellence of our faculty and research community,” Larzelere said.
Editor’s note: Information about a project’s collaborating party, which was included in the initial university news release in violation of a nondisclosure agreement, was removed from this article to protect the party’s identity.
