Leading the charge against COVID-19

The University of Illinois System is leading the charge in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic—from innovative testing solutions, to clinical trials for vaccines and treatments, to pioneering new research and innovations, to providing resources and assistance for our communities, and more.

Kate Clancy from UIUC and a colleague are launching a study on the COVID vaccine and the relationship to the menstrual cycle after experiencing unusual side effects.

Shield T3, a spin out of the U of I System’s Discovery Partners Institute, is now providing vending machines stocked with more than 300 of its saliva-based, PCR tests for COVID-19. 

UI Health teams have worked together to plan, develop, and launch four COVID-19 triage and testing sites at various locations to help manage the flow and influx of patients with COVID-19 symptoms and exposure.

Katrine Wallace, known as "Dr. Kat," is a UIC epidemiologist who is also a TikTok influencer. She has been using her platform to dispell myths and provide facts about COVID-19 and vaccines.

With funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Prevention Research Centers, the UIC School of Public Health is launching a project to better understand the multi-faceted causes of vaccine hesitancy across different communities and the best interventions to improve vaccine confidence and uptake. 

Researchers in Urbana-Champaign have developed a simple, fast, cost-efficient COVID-19 testing system. The test demonstrates great potential for wide applications in diverse working environments.

A clinic at UI Health is now supporting patients who experience ongoing symptoms weeks and months after having COVID-19, a condition often referred to as “Long COVID.”

Maurice Shaw, pharmicist and instructor for the UIC College of Pharmacy, signed on to give out vaccines on weekends in addition to his full-time job, after receiving a flurry of pitches for help. (New York Times)

The University of Illinois Chicago will participate in a National Institutes of Health phase two clinical trial evaluating additional COVID-19 booster shots for adults.

The Mapping COVID-19 Recovery Project is the collaborative effort of 25 major Chicago foundations, nonprofit organizations, and public and private groups, including the Field Foundation of Illinois, the MacArthur Foundation, the city’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

A team at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign is investigating how misinformation about COVID-19 spreads in rural areas of the state.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago are offering free rapid diagnostic testing for COVID-19 in vulnerable Chicago communities and performing genomic sequencing on the samples to identify variants as part of a National Institutes of Health-funded initiative called RADx-UP.

Junghwan Kim, a graduate student in geography and geographic information science at UIUC, co-led a study of people’s attitudes toward sharing their geographic data with public health officials.   

UI Health is administering vaccinations to patients and some members of the public on the UIC campus by appointment.

Jay Walsh, U of I System interim VP of economic development and innovation, and Peter Schiffer, Frederick W. Beinecke professor of applied physics at Yale University, write about the value of America's government-university research partnership in an op-ed in The Hill.

University of Illinois System President Tim Killeen on Thursday recognized the thousands of staff, faculty and students whose efforts made the challenging 2020-21 academic year not only possible at the three system universities but a model of success.

According to a new study by UIC researchers, approximately 3 in 20 health care workers surveyed reported being hesitant about getting their COVID-19 vaccinations. 

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign electrical and computer engineering professor Lav Varshney is a co-author of a new study that explores how social capital influences choices regarding COVID-19 mitigation compliance.

University of Illinois at Chicago associate professor Rachel Poretsky is doing sewage surveillance through the University of Illinois’ Discovery Partners Institute. Poretsky is co-leading a team with computer scientist Charlie Catlett that’s using Chicago wastewater to identify viral hot spots.

An Urbana-Champaign bioengineering graduate student has co-developed a rapid, ultrasensitive test using a paper-based electrochemical sensor that can detect the presence of the virus in less than five minutes. 

Several UIC faculty are members of the Chicago Scientific COVID-19 Vaccine Work Group. This group, convened by the Chicago Department of Public Health, is tasked with independently evaluating whether or not the proper scientific and regulatory review has taken place for authorizing emergency use for COVID-19 vaccines.

The University of Illinois Springfield Innovation Hub and UIS Center for State Policy and Leadership will host a free public COVID-19 webinar titled “Getting our Lives Back: The Opportunities that Lie Ahead” at Noon Friday, March 12 via Zoom.

OSF HealthCare announced a new partnership with the University of Illinois Tuesday that will expand the U of I’s saliva-based COVID-19 test into the broader Champaign-Urbana community.

The Sangamon County historical society teamed up with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the University of Illinois Springfield, and the Illinois State Museum to document the history of the pandemic.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health, clinicians at UI Health have been conducting a study with digital-medicine startup PhysIQ to do remote monitoring of COVID-19 patients. 

According to a UIC study, adding a small amount of hydrogen peroxide to the water in ultrasonic scalers used to clean teeth can help mitigate the risk of spreading airborne diseases, including COVID-19, in clinical dental environments. 

The Discovery Partners Institute, part of the University of Illinois System, and the Chicago Department of Public Health have announced the citywide system to monitor the virus that causes COVID-19 and its variants in wastewater will continue for two years, leveraging $2.14 million in federal funding.

Researchers discovered that employing social media posts as a means of visual nudging to encourage safe behaviors significantly impacts COVID-19 positivity rates. This effect remains evident even after accounting for various organizational characteristics and disease dynamics at multiple levels. 

In a new paper, researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago report that a drug approved for treating patients with autoimmune disease helped to prevent lung damage and death in mice infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19 in humans.

The University of Illinois System, SHIELD Illinois and Shield T3 are featured in a Wall Street Journal Story about how COVID-19 testing could remain a key component for resuming normal life in the U.S.

A new resource is available to help guide teachers and school administrators as they reopen schools amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, assembled by researchers and experts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 

A new study led by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago has found that Chicago neighborhoods with barriers to social distancing, including limited access to broadband internet and low rates of health insurance, had more COVID-19 deaths in spring 2020. 

Could an analysis of ducks’ antibodies help engineer new therapeutics for humans, and potentially develop tools to fight the next pandemic? A team including many UIUC scientists has been tasked with finding out.

A new University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign study shows that it is possible to use the genetic sequences of a person’s antibodies to predict what pathogens those antibodies will target. 

To help ensure schools can more safely resume in-person learning, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) announced it is expanding access to no-cost and low-cost COVID-19 testing to elementary schools across Illinois.  Schools can choose to utilize the saliva-based covidSHIELD test developed by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 

The University of Illinois Springfield hosted a Community Health webinar: "Back to School During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Delta Variant, the Policy Response, and Our School Nurses on the Front LInes."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $1,000,000 in research grant funding to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to improve wastewater monitoring to rapidly detect the emergence and spread of infectious disease in the current COVID-19 pandemic, and to detect other pathogens that could cause future pandemics.

The University of Illinois Springfield Innovation Hub, the UIS Center for State Policy and Leadership and the Community Health Roundtable will host a free public webinar titled “The Lasting Effects of COVID-19 on Patients, the Health Care System and the World."

Atmospheric scientists at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign emphasize that the drop in carbon dioxide emissions during the pandemic needs more effort to be sustained.

Students, faculty members and staff in Urbana-Champaign who are asked to quarantine after COVID-19 exposure or a positive test now have the opportunity to participate in a study that will help inform the national effort to manage the pandemic.

A new paper from a UIC researcher shows evidence that suggests sex steroids may play a role in protecting against COVID-19 symptoms.

Five front-line medical workers, including UI Health's Dr. Marina Del Rios, received the vaccine against COVID-19 in Chicago on Tuesday, December 15, marking an important milestone in the fight against the coronavirus.

The Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) announced today a new website that tracks the levels of COVID-19 in wastewater samples in Chicago and other cities across Illinois.

U.S. counties with higher income inequality faced higher rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the first 200 days of the pandemic, according to a new study led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Tim Liao.

UI Health employees that have had COVID-19 are part of a clinical trial of a new remote monitoring system designed to catch worsening symptoms before it is too late.

Korinta Maldano and the Maya Interpreters Collective have been working to create public health messaging in one of the primary Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala.

The Grainger College of Engineering at UIUC has completed the prototype for a mobile laboratory designed to demonstrate a way to rapidly deploy the saliva-based test for COVID-19 developed at the university.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago conducted an online survey of 501 adults with asthma to better understand the extent of, and the problems related to, mask use in the era of COVID-19. 

William Sullivan, a professor of landscape architecture at UIUC, led the team that developed the Safer Illinois app. Since 1992, he said his focus at the university has been on how to create healthier cities. 

A study by a University of Illinois Chicago pediatric dentist has shown a novel way to track potential COVID-19 cases — testing children who visit the dentist. The study also showed an over 2% positivity rate for the asymptomatic children tested.