Participants Will Take COVID-19 Tests, Donate the Swab Samples for Study
02/15/2022
Contact for media: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu
LOWELL, Mass. – UMass Lowell is looking for individuals who think they may have COVID-19 to participate in clinical trials that will advance research about the disease.
Staff and students in the university’s Solomont School of Nursing are testing volunteers for COVID-19 and will ask to keep participants’ test swabs for further study. Participating individuals will learn whether they have tested positive or negative for the disease and their swabs will be stored by the National Institutes of Health’s Test Us Bank program, creating a supply of COVID-19 positive and negative samples for scientists to use in ongoing research to better understand the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants.
The stored samples may also be used to help gage the effectiveness of new devices and technologies being developed to diagnose COVID-19.
The project is part of the NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx®) Tech program, created in the spring of 2020 to help diagnostic device manufacturers develop accurate COVID-19 tests, some that can be performed at home and at points of care, such as doctors’ offices, clinics and pharmacies.
“Nursing is at the forefront of the pandemic. Being an active participant in assisting with the development of accurate devices is one of our roles as educators and leaders in the profession,” said UMass Lowell’s Ainat Koren, who is leading the project. UMass Lowell and UMass Chan Medical School are the NIH’s designated clinical sites for the RADx Tech program in the Bay State.
Study participants must be at least 18 years old. Those interested should call 978-934-4776 or email Covid19testusbank@uml.edu for more information or to make an appointment to be tested.
RADx Tech draws upon the expertise of five academic centers across the country, including the Center for Advancing Point of Care Technologies (CAPCaT), a partnership between UMass Lowell and UMass Chan Medical School that is a product of the institutions’ joint venture, the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2).
CAPCaT is led by UMass Lowell Prof. Bryan Buchholz, chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department, and at UMass Chan Medical School by David McManus, MD, the Richard M. Haidack Professor in Medicine and chair and professor of medicine. Koren serves on the CAPCaT review team and on the executive board of M2D2.
The project is made possible with federal funding from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, via grant 3 U54 HL143541-02S2.
About the RADx Tech Clinical Studies Core
A team led by David McManus, MD, the Richard M. Haidack Professor in Medicine and chair and professor of medicine, and Laura Gibson, MD, associate professor of medicine, was awarded $123 million in 2020 to oversee the clinical studies component of point-of-care and home-based diagnostics. The Clinical Studies Core has partner institutions across the country and is an arm of RADx Tech, the component of RADx that speeds development and production of innovative COVID-19 diagnostic technologies.
About UMass Lowell
UMass Lowell is a national research university offering its more than 18,000 students bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in business, education, engineering, fine arts, health, humanities, sciences and social sciences. UMass Lowell delivers high-quality educational programs and personal attention from leading faculty and staff, all of which prepare graduates to be leaders in their communities and around the globe. www.uml.edu
About UMass Chan Medical School
The UMass Chan Medical School, one of five campuses of the University of Massachusetts system, comprises the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing; a thriving research enterprise and an innovative public service initiative, Commonwealth Medicine. UMass Chan’s mission is to advance the health and wellness of our diverse communities throughout Massachusetts and across the world by leading and innovating in education, research, health care delivery and public service. In doing so, it has built a reputation as a world-class research institution and as a leader in primary care education, perennially ranked in the top 10 percent of medical schools for primary care by U.S. News and World Report. UMass Chan attracts more than $400 million annually in research funding, placing it among the top 50 medical schools in the nation. In 2021, the Medical School received a $175 million donation from The Morningside Foundation and was renamed the UMass Chan Medical School.