By: Laura Aronoff, ORT Times Writer
We are inundated with new information about COVID-19 from many sources, both reputable and less reliable. New papers are published on a daily basis, from clinical case reports to basic studies about viral structure and activity. To ensure research is published in a timely manner and reaches a wide audience, many papers are released in pre-print and are made open access for everyone. It can be difficult to keep up with all the new research and sift through what is of interest and relevance to you.
Library and information services staff at UHN are here to help sort through the vast amounts of information and sensational reports. They have created a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)-style webpage answering questions about COVID-19 based on the most recent scientific evidence. They have also developed the Science of COVID-19 Portal which contains summarized, straightforward COVID-19 information divided into sections relevant to those in clinical, research and leadership roles. These resources contain reliable, current, summarized information with citations linking to the original studies for further reading.
We are not the only researchers curating literature on COVID-19. Nicolas Fernandez, a computational scientist from the Human Immune Monitoring Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, NY, created a virtual notebook which sorts through publications. This notebook is updated frequently and incorporates preprints from bioRxiv and medRxiv into a searchable database. The interactive database also scores papers based on their relevance, offering a valuable tool to help sort through the available research and help locate the content of interest to the reader.
Research around COVID-19 is still emerging, with many unknowns. Scientists and clinicians at UHN are working on a wide range of clinical and non-clinical research studies. All of the ongoing COVID-19 research at UHN is compiled in one place, which includes details about each study, the lead investigators, facilities available at UHN to support COVID-19 research and opportunities for collaboration. Most of the studies are currently clinical, consisting of COVID-19 clinical trials, and diagnostic, epidemiological and policy studies. Non-clinical trials include tracking viral mutations and predicting potential therapeutic targets to treat COVID-19 through the use of whole-genome sequencing, single-cell RNA-sequencing and machine learning.
Many studies are focused on patient and community heath; however, the RESPECT study (Research Platform to Screen and Protect Healthcare Workers) led by Dr. Deepali Kumar at UHN focuses on the health of frontline workers. The goal of RESPECT is to improve and accelerate testing and tracking of COVID-19 infections in asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic healthcare workers. This study was also recently highlighted here.
As the country, provinces and institutions look forward and address the challenges of returning to work, detecting and treating infections and keeping everyone safe is of paramount concern. Scientists and clinicians around the world and here at UHN are working together to better understand COVID-19 to help us move forward.