COVID-19 Activities

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Content last updated 8/14/20

Select Key Research Findings

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Content last updated 8/14/20

Larry Corey, Emily Ford, and Anton Sholukh published a sero-epidemiology study of SARS-CoV-2 in Blaine County, ID, with follow up analysis of humoral response to seasonal coronaviruses and functionality of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (a collaboration with Ketchum FD, University of Washington [UW] Virology and Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences).

Keith Jerome and Larry Corey conducted a population epidemiology study to characterize trends in PCR test positivity for SARS-CoV-2 in Washington (WA) State and the Seattle area before and after statewide physical distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders.

Keith Jerome 

• Has been developing and validating SARS-CoV-2 molecular assays, including evaluating different specimen types, sample stability, and robustness of a direct RT-qPCR assay that omits RNA extraction. See publications in Journal of Clinical Virology (Manuscripts 1, 2, 3, and 4), Journal of Clinical Microbiology (Manuscripts 1 and 2), and preprint in bioRxiv.
• Has been involved in designing and implementing a system to expedite SARS-CoV-2 screening of donors and recipients to support continued solid organ transplantation.
• Has characterized SARS-CoV-2 epidemiology in hospitalized patients, including: 1) the occurrence and timing of subsequent PCR positivity in initially negative patients, 2) identification of lower respiratory tract SARS-CoV-2 in patients with negative nasopharyngeal tests, and 3) SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in pregnant and postpartum patients. See also publications in the New England Journal of Medicine, Clinical Infectious Diseases and JAMA Internal Medicine.
• Is working on increasing capacity and speed of SARS-CoV-2 testing. Aims to validate and deliver faster tests (including STOPCovid test) that hospitals, doctor’s offices and pharmacies could use within minutes to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 infection, making testing more widely available and decreasing transmission.
• Has validated a highly sensitive, specific test (Abbott SARS-CoV-2) that detects antibodies in the blood of a person who may have had the virus, and used the assay to measure population-level antibody prevalence in Boise, Idaho. Now assessing in UW Medicine employees and across WA State.
• Has identified an inverse correlation of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies levels and viral load, and association of viral load at presentation with clinical outcome.

Keith Jerome and Amanda Casto have completed a comparative assessment of the sensitivities and specificities of SARS-CoV-2 molecular assays using different primer sets and one commercial assay kit.

Keith Jerome and Pavitra Roychoudhury

• Are involved in genomic epidemiology efforts, using genomic surveillance and phylogenetic analyses to reveal SARS-CoV-2 lineages and determine likely transmission patterns within communities and across the US. See publications in Science, Journal of Clinical Virology, and Cell.
• Have examined host responses to SARS-CoV-2 via RNAseq on nasopharyngeal swabs, revealing that the host response depends on viral load and infection time course, with observed differences due to age and sex that may contribute to disease severity.

Keith Jerome, Samuel Minot, and Pavitra Roychoudhury evaluated metagenomic approaches for unbiased detection of emerging pathogens including SARS-CoV-2.

Chikara Ogimi has reviewed current knowledge and recent discoveries on the virology, epidemiology and disease associated with common, community-acquired human coronaviruses and coronaviruses responsible for past epidemics in pediatrics and immunocompromised hosts.

Steve Pergam, Catherine Liu, and Keith Jerome investigated SARS-CoV-2 prevalence, clinical characteristics and outcomes in symptomatic Seattle-area healthcare workers.

Josh Schiffer, Larry Corey, Anna Wald, and Josh Hill are pursuing early test-and-treat approaches to SARS-CoV-2 by developing a pipeline of randomized clinical trials, negotiating contract with pharma partners, and developing the Fred Hutchinson COVID CRC for early treatment trials of COVID-19. To date, they have formed the Planning and Implementation Committee for Gilead’s planned outpatient trial of remdesivir, published a review in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, are in negotiation for two industry-funded trials, have one investigator-initiated study in preparation with private funding secured, and the clinic site is nearly complete. With Shelly Karuna and Rachel Bender Ignacio.

Josh Schiffer, Fabian Cordozo Ojeda, and Dan Reeves developed a SARS CoV-2 transmission model that links observed viral shedding kinetics with key epidemiologic features of transmission, identifies viral loads necessary for SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and explains why super-spreader events are more common for SARS-CoV-2 than for influenza. With Ashish Goyal and Bryan Mayer.

Alpana Waghmare, Josh Schiffer, Michael Boeckh, Keith Jerome, Elizabeth Duke, and Dan Reeves demonstrated that self-sampling with mid-nasal foam swabs is well-tolerated and provides quantitative viral output concordant with mid-turbinate flocked swabs. Showed that nasal cytokine levels correlate and cluster according to immune cell of origin, and that periods of stable viral loads are followed by rapid elimination, which could be coupled with cytokine expansion and contraction using mathematical models. Studies are ongoing to determine the utility of the foam swab for SARS-CoV-2 testing at home.

Anna Wald, Elizabeth Duke and Amanda Casto are study investigators in the ACTT-1 NIH randomized controlled trial (RCT) of remdesivir for hospitalized patients, which assessed remdesivir for COVID-19 treatment in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and requiring supplemental oxygen therapy. Preliminary report.

Active and Pending Funding

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Content last updated 8/14/20

Michael Boeckh is leading The CovidWatch Study, funded by Amazon. A Longitudinal Observational Study To Determine SARS-Cov-2 Incidence, Asymptomatic And Symptomatic Infection, And Immune Correlates In Healthy Individuals With High Risk Of Exposure.

Josh Hill will serve as a PI of clinical trials for patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection who do not require hospitalization, using small molecule and cellular therapies to prevent disease progression.

Keith Jerome

• Paul G. Allen Family Foundation funded study that will use antibody testing to determine the percentage of Washingtonians who have been infected by COVID-19, and the prevalence of infection within certain populations.
•  MJ Murdock Charitable Trust. COVID-19 Point of Care Assay Evaluation. Aim to validate and deliver point-of-care COVID-19 diagnostic test for use in hospitals, doctors’ offices and pharmacies. This will accelerate testing, isolation and treatment of infected individuals, saving thousands of lives. Daniel Stone contributed to writing the proposal.
• COVID Supplement to R01. COVID-19 Point of Care Test Evaluation at the Center of Washington State Outbreak. This project seeks to establish the infrastructure required to perform evaluations of novel POC or near-POC tests for COVID-19 using SARS-CoV-2 positive reference samples obtained through the UW Virology clinical laboratory testing program.

Manoj Menon submitted a proposal to serve as a site of a clinical trial testing anticoagulation strategies for COVID-19. This funded trial is awaiting approval from the UW ITHS COVID-19 Research Review Working Group.

Steve Pergam. Vanderbilt U01 COVID supplement. Comparison of High vs. Standard Dose Flu Vaccine in Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant Recipients. Will retrospectively identify immunocompromised patients with prior COVID-19, and will prospectively enroll immunocompromised patients who had a proven or suspected COVID-19 infection or have had an exposure to SARS-COV-2.

Warren Phipps. Submitted response in July to NIH U54 funding opportunity to establish SARS-CoV-2 Serologic Sciences Centers of Excellence in East Africa as part of a multi-institutional collaboration among the Fred Hutch, University of Nebraska, Uganda Cancer Institute, and Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Tanzania.

Alpana Waghmare

• NIH/NIAID R01: Evaluation of viral and host response kinetics to respiratory viral infections, including SARS-CoV-2, early during infection in a prospective surveillance cohort and to identify specific cellular populations that are associated with severe disease in both peripheral blood and the lower respiratory tract.
• FH COVID-19 Pilot: Study to evaluate early transcriptomic signatures in COVID-19 using a home-based blood collection system.
• CDC BAA: Longitudinal assessment of immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 in children

Anna Wald

• UM1AI148573-01S1 from NIH/NIAID (with Helen Chu) for UW Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit (VTEU) - Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial. Participation in the NIH sponsored clinical trial of Remdesivir for treatment of COVID-19 infections conducted through VTEU sites.
• Funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for BMGF COVID-19 PEP Study (with Ruanne Barnabas), A randomized, open-label trial of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) using hydroxychloroquine in adults exposed to the virus to determine the safety, tolerability, and preventive efficacy of the drug.
• “A Pilot Study for Collection of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Immune Plasma,” Sponsor:  Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc.

Jia Zhu collaborated with researchers at UW School of Engineering to submit a RADx proposal on immunoresistive sensor for rapid, point-of-care screening of COVID-19.

Media Engagements, Outreach, and Community Involvement

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Content last updated 8/14/20

Michael Boeckh’s CovidWatch study was recently featured on the front page of The Seattle Times, “Fred Hutch Study Targets Front-line Workers Most at Risk from the Coronavirus.”

Amanda Casto was interviewed by a writer for UW Medicine for an article on clinician recommendations for the upcoming influenza season in the context of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Article to appear in UW Medicine patient publication Right as Rain.

Larry Corey

• In April, was appointed as a member on two of the working groups (the COVID Clinical Trial Capacity and the COVID Vaccines working groups) that make up the NIH-led Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) program. Led by an Executive Committee that includes the directors of NIH and NIAID, ACTIV is a public-private collaboration intended to streamline the processes of SARS-CoV-2 candidate vaccine development and testing, including serving as a centralized program for the harmonization of clinical trials and accelerated licensure and distribution of successful vaccine candidates and therapeutic modalities. A May 11^th news release summarized this effort, which has received widespread attention from a range of news organizations such as Reuters, Geekwire, and The ASCO Post.
• Will head the Hutch-based operations center for the COVID-19 Prevention Network (CoVPN), a collaboration formed by Anthony Fauci to manage multiple large-scale clinical trials of coronavirus vaccines including Moderna’s phase three COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial, which began on July 27. Dr. Corey discusses this effort in a June 4^th article on the Hutch News Stories webpage titled “Q&A: Dr. Larry Corey at the center of COVID-19 vaccine research” and has been very actively involved in keeping the public informed about CoVPN and the challenges and opportunities surrounding development of vaccines for COVID-19. Some engagements include interviews with ABC News for “As pressure for vaccine builds, regulators may face difficult decision,” The Washington Post for “Decades of research on an HIV vaccine boosts the bid for one against coronavirus,” McClatchy DC for “Will Trump’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’ rush the science of a coronavirus vaccine?” and Wired for “Let’s Say There’s a Covid-19 Vaccine—Who Gets It First? An immunization shot is still in development, but debate over who gets priority has already begun.” Other recent media engagements include quotes and interviews with NBC New York, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and KIRO 7.
• Spoke about his recent Science Policy Forum on COVID-19 co-authored with NIH/NIAID directors Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins and John Mascola on the podcast Long Run with Luke Timmerman
• CNN, GeekWire and Hutch News were among the media that covered Larry Corey and John Mascola’s discussion on COVID-19 vaccine development for Tom Lynch’s webinar “Vaccinating the World: Two Global Experts Explain What It Will Take to Succeed.”

Emily Ford and Danniel Zamora are part of a team of volunteers deployed to area nursing homes to provide SARS-CoV-2 testing to people in facilities with multiple confirmed COVID positive cases.

Keith Jerome

• The Seattle Times discussed his antibody study which will gauge the prevalence of COVID-19 in WA, in partnership with the WA Department of Health and funded by the Allen Family Foundation.
• Participated as a panelist speaker at a Life Science Washington webinar titled “Emerging from COVID-19: A Ground-Zero Perspective from the Washington Life Science Community.”
• Was quoted in a GeekWire article about how the rise in positive COVID-19 tests indicates a rise in infections rather than false positives.
• Was quoted by NBC News about the impact of testing delays on transmission or the need for self-quarantine in “COVID-19 tests: There's an insurmountable backlog of virus tests. A rapid test could help
• ”The Seattle Times discussed Keith Jerome and Larry Corey’s JAMA Network paper characterizing the Seattle COVID-19 outbreak, analyzing testing demographics, and quantifying viral load in COVID-19 patients.
• Hutch News covered a study by Keith Jerome, Samuel Minot, Pavitra Roychoudhury and collaborators that evaluated metagenomic approaches for unbiased detection of emerging pathogens including SARS-CoV-2.

Fellow Olivia Kates was quoted by KING 5 News in “Experts concerned coronavirus cases could rise with Seattle protests.”

Catherine Liu

• Was quoted in a Cancer Today article titled “Treating cancer patients with COVID-19: A New York City experience.”
• Was quoted in the HealthLeaders article “How cancer clinics can treat patients safely during the coronavirus pandemic.”
• Gave a podcast on “Best Practices for Drive-Thru COVID Screening” for Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC).
• Participated as a panelist in the forum “How Will We Bring Patients Back to the Clinic,” for the American Association for Cancer Research Virtual Meeting: COVID-19 and Cancer, July 20-22, 2020.

Catherine Liu and Steve Pergam

• Each gave a talk for the Washington State Medical Oncology Society Virtual Conference Series on COVID-19, on June 25, 2020.
• Gave a podcast on “Infection Prevention efforts to protect patients with cancer from COVID-19,” available on the SCCA Blog.

Steve Pergam has been very actively involved in keeping the public informed. Some engagements include talking to KUOW for “Coronavirus outbreak means tough decisions for cancer patients, physicians”, the Scientific American podcast “Coronavirus Hot Zone: Research and Responses in the U.S. Epicenter”, and KING 5 news for “The Do’s and Don’ts of Social Distancing.” He was featured in The Seattle Times article “The etiquette of social distancing in the time of coronavirus, from the 'Miss Manners' of germs” as well as GeekWire’s story “Infectious disease expert Steve Pergam shares his prescription for a safe weekend get-together.” Recently he was interviewed by NPR and Scripps National News about the importance and timing of flu vaccination in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other media engagements include quotes and interviews with the Wall Street Journal, USAToday, NPR, Forbes, Scripps National News, ESPN, Healio, ACCC, MedPage Today, CURE Today and Cancer Health magazines, The Cancer Letter, Poz, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, KOMO News, Q13 FOX News, Patient Worthy, Unravel Pediatric Cancer Podcast, CureTalks podcast, Uromigos podcast, MyNorthwest, Women’s Health Magazine, the SCCA blog and podcast, and Hutch News.

Warren Phipps

• Presented on “Cancer management during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa” as an invited speaker to the NIH National Cancer Institute Project ECHO Webinar on August 6, 2020.
• Presented on “Best Practices in Cancer Care in COVID-19 Era: Considerations for Adaptation to the Africa Region” as an invited speaker to the NIH National Cancer Institute Project ECHO Webinar on April 9, 2020.

Pavitra Roychoudhury

• Was quoted by the New York Times in an article about the use of genome sequencing and phylogenetic analyses to determine likely transmission patterns of SARS-CoV-2 in Seattle and throughout the US. Her work in this area has also been featured in the Timmerman Report, on KHSU public radio, on Boise State Public Radio, and in a University of Idaho alumni feature.
• Her work associated with the CDC’s Sequencing for Public Health Emergency Response, Epidemiology and Surveillance (SPHERES) project has been covered by DarkDaily, and she was quoted in a New York Times article about SPHERES.
• An article in Times of India quoted one of her tweets to support the viewpoint that it was premature to suggest higher virulence in an Indian strain of SARS-CoV-2, based on the limited genomic data at the time.

Josh Schiffer

• Interviewed for the NPR Podcast Innovation Hub in a piece titled "An Imperfect Toolkit for COVID-19" in which he discusses that holding out for a perfect solution for COVID-19 could be unwise, and the rapid and extensive use of a number of imperfect prevention and treatment methods is the key to turning the tide. He presents the benefits of some effective, although far from flawless, tools in the battle against COVID-19. 
• Has participated in six episodes of Joel Asks Fred Hutch, an Instagram Live COVID-19 Q&A series in which he and comedian Joel McHale discuss the latest efforts in the pandemic response. The episodes have collectively been viewed well over 400,000 times on Instagram.
• Was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal for “Why Fully Recovering from Coronavirus Might Take Longer than Expected.”
• Was quoted in the New Yorker article “How Does the Coronavirus Behave Inside a Patient?”, the NPR article “Without a Vaccine, Researchers Say, Herd Immunity May Never Be Achieved,” the New York Times article “Airlines say it’s safe to travel. But is it?”, the Guardian article “Can you catch coronavirus twice? What we know about Covid-19 so far” and the Axios articles “Pandemic science speeds up — but there are limits” and “More young people are getting — and spreading — the coronavirus.”
• Scientific article in Open Forum Infectious Diseases was discussed by Fox News in “COVID-19 must be treated earlier to save lives, scientists advise.”
• His pre-print article entitled “Wrong person, place and time: viral load and contact network structure predict SARS-CoV-2 transmission and super-spreading events” with Ashish Goyal, Daniel Reeves, Fabian Cardozo-Ojeda and Bryan Mayer has received extensive media attention including an article in the New York Times, appearances on the Today show and KOMO news, and will be featured in the Smithsonian.
• Consulting for the National Football League, Aegis Living, Explorer West Middle School, and Pac NW Soccer Club to assist with COVID-19 planning for the autumn.

Alpana Waghmare

• Was interviewed by CNN health, and quoted by The Scientist, about SARS-CoV-2 viral load in children, in relation to a recent study suggesting that young children may have higher viral loads than adults.
• Participated in a town hall by the ASTCT focused on current patient guidelines and practices for COVID-19.
• Was part of Seattle Children’s Online Grand Rounds on “COVID-19: The Seattle Children’s Experience.”

Anna Wald

• Appeared on KIRO 7 to discuss COVID-19 vaccine development, including the apparent limitations of the process followed in developing the Russian vaccine, the steps the FDA will mandate to ensure safety of any vaccine tested in the US, and which populations will be targeted for enrollment in COVID-19 vaccine trials in the US in order to benefit those most affected by the disease.
• Co-leading the COVID-19 Plasma Donation Study which was covered by King 5 News, the News Tribune and the UW Medicine Newsroom.

Danniel Zamora participated in the Northwest Hospital surge capacity response earlier this year by working in the medical ICU treating/caring for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients, and volunteered covering the hospital-wide UW Medical Center clinical COVID-19 pager answering and advising clinical questions regarding COVID-19 treatment and testing.