Charlottesville resident Rob Grainger isn’t a public health official, but as a biology researcher at UVA, he can read scientific data, and he’s alarmed by the increase in COVID-19 cases in Charlottesville and Albemarle.
UVA law professor Kim Forde-Mazrui explained that the Supreme Court ruling directly protects people only against disparate treatment on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender status, though he said it seems likely that their reasoning opens the door to disparate impact claims on the basis of these categories, as well.
Researchers from the UVA School of Medicine are using blood tests to predict how the coronavirus can affect a person’s body. This discovery examines cytokines, which are proteins produced by immune cells, and the role they play in severe over-reactions by the immune system.
Professors and students at UVA’s Curry School of Education teamed with Charlottesville City School to open the city’s first Freedom School this summer. The free, virtual program is for third- through fifth-grade students in Charlottesville and Albemarle County public schools. Participating students will receive online instructions from Servant Leader Interns from the Curry School. They will also be given free books, supplies and meals, if needed.
The NFL has provided funding to four groups working to create safer helmets as part of the NFL Helmet Challenge initiative that launched in 2019, including the University of Virginia. A release from the league shows that they have distributed $1.37 million in grants to support the creation of prototype helmets by July 2021.
One afternoon in 1970, then-UVA student Charlie Papazian was lazing around his Charlottesville apartment, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, when a friend mentioned that he’d run into a neighbor, an “old-timer” in his early 70s, who’d learned to brew beer during Prohibition, and was apparently still making it, right there in his basement. “I remember going, ‘Wait, what the heck is homebrew?’ I had no idea such a thing was possible,” Papazian recalled.
Some scholars see the current waves of activism that sprouted primarily from the Black Lives Matter movement as a precursor to overdue structural reform. “The racial justice movement currently underway is unprecedented and can be considered a game-changer. The way many people look at the world has literally changed in weeks,” said Kevin K. Gaines, UVA’s Julian Bond Professor of Civil Rights and Social Justice.
There’s been a lot of buzz about antibodies and coronavirus. Should you get tested for them to see if you’ve had the virus and didn’t know? If you have antibodies in your system, are you basically in the clear? Dr. Eric Houpt, an infectious disease specialist at the UVA School of Medicine, digs into these questions.
A few months ago, Albemarle County Supervisors released a community survey with the help from the Center for Survey Research of UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Now, the results are in and painting a better picture of what people want the county to look like moving forward.
Nonprofits of all kinds are typically ineligible for government-backed small business loans, but the Trump administration made an exception in its COVID-19 relief efforts. Although sympathetic to the plight of religious institutions, some law and religion experts were disturbed by this policy move. By sending taxpayer money directly to churches, officials violated a generally accepted ban on funding religious activities, UVA Law professor Micah Schwartzman said.
(Audio of Rita Dove, a professor at the University of Virginia, Pulitzer Prize winner and a former U.S. Poet Laureate)
Dr. Cameron Webb could soon add “U.S. congressman” to his already impressive résumé. Last week, the 37-year-old internal medicine physician won the Democratic primary election in Virginia’s fifth congressional district. Alongside running a highly contested congressional campaign, Webb has also been conducting local COVID-19 testing at the UVA Medical Center.
(Commentary by Richard Schragger, Perre Bowen Professor of Law) The U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been at best fragmented and incomplete. At worst, it is incompetent and disastrous. Critics say the fault lies largely in the lack of a unified competent national response to the crisis, though some are thankful that states and cities have some independent authority, for at least it means that governors and mayors can act when the federal government fails to do so. The big picture, however, reveals a mostly dysfunctional federalism.
UVA researchers examined the reactions of gut microbes to medication and a patient’s ability to tolerate chemotherapy drugs and found different microbes react to the chemicals in different ways, including some generating toxins. That, they say, may explain why the same dose may work for one patient and make another sick.
This summer, about 500 UVA students will take part in the Propel program, working as consultants to start-up companies and small businesses in rural Virginia counties hurt by the pandemic.
(Editorial) Students at the UVA Career Center are helping real businesses. A new collaboration has been formed between the center and the Central Virginia Small Business Development Center. Called the Propel Management Consulting Program, it assigns students to help businesses transition more of their activities online.
University of Virginia’s College at Wise Chancellor Donna Henry announced June 18 that the school has the intention to move back to on-campus classes starting in the fall of 2020.
Yeardley Love was cherished by the Virginia lacrosse community for her fun-loving attitude and contagious energy. Earlier this month, a statue of the joyous Love was built outside the U.S. Lacrosse national headquarters in Maryland to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of her tragic death.
Each year since 2013, Carrie Heilman, a professor in UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce, asks students in her yearlong Promotions course to participate in a national competition of the American Advertising Federation. And, recently, a team of McIntire students won the competition, even amidst challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Starting on July 4, 24 teams will compete in a $1 million winner-take-all basketball tournament. Dubbed “The Basketball Tournament” and also known as “TBT,” the event will be fully quarantined and take place in Ohio. Originally, UVA alumni planned to form a team to compete in the event. It would’ve been the first UVA alumni team to participate in the competition, which began in 2014. Due to COVID-19, the Cavaliers’ squad dropped out at the beginning of the month.