A new way to be protected from COVID-19 without the poke of a needle is being researched right here in Virginia. If you’ve ever gotten a flu shot at the doctor’s office, sometimes they’ll ask you if you want the shot or the spray. Intranasal vaccines have been used by health care professionals for more than a decade. Now, researchers at UVA Health are developing their own version of a spray — but this time for COVID-19.
Developing vaccines is faster and easier than ever before, and with mRNA platforms, the global medical community now has a body of resources to quickly respond to future pandemics. … It’s what many in the field know as a “universal vaccine,” or a treatment for all future variants of coronaviruses (the family of spherical, crown-shaped pathogens) that would allow manufacturers to build new vaccines for new viruses in a matter of days or hours. It’s a subject of massive research investment globally, with researchers at the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, ...
Virginia is still growing, although not nearly as fast as it did in the last decade. And that urban-rural divide everyone’s always talking about is growing wider. Shonel Sen at UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service says the projections from the summer of 2019 about those trends are now showing up in stark relief in new data from the 2020 Census. “So pretty much what we had anticipated is that given this pattern of regional population shares, we will see about 70% of the state’s population will reside in the three largest metro areas. And that is what the Census 2020 headcount also vali...
(Press release) On Sept. 28 at the IDEA2021 Annual Conference in Austin, Texas, IDEA presented the University of Virginia with the coveted 2021 IDEA Innovation Award for their submission, “Automated Chiller Tube Cleaning Improves Chilled Water Plant Efficiency.” The award was presented in person at the IDEA Networking and Recognition Lunch to Paul Zmick, Director of Energy and Utilities at UVA.
As director of Counseling and Psychological Services at UVA, Nicole Ruzek can see why so many students are in search of a therapist. “There’s been the pandemic, but even before that we were seeing students in a lot of distress,” she says. “Part of that may have to do with social media – kind of social comparison. Some of that could be due to climate change and maybe a perspective on the future that isn’t as bright as we would like it to be.” Issues of race or gender trouble others, and with a staff of about 25, Ruzek says UVA can’t supply prompt, in-person therapy to everyone who wants it. So ...
This week, SP Books, a press which primarily publishes manuscripts, will release facsimiles of the handwritten manuscript of “The Grapes of Wrath.” The manuscript, currently stored in the University of Virginia’s archives, reveals information previously unknown to casual readers about John Steinbeck’s writing process – as well as the word “slut” mysteriously written at the end of the manuscript.
(Commentary by Jack Hamilton, assistant professor of American studies and media studies) These days, to judge by the omnivorous listening enabled by Spotify and the stylistic free-for-alls of mega-festivals like Coachella, the genre boundaries that once defined popular music and its fandoms may be collapsing.
Staff members at the UVA Medical Center will be seeing their pay increase. According to a release, the center has committed more than $30 million in fiscal year 2022 to increase compensation in order to reward and retain team members who have served patients throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This will include market pay adjustments for much of the workforce at the medical center.
(Video and transcript) The report includes an interview with UVA President Jim Ryan, who discusses the University’s vaccine and mask mandates, as well as with undergraduate student Sarita Mehta and graduate student Tristan Baird.
Albert H. Small, real estate developer and philanthropist, who helped shape the residential housing and commercial building landscape across the Washington, DC metropolitan region, peacefully passed away on October 3, 2021, at his home in Bethesda, Maryland. He was less than two weeks shy of his 96th birthday. … As a civic-minded philanthropist, who sought to share his appreciation of American history with future generations, Mr. Small endeavored to donate his extensive collection of presidential documents (including an original Declaration of Independence) to the University of Virginia, where...
Chris Albright has been hired as the general manager of FC Cincinnati, ending a seven-year stint with the Union as its technical director. … A Philly native and Penn Charter grad, Albright excelled at the University of Virginia.
She met Phil Murphy at the University of Virginia, where she was studying English and communications.
National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins plans to step down by the end of the year after nearly three decades at the agency, including 12 years at the helm, the agency announced Tuesday. Raised on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley, Collins became fascinated by the emerging field of genetics after undergraduate studies in chemistry at the University of Virginia and graduate work at Yale.
(Subscription may be required) Some teenagers said they were glad the research was out, even if they were not sure what it would change. “The fact that Facebook knows is important,” said Claire Turney, 18, a freshman at the University of Virginia. “That they know that it is destructive and they continue to market it to teenage girls is a little messy in my opinion, but that’s capitalism.”
The current political environment may not lend itself to a strong showing for a Democrat in a special election, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at UVA’s Center for Politics. Unlike 2018, there’s a Democrat in the White House and growing frustration among Republicans. “I don’t think Democrats really view this seat as one that’s worth going all in on,” Kondik said.
(Subscription may be required) While both campaigns encourage people to get vaccinated, the distinction lies in whether to mandate the shot, as advocated by McAuliffe, or let those who don’t want it opt out, as promoted by Youngkin. J. Miles Coleman of UVA’s Center for Politics said the issue shows the candidates’ approach to reaching their respective bases while also, for Youngkin, towing a steady line to reach moderate and conservative voters.
To unpack the full story that was being told by this provocative setup, we must first explore the symbolism behind each individual image, starting with David. According to University of Virginia history professor Paul Barolsky, there was a longstanding tradition in Italy of revering the Biblical figure as the patria, a father to and protector of both society and culture. Aiming to depict him as a guardian, Michelangelo rendered David taller, more handsome, and more muscular than Bible passages suggested.
It’s not clear how the current strain will evolve in the coming months. UVA modeling, widely relied on by state officials, suggests the state could see another peak through the week of Oct. 17. More pessimistic projections suggest cases could rise steadily through the holiday season even as vaccination rates continue to increase.
As University of Virginia professor Jeffrey Zvengrowski has recently demonstrated in his magisterial “Jefferson Davis, Napoleonic France, and the Nature of Confederate Ideology, 1815-1870,” popular impressions of the Old South stem not from historical fact but from post-Civil War glorification of the Lost Cause and from Leftist criticism.
(Subscription may be required) More than a third of U.S. consumers allow Facebook to provide a primary view into the world outside their town. It’s having its effects. A new UVA survey released late last week found that more than half of Trump supporters (52%) and more than four in 10 (41%) Biden supporters agree (strongly or somewhat) that it’s “time to split the country.” Eighty percent of Biden voters and 84% of Trump voters view the other side as a “clear and present threat to American democracy.”