Since our last issue, Yale’s Infectious Diseases clinicians, researchers, educators, and staff have been busy supporting various initiatives in the United States and beyond.In this issue, we highlight our work on COVID-19’s effects on the brain; how the learnings from COVID-19 vaccine creation can be utilized for other diseases; and the efforts of many section faculty in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Internally, our faculty have been busy with implementation science work in Kuala Lumpur and HIV prevention in Ukraine.
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Sincerely,
Erol Fikrig, MD
Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases), and Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases), and of Microbial Pathogenesis
Section Chief, Infectious Diseases
Yale Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine
As the summer season of 2020 peaked, amidst a swelling pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, a team of physicians and staff within the Yale Department of Internal Medicine’s Section of Infectious Diseases banded together with university historians and experts from the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning to create a space to address diversity, equity, and anti-racism. Initially spearheaded by Lydia Aoun-Barakat, MD, associate professor of medicine (infectious diseases), and Gerald Friedland, MD, professor emeritus (infectious diseases), the section established the Infectious Diseases Diversity, Equity, and Antiracism (ID2EA) consortium, which aims to address systemic racism, promote diversity, and promote equity within the infectious disease...
Two Yale labs will lead projects, in collaboration with other leading universities, tasked with developing new approaches to understand and combat pathogens.
Yale Department of Internal Medicine’s Section of Infectious Diseases was recently awarded two grants from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research to better support older patients with HIV in Ukraine.
Faculty members from the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) and Yale School of Medicine (YSM) recently joined an interdisciplinary group of students and researchers in Kuala Lumpur for a summer boot camp on implementation science.
Cynthia Frank, PhD, RN, clinical research nurse 3 (infectious diseases), and Susan Ardito, senior administrative assistant (pulmonary), were honored recently with Department of Internal Medicine Service Excellence Awards.
Before COVID-19, some Yale researchers had worked for years in other vaccine development efforts focused on conquering some the world’s most malicious and deadly diseases. Those efforts continue on trajectories that may be reshaped by knowledge gained from the COVID-19 experience.
COVID-19 may be primarily a respiratory illness, but its reach extends far beyond the lungs, with an impact that includes the brain. The neurologic and psychiatric complications of COVID-19 are incredibly diverse and sometimes persist long after patients recover from their initial infections.